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Aviation History
1955
1955 - 1674.PDF
FIRST AERONAUTICAL WEEKLY IN THE WORLD FOUNDED 1909 and AIRCRAFT ENGINEER No 2444 Vol 68 FRIDAY 25 NOVEMBER 1 955 Editor MAURICE A. SMITH D.F.C. and BAR Associate Editor H. F. KING M.B.E. Technical Editor W. T. GUNSTON Production Editor ROY CASEY Iliffie and Sons Ltd Dorset House Stamford Street London, S.E.I Telephone • Waterloo 3333 (60 lines) BRANCH OFFICES Coventry 8-10 Corporation Street Telephone • Coventry 5210 Birmingham 2 King Edward House, New Street Telephone • Midland 7191 (7 lines) Manchester 3 260 Deansgate Telephone • Blackfriars 4412 (3 lines)Deansgate 3595 (2 lines) Glasgow C2 26B Renfield Street Telephone • Central 1265 (2 lines) Toronto 2, Ontario 74 College Street Telephone • Walnut 4-5361 New York 6, N.Y. Ill Broadway Telephone • Digby 9-1197 SUBSCRIPTION RATES Home and Overseas • Twelve Months, £4 10s. US.A. and Canada, $14.00 in this issue 796 Auster J5R Alpine 800 Market Survey 802 Arabian Weight-lifter 803 North-West Australia's Pioneer Airline 805 Twin Pioneer in the Air 809 Hunter for Two 811 Design Aspects Discussed Scotland PioneersW HILE the transatlantic air has been reverberating to the thunder of super-colossal jet-propelled business the future of a more modest but nevertheless considerable aspect of commercial flying has been quietly shaping at Prestwick, in Scotland; for with the progress of the Scottish Aviation Twin Pioneer, subject of exclusive "In the Air" impressions in this issue, the advancement of short-field passenger and freight work will be largely identified. The unique capabilities of this machine evoke admiration—that an aircraft of such eminent qualities should have been sponsored and developed by a com- paratively small company; satisfaction—that the company should be British; and reflection—for the Twin Pioneer is significant not only in its own right, but as the harbinger of a new class of safe, economical transports. The basic formula to which the new contender has been designed (full-span leading-edge slats and trailing-edge flaps, in conjunction with a low wing-load- ing) is not by any means original and can be traced back far earlier than the Fieseler Storch of the late war, which is generally acclaimed as the true pro- genitor. Its roots, in fact, stretch away into the 1920s, when experiments with various forms of Handley Page slot and other high-lift devices were leading up to the Guggenheim Safe Aircraft Competition, held in America in 1929. Requirements of the contest were a top speed of at least 110 m.p.h., a minimum speed of 35 m.p.h., and the ability to land in 100ft and take off in 300ft. Of 27 entries two only survived—our own Handley Page Gugnunc (now in the Science Museum as a monument to air safety) and an American machine called the Curtiss Tanager. Both were slotted biplanes. The Tanager ultimately won, and it is both enlightening and disquieting to compare its essential data with figures for the Gipsy-engined Scottish Aviation Prestwick Pioneer built some twenty years later and to which the present Twin Pioneer owes parentage. The Tanager had an engine of 170 h.p., carried three people, achieved a maximum speed of 112 m.p.h. and stalled at 37 m.p.h. The Gipsy-Pioneer had 250 h.p., took three or four persons, did 126 m.p.h. flat out and stalled at 33 m.p.h. So much for aeronautical development after the way had been shown to- wards safe, slow flight from small areas without undue sacrifice in load or speed. So much for a "progress" wherein speed and range improved only with preju- dice to landing and take-off performance—and inevitably to safety. So much for a present which sees, in the New World, a hundred Ford Trimotors—the "tin geese" of the 1930s—being laid down as short-field haulers; but which sees also (we may be thankful to the stalwarts of Prestwick) the same number of "Double Scotches" being set up for the sustenance of short-field operators. —towards a|New Future It is a mistake, however, to look upon the Twin Pioneer solely as a bush- whacking device, for its characteristics commend it immediately as a sophisti- cated inter-city vehicle. Certainly the makers themselves have firm ideas on the subject. Mr. D. F. Mclntyre, the managing director, recently declared that it was the "general clamour for helicopters" that had left his company in peace to develop the logical answer to the public's "fanciful expectations from heli- copters"—a cheap, simple, fixed-wing machine which would do everything de- sirable, in a public-transport sense, that a rotary-wing aircraft would do and at a difference in cost which he estimated to be in the approximate ratio of 25:1. Overall time by Viscount from London to Paris, he pointed out, was 4 hr 5 min, whereas a Twin Pioneer taking off from Wormwood Scrubs and landing at the Champs Elysees could cut the time by \\ hr and the fare by a third. Mr. Mclntyre's contentions will not go unchallenged, but the prospects are assuredly fair for a new family of short-take-off aircraft, larger than the Twin Pioneer no doubt, and having turboprops and high-activity airscrews. They might be succeeded by machines with boundary-layer control, or jet lift, or the jet flap—so numerous and promising are British technical developments.
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