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Aviation History
1956
1956 - 0127.PDF
FIRST AERONAUTICAL WEEKLY IN THE WORLD FOUNDED 1909 : and . AIRCRAFT ENGINEER No 2454 Vol 69 FRIDAY 3 FEBRUARY 1956 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 Iliffe 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 359,5 (2 lines) Glasgow C.2 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. VS.A. and Canada, $14.00 in this issue 129 Supermarine's New Fighter 130 Made In Spain 136 Napier Eland Airliner . 138 To Salute the Queen . 140 Swedish Lance 141 Miss Kenya's Story - 142 Text-Book Ditching 144 Germany's Aviation Industry Shades of DumboI T so happened that the maiden flight of our new and very impressive Naval fighter, the Supermarine N.113 (pictures on page 129) occurred simul- taneously with fresh disclosures concerning its American counterpart, the Chance Vought Crusader (page 134). Being specifically designed for the defence of naval and merchant fleets of the free world, and amazingly divergent in technical emphasis, the two fighters are ripe for comment, as were the shore-based P.I and F-104 in a former issue. It will be seen immediately that whereas the N.113 is the end product of a planned development process, the Crusader is a wholly new—indeed novel— design, wherein the most startling innovation is a variable-incidence wing (and, in respect of a supersonic fighter, innovation it most assuredly is). The supposed object of this radical high-lift device is the reduction of take-off and landing runs, and its employment on the Crusader is the more remarkable in that Supermarine, having themselves amassed more experience of the v.i. wing than any other company, have seen fit to forsake that expedient in favour of flap blowing, or "supercirculation," as they term the process. Thus we have a piquant situation wherein America's new supersonic fighter bears a stronger resemblance to the Supermarine Type 322 "Dumbo" piston- engined torpedo/bomber designed in the late 1930s than to the jet-propelled N.I 13 intercepter of 1956. There is contrariety, too, in die matter of powerplants, the N.113 having twin laterally disposed, unboosted Rolls-Royce Avons and the Crusader a single Pratt and Whitney J57 with afterburner. The seafaring pilot will immediately warm to the Supermarine formula on the grounds of security; but in a technical sense the absence of reheat on the N.113 may imply rejection of the modern tenet that this form of power boost is a "must," at least for the final phases of an intercep- tion. The lack may, of course, be only temporary. It seems appropriate to consider these violent disparities in technical approach (especially the lengthy evolutionary background of the N.113) relative to a remark made last year by a famous British designer to Mr. F. O. Detweiler, president of Chance Vought. It was to the effect that in the aircraft business the chances of failure are far greater than the chances of success—this being interpreted by Mr. Detweiler as a "kindly exaggeration". The British designer was—need it be added?—Mr. George Edwards, managing director of Vickers-Armstrongs (Aircraft), Ltd., and responsible as such for the overall technical direction of the Supermarine design office. Anglo-American Airliner FROM sharp divergences between American and British practice we cannow turn to applaud the realization, in the Napier Eland Airliner, of anknglo-American alliance from which can stem little but mutual profit and goodwill. For an outlay which might be estimated at something like a million pounds D. Napier and Son, Ltd., have procured a Convair airframe, have tailored an Eland turboprop installation at an attractive kit-conversion cost, and are now able to contemplate a programme of demonstration to Convair operators and potential Eland users. Their ultimate reward could be conversion-kit orders from many of the present 35 operators of Convair 240s and 340s (and eventually of 440s also) and purchases of Elands for conventional airliners of more than one type, for short take-off machines and even helicopters. Already the Eland is acclaimed as one of the finest pieces of aero-engineering to be turned out from a British factory in post-war years, and it would be sad indeed if those responsible were not now enabled, by their merchant-venturer enterprise, to secure a due return for their technical skill and commercial courage.
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