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Aviation History
1956
1956 - 1762.PDF
926 FLIGHT, 14 December 1956 THE SHORT SEAPLANES ... the American navy advocated the use of seaplanes or torpedo-carriers, but it appears that no experiments were conducted. At the time of the preliminary discussions between the Britishofficers, Lt. Hyde-Thomson was in the process of qualifying as a torpedo officer in H.M.S. Vernon. When he had qualified as atorpedo-lieutenant he submitted a paper on torpedo aircraft, enclosing sketches to illustrate his ideas. Captain Sueter forwardedthe paper under cover of a request that Hyde-Thomson be attached to the Naval Wing of the R.F.C. in order to develop his ideas. In 1913 a design, presumably for a practical method of carryingand dropping a torpedo from an aircraft, was prepared by an Admiralty draughtsman named Bowden. Capt. Sueter called inMr. T. O. M. Sopwith and asked him to consider the matter and produce a working device to achieve the desired object. At the present day, confusion exists as to which British aircraftwas the first to fly with and drop a torpedo. Much of the con- fusion is probably of relatively recent origin and attributable tomisinterpretation of surviving documents. In 1918, A.P.134, The History of the Development of Torpedo Aircraft, was written. Itwas so much closer to the events it describes that more reliance can probably be placed on the information it contains than onaccounts written, some of them from memory, in later years. It says: — "Subsequently, Mr. Sopwith was sent for. He was asked to considerthe matter and produce a practical proposal. He constructed two air- craft—one, a machine which was not intended to get off the water (afast skimmer for preliminary experiments); and the other, a machine which just succeeded in lifting the torpedo, but was very heavily loaded."Towards the end of 1913 our first flight with a 14-inch torpedo was carried out at Calshot, using a 200 h.p. Sopwith Canton-Unne seaplane."Eventually, in September 1913, our first special seaplane for torpedo carrying was ordered. This was to carry the 14-inch torpedo."This leaves little doubt that the first British aircraft to leave the water with a torpedo was the big Sopwith Type C seaplane, whichwas powered by a 200 h.p. Salmson (Canton-Unne) radial engine driving its propeller by an extension shaft in order to clear thenose of the torpedo. There is, however, no record of the Sopwith seaplane dropping its torpedo while in flight. Capt. Sueter andLt. Hyde-Thomson took out a patent, No. 6938, to cover their designs for a torpedo-carrying seaplane. It was dated March 19,1914, and contains diagrams showing two alternative methods of carrying the torpedo on the aircraft. Two of the diagrams clearlydepict the Sopwith seaplane; the others could have been intended to represent a rotary-powered Short, generally of the Type 74 orFolder type, but shown with a remarkably tall undercarriage designed to enable the torpedo to be carried below the lowestpoint of the propeller disc of rotation. The date of that patent is of some interest, for the first successfultorpedo drop from a British aircraft was not made until the week before war broke out. The torpedo experiments had not escapedthe attention of the First Lord of the Admiralty, Mr. Winston Churchill. Immediately after the review of the Fleet in July1914 he visited Calshot air station. The Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria and his consort had been assassinated inSarajevo three weeks earlier and Europe was moving ineluctably towards war; it was therefore only natural that Mr. Churchillshould wish to see the torpedo experiments speeded up. Commanding Calshot air station at that time was Sqn. Cdr.A. M. Longmore (now Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Longmore, G.C.B., D.S.O.), and he has recorded his response to Mr. Churchillin his book, From Sea to Sky: — "I told him that if I could retain a certain Short 160 Gnome seaplane,I would undertake within a short time to carry and successfully release a 14-inch torpedo which weighed some 900 pounds. The retention ofthe Short was agreed and on July 28th I succeeded in getting this machine off the water with the torpedo slung below and in launching itfor its run. It all worked well but, of course, it was a "stunt." "No technical expert could pass the factor of safety of the machineso loaded, petrol was only sufficient for about half an hour and there was no passenger carried." Mr. Hugh Oswald Short has also related how he was called to theAdmiralty, told of the requirement, and asked whether a standard Short seaplane could take off with a torpedo. He said that hethought it would, but wished to consult his brother. Horace Short set to work with typical energy: he prepared drawings inan amazingly short space of time, and modified cross-bars for the Short's floats were made that night. It is important to note that Sqn. Cdr. Longmore used one of the160 h.p. Shorts for the successful torpedo drop—almost certainly one of the three-bay Folders and not, as has been erroneouslyrepresented and illustrated in more than one place, the Short (100 h.p.) seaplane No. 74. The torpedo was a 14-inch missileweighing 810 1b, and Lt. Hyde-Thomson played a leading part. The experiments were continued during August 1914, and a fewmore Short Folders were modified to carry torpedoes. The early seaplane-carriers Empress, Engadine and Riviera were producedby hurriedly modifying three cross-Channel steamers belonging to the South Eastern and Chatham Railway Co.; Engadine andRiviera were specifically intended to provide means of taking torpedo-carrying aircraft out into the North Sea, and three 160 h.p.Shorts of the Engadine's complement were modified to carry torpedoes. These Shorts were never used as torpedo-droppers,however, largely because operational requirements kept the carrier vessels employed on other duties. Only one torpedo attack wascontemplated but it did not in fact take place. Three Short Folders went to Africa early in 1915 to assist navalefforts to cripple the German light cruiser Konigsberg, which was then lying in the Rufiji delta. First air reconnaissances had beenmade by a 90 h.p. Curtiss flying boat, originally the property of Mr. Gerard Hudson, a Durban mining engineer. The Curtisswas wrecked; and two Sopwith 807s which arrived at Niororo Island in February 1915 proved to be incapable of doing thenecessary work. The three Shorts arrived at Durban in March aboard the armed liner Laconia, and they reached Niororo Islandon April 23. The ageing Folders made several reconnaissances, but conditions were too trying for them and they were replacedin June by two Henri Farman F.27s and two Caudron G.IIIs. In 1913, Short Brothers built a seaplane to a specific order fromMr. Frank McClean. He wished to tour Egypt by air, and required a large and powerful aircraft which could take off from and alighton the River Nile. The seaplane which was designed by Horace Short to meet this specification was a large pusher biplane poweredby a 160 h.p. Gnome rotary engine. It owed a good deal to the developed S.38, but was a three-seater with three-bay wings. Theextensions of the upper mainplanes were braced by lift struts, and a curious feature was the fitting of small auxiliary inboardailerons in line with the second pair of interplane struts on each side. The small forward elevator perched on the prow of thenacelle was reminiscent of the S.38. The main floats of the undercarriage were of the wooden pontoon type, and the fittingof twin tail floats obviated the need for wing-tip floats. The big pusher seaplane bore the Short works number S.70,and was completed late in 1913. On November 19 it was flown at Eastchurch with five men on board: Mr. F. K. McClean,Cdr. Samson, R.N., Lt. I. T. Courtney, R.N., Mr. Alec Ogilvie and Mr. Horace Short. The S.70 was shipped to Egypt andre-erected at Alexandria. It began its Egyptian journey on January 3,1914, when it flew the 160 miles to Cairo in 2 hr 55 min;its crew consisted of Mr. McClean, Mr. Ogilvie, and their mechanic, Mr. A. Smith. The tour was not a wholly resound-ing success, for engine trouble was experienced thirteen times and the floats were damaged three times. Khartoum was reachedon March 23, and the S.70 was then dismantled and shipped back to England after covering some 1,400 miles.(To be continued) HUNTER RECORDS CONFIRMED ON December 3 the Royal Aero Club announced that theFederation Aeronautique Internationale had confirmed the two point-to-point records set up by Mr. A. W. Bedford, A.F.C.,and Mr. Frank Murphy, D.F.C., pilot and navigator respectively of the Hawker Hunter T.7 which flew from London to Rome onOctober 20 and back on October 25. Times and speeds were: London to Rome, 1 hr, 34 min, 38.5 sec (566.1 m.p.h.); Rome toLondon, 1 hr, 40 min, 9.7 sec (533.93 m.p.h.). AUTOMATION AND MANAGEMENT TN the 1957 programme of courses organized by the Sundridge•*• Park Management Centre, Bromley, Kent, three-day courses on The Impact of Computers and Automation on Management willbe given on January 28-30, March 18-20 and June 12-14. In these courses the practical, technical and organization problems indevising and handling control data and setting up standards of performance are to be reviewed, and the economic and humanproblems are also to be studied. Three-week courses on Measurements for Management willalso be held at frequent intervals during the year, and a work study conference will take place on April 15-17. Further details ofplanned and proposed residential courses are obtainable from the director of the Centre, Mr. J. V. Connolly, B.E., F.R.Ae.S.,M.I.Prod.E. MORE CZECH RECORDST HE establishment of two new speed records over a 2,000 kmclosed circuit by Lubomir Stastny of the Pardubice regional aero club was recently reported from Czechoslovakia. Flying aSokol aircraft in the C.lb category (500-1,000 kg), Stastny achieved an average speed of 279.5 km/hr (174 m.p.h.); and later, at aweight of 1,014 kg, the machine was flown at 281.1 km/hr (175 m.p.h.)—a new class C.lc record—over the same course.
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