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Aviation History
1957
1957 - 0413.PDF
FLIGHT, 29 March 1957 415 PROPHECY IN AERONAUTICS A Study in Perspectives Part II By A. V. CLEAVER, F.R.Ae.S. SIR DENNISTOUN BURNEY was an advocate for all formsof air transport, but his chief enthusiasm, of course, was forthe very large dirigible. To follow his R.I00, he envisaged great fleets of commercial airships to ply the world's trunk routes,of more than twice the lifting capacity of R.100 and cruising at 90 to 100 m.p.h. with payloads of about 150 passengers and 20tons of mail and freight. Their most novel feature, as compared with the airships whichwill be remembered by all but our youngest readers, would have been their use of hulls of elliptical cross-section, to give them amuch greater proportion of aerodynamic lift. With these, they would have operated almost entirely from water bases, with shorttake-off and landing runs, scooping up water into great floats to hold themselves down securely, and pumping it out to resume theairborne state. Other elaborate docking and mooring facilities were envisaged for surface handling. Sir Dennis's general views are best indicated by the followingquotations: "One result of our technical analysis of the situation has been to make clear that of the three types of aircraft, the air-ship will prove the most serviceable for long distance oceanic flights, the flying-boat for middle distances and the aeroplane (sic)for short land routes." Again: "... so far as one can gauge future possibilities, it is airships, and airships alone, that offer usa reasonable prospect of covering oceanic distances by air." As regards heavier-than-air craft: "... flying-boats admit of greaterpossibilities of development than do landplanes" because with "aeroplanes of 30 tons and over, their operation, except fromwater bases, will be so hazardous as to be impracticable from a commercial point of view." Well, things could hardly have turned out more differently,only twenty-eight years after these predictions were made. It is only fair to say that there are at least two places in his book whichsuggest that Burney may sometimes have experienced an uneasy fear, a dimly-looming doubt, about the future of his belovedgasbags. (He never claimed anything but a civil role for them, except perhaps naval reconnaissance and anti-submarine duties,where they could be immune from aeroplane interception.) In one place, he writes, surprisingly, that "it is quite conceivable that,at some future time, airships will be entirely displaced by heavier- than-air craft." Once again, however, it was flying-boats that hehad in mind, and even so he quickly adds "The time has not yet arrived, however, when we can construct flying-boats of thischaracter, and whether such a time will ever come is at least problematical." Elsewhere in the book, he again considers the life of theairship as a useful vehicle, and concludes that it "will last until such time as technical science can find a solution to those seem-ingly insoluble problems connected with the development of heavier-than-air craft. It is possible that these difficulties mayone day be overcome, in which case the airship will be eliminated; and just as the Cunard Line was established with sailing vessels, "Flight" photograph PART I of this article appeared in "Flight" the week before last: Mr.Cleaver here continues his retrospective review of the book "The World, The Air, and the Future," written by Cdr. Sir Dennistoun Burney andpublished by Knopf in 1929. which, as science developed, gave way ... to steam ... so, atsome future date may an Atlantic Air Service, which began with airships, gradually, and as development proceeds, yield place toa service of giant seaplanes." Two really striking facts emerge from all this. First, thedevelopments which Burney obviously imagined would take several generations at least were actually well on the way to com-pletion before very much more than a decade had passed. To the airship, it is true, fell the honour of carrying the first fare-payingpassengers across the Atlantic. However, the day of the Graf Zeppelin and the Hindenburg was litde more than a fleetingmoment. Then came the Boeing, Sikorsky and Short boats, but they, too, enjoyed only the briefest of innings. This was the second surprise; the pace of development has sovastly exceeded even the most qualified of Burney's reservations that the DC-7, the Constellation and the Stratocruiser of today,and the DC-8, 707, and Britannia of tomorrow have in turn dis- posed not only of the airship but of "the giant seaplane" as well. Of course, there is a minority which would still claim other-wise, but the vindication of their hopes now seems very unlikely. Aquila Airways may awaken the sleeping Princess to run theirspecialized tourist service to lovely Madeira, but if anyone is to provide her with a great family of sisters, then even more sur-prising developments will need to transpire than those which proved Burney wrong in saying, not only that "the airship and theflying-boat are predestined to be the types of craft used for the great trunk routes," but also (and with great and repeatedemphasis): "each will operate from a water base." Burney's book does not suggest that he was unduly pre-judiced, and he must have had access to all relevant information; he also sought the advice of the best available experts. In hisconsideration of heavier-than-air "difficulties and problems," he appealed to two outside sources. One was a committee of theU.S. Navy, which, only five years before (in 1924), had reported that "a plane weighing between 40,000 and 50,000 lb, withmaterials now known, marks a limit beyond which the increase of size would not be profitable." After a brief discussion of thesquare-cube law and other design considerations, the report con- tinues "The present maximum performance of heavier-than-aircraft may be increased about 30 per cent by future development extending over an indefinite period of time ..." The other expert source was none other than N. S. Norway,described as "chief calculator" on the R.100 design, and who previously "was for some years on the design staff of thede Havilland Aircraft Company." In more recent times, he has of course become better known as Nevil Shute, the best-selling "Of all the temptations which beset the designer of aeroplanes," wrote an authority (himself a designer) in 1929, "this temptation to increase the minimum flying speed is the most insidious." The Vickers Virginia of circa 1929 (heading picture) landed at 50 m.p.h. The landing speed of the Convoir B-S8 (below) is at least three times as great. -wpp**^*-"" ^""5^
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