FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1957
1957 - 1366.PDF
456 FLIGHT, 13 September 1957 ON THE GROUND ... intriguing curved blade is also carried. The most important feature of this newsuit is an integral parachute harness con- sisting of suitably disposed webs of nyloncord housed between the suit and a soft, completely detachable nylon lining. Themain lift webs emerge at each shoulder and carry standard observer-type para-chute hooks retained on the chest in the normal way. The sole fastening on thisharness is a simple buckle across the chest which stays inside the suit. No harnessadjustment is required. When baling out, the crew member attaches his chest-typeparachute in the normal way and, when the parachute opens, the strain on the liftwebs tightens the harness evenly round his body. Thus, until the harness is used inearnest, it remains loose and comfortable. The whole suit can be taken apart quicklywhen it is to be laundered. The Harness Type D is intended for V-bomber crewsand is to replace the present separate suit and Mae West and permanently wornback-type parachute. G.Q. also exhibited the High AltitudeTest Flying Head-Piece which is now in limited production and was worn by MikeRandrup and his crew member for the height record flights. A distinctive featureis the permanently closed transparent face-piece which, to avoid misting, con-sists of a double-layer perspex moulding. Mechanical constriction (partial pressure)is applied in case of cabin pressure failure by inflating three rubber bladders aroundthe sides and back of the head. The plastic shell of the helmet covers One of the most recent undercarriages by Dowty is that for the Saunders-Roe SR.53 mixed-power supersonic aircraft. These close- ups show the main and nose units of the second SR.53. The main tyres are Dunlop size 22 by 5.50. only the forward part of the head and face,the back and sides being contained in a laced cloth helmet. A zip is provided fordonning. The helmet is not attached to the other pressure garments covering thebody. Considerable experience to date has shown this equipment to be very com-fortable, a particular feature being that much of the weight has been kept wellback and the "sagging" load on the neck is very small. Field of vision and freedomof movement are good. The company also showed a partialpressure helmet with movable face-piece designed for the R.C.A.F. and worn by adummy sitting in a Sabre 6 ejection seat. Both these helmets can be covered by aplastic shell, for crash-protection, which can carry a sliding sun visor. Another partial pressure helmet whichis now also in fairly general use by test pilots during high altitude flights is thatproduced by Baxter, Woodhouse and Tay- lor, Ltd. On the stand this year, it wassubstantially the same as last year, but incorporated a number of improvements.The face visor is now retained in the open position by a catch operated by a bladdersensitive to cabin pressure. When this pressure drops the catch is released andthe visor automatically slams into the closed position, whereafter the pilot maylock it home by pulling down a bar which remains slightly raised in front of his face.A sliding sun visor is housed in a double lining inside the helmet. Mechanicalpressure is exerted in the normal way by a series of bladders, and main and emer-gency oxygen supplies are incorporated. The Durestos shell is made by TurnerBrothers, Ltd. Both the G.Q. and Taylor helmets havefeed ports officially described as being provided "for feeding and vomiting." UNDERCARRIAGES THE firm of Electro-Hydraulics providedone of the undercarriage surprises of the exhibition. Displayed on their stand wasa model of a supersonic airliner with undercarriage (functioning) comprisingone four-wheel bogie in the belly, a single- wheel leg in each wing-tip engine nacelleand a conventional dual-wheel nose gear. The resemblance between the model and Described in an adjacent paragraph is the projected "Quadricycle" undercarriage by Electro-Hydraulics, Ltd., seen on a model of a supersonic airliner.' the recently cancelled Avro supersonicbomber design was apparently no coinci- dence; the Electro-Hydraulics companyhave been co-operating closely with Avro on the design of this undercarriage.Previous solutions to the problem of where to stow heavy main undercarriagesin thin-winged supersonic transports have been of the twin-bogie bicycle (B-47)type, with lightly-stressed wing-tip out- riggers. The Electro-Hydraulics arrange-ment solves the "bicycle's" disadvantage of having no differential braking, and itsdifficult touchdown characteristics. Run- way load distribution should be good and,of course, conventional and effective nose- wheel steering would be retained. Thedesigners are believed to have reached an advanced stage with this undercarriage.New on the Goodyear stand was the simple co-rotating nosewheel and tube-less tyre for the Aviation Traders Accountant. Goodyear, like most othertyre manufacturers, still have open minds about the relative advantages of dimpledtreads. Tubeless tyres, however, are rapidly becoming universal. It was learnedfrom Goodyear that their wheel design is depending more and more on forgingsrather than castings. The company showed also their Tri-Metallic brake (asfitted to the DC-7C and to later Vis- counts). The name is derived from thefact that the friction elements are made up from three specially alloyed metals;the brake is of the disc type, but Good- year are going in for the name Tri-Metal-lic rather than multi-disc to emphasize the new conception of the design. On the Dunlop stand it was noticedthat a new kind of flexible hose was fitted to a Maxaret wheel-brake system on dis-play. This was manufactured out of the recent grade of P.T.F.E.It was noted that the Dunlop tyres on the Comet 3's main four-wheel bogieswere of two different kinds: two tyres per bogie were of the conventional large-dimpled type, the other two being multi- dimpled, the installation being presumablyto compare wear. Although not shown by British Messier,this company's undercarriages for the P.1A and the P.1B were notable examplesof what can be done in the reconciliation of high speeds and loadings with mini-mum stowage space. The nosewheel of the P. IB incorporates an advanced newtype of shimmy damping. Dowty exhibited the main under-carriage as supplied for the new version of the Vulcan, the B.2. This differs fromthat of the B.I in that Dural replaces mag- nesium, an indication of the heavier dutiesperformed by the B.2 gear. Dowry dis- played also the Friendship undercarriageas supplied to Fokker and Fairchild.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
