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Aviation History
1957
1957 - 1864.PDF
952 FLIGHT, 20 December 1957 TELEVISION INSTRUMENTS . . . system and Bell constructed a special visual flight simulatorusing contact analogues and the TV-projected navigation presenta- tion contemplated for the Douglas cockpit. A complete analoguegenerator installation is being prepared by Du Mont for a U.S. Navy Bell HTL-7 helicopter to be flown early next year. Thesimulator cockpit is at present stationary, but is shortly to be mounted on a moving platform capable of reproducing pitch, roll,yaw and limited vertical travel. This portion is being made by the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia. When ANIP was presented to the airlines at a symposium lastmonth considerable interest was aroused, but it was stated that a good deal of development remained to be done and that extensiveoperational testing would be required before the system could be accepted for general airline use. NEW ITALIAN AIRCRAFT THREE new Italian aircraft have emerged in past weeks. TheMacchi MB.326 Viper-powered trainer, illustrated below, has been completed and is soon to make its first flight; the de BernardiAeroscooter two-seater has been demonstrated in public at Rome; and the Aviamilano Nibbio is almost ready. Col. Mario de Bernardi is well known internationally for hisflying achievements between the World Wars. Since then he has turned to designing and produced the diminutive Aeroscooter(described in Flight for January 11), a single-seater, low-wing monoplane on which he mounted a two-bladed rotor for flight asan autogyro. This machine has been flying for some time, but a two-seater was almost inevitable, and this is the machine demon-strated recently. A picture appeared in Flight last week. The name aptly describes the function of the aircraft. Poweredby a Praga 72 h.p. engine, it has a cantilever, single-piece wing of wood, a forward fuselage of tube steel and a single-piece sheet-metal monocoque tail cone fitted with strutted metal control surfaces. With a fuel load of just over 10 gal, contained in smalltanks fore and aft of the cockpit, it has a three-hour endurance. The wooden wing has a semi-laminar aerofoil based on a singlespar with leading-edge torsion box and ribs spaced 8in apart. The canopy is a single unit, including the windscreen, which opens bymoving forward across the engine cowling. Plain flaps are fitted and the noscwheel undercarriage is fixed. Leading data are:—span, 29ft; length, 15ft 3in; empty weight,595 lb; gross weight, not including tip tanks, 1,030 lb; range, 350 miles; top speed, 134 m.p.h.; cruising speed, 118 m.p.h.; minimumspeed, 31 m.p.h.; landing run, 50 yd; initial rate of climb, 1,380ft; and fuel consumption, 3.4 gal/hr. Aviamilano, already famous for their two-seat sports aircraft, theF8L Falco, are now producing the four-seater F.14 Nibbio which is a direct extrapolation of it. It retains the same aerofoil sections,wing loading and power/weight ratios of the smaller aircraft, but is powered by the Lycoming 0-360 engine of 180 h.p. driving aHartzell constant-speed propeller. The airframe is entirely wooden, with plywood skinning, covered with fabric and treated with some16 coats of paint which produce an excellent finish. Protective coatings and the use of damp-proof synthetic glues are claimedto make the Nibbio entirely climate-proof. The wing has a laminar profile of N.A.C.A. 64000 series with a thickness chordratio decreasing from 13 to 10 per cent and a wash-out of four degrees at the tip. It has a single-piece, single-spar structure withfalse spars carrying undercarriage and aileron attachments. All three undercarriage legs are completely retractable by electric ormanual means; and full blind-flying instrumentation is fitted as standard. Radio compass and V.H.F. communications radio arealso offered. Hydraulic disc brakes are fitted to the mainwheels and thenosewheel is linked with the rudder bar for steering on the ground. Two IS gallon bag tanks, one outboard of each main undercarriageunit, carry fuel for a 620 mile range. Full night Tflying lighting andan undercarriage-warning horn are standard. •• Leading data are:—span, 31ft 2in; 23ft lOin; power loading,13.4 lb/h.p.; empty weight, 1,425 lb; gross weight, 2,420 lb; baggage allowance, with four passengers and full tanks, 77 lb;maximum sea-level speed, 194 m.p.h.; cruising speed at 6,000ft, 181 m.p.h.; take-off run, 590ft; climb to 6,600ft, eight minutes;service ceiling, 17,700ft. ITALY'S MACCHI 326 FROM THREE ASPECTS First open-air pictures of the new Italian jet basic trainer, the Macchi MB.326. It is powered by an Armstrong Siddeley Viper, carries pupil and instructor in tandem in Martin-Baker lightweight ejection seats and can carry gun, rocket and bomb armament for weapon training. The first flight is expected in the near future.
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