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Aviation History
1958
1958 - 0051.PDF
FLIGHT, 10 January 1958 53 Straight and Level I READ that the Americans were ina huff over the B.O.A.C. Britannia'sentry into New York. It was said that the occasion was ignored by the U.S. Press and television. If that was indeed the case, I suggest (with great respect for B.O.A.C. sales promotion efforts in the U.S.A.) that the reason may be found in the axiom that the Americans don't buy things—they're sold them. And you have to sell hard, because the American is very, very busy being sold things by the other chap. Like the man who always cracked his donkey on the head with a hammer be- fore the day's work: "You gotta arrest his attention first." Probably El Al Israel ELAL Airlines succeeded in doing just this with their remarkable advertisement (see reproduction above) published on the back page of the New York Herald Tribune early in December. It cost them $3,400, and I believe that they are following up with a Britannia promotion campaign in America for which they have budgeted something like a quarter of a million dollars. • "Doesn't the thought of those awe- struck young Americans round the Britannia make you proud? Isn't it won- derful that the epoch-making plane they gaze at is British? The Britannia ...has proved, without a whisper of a doubt, that in the Jet Age, as in the age of Raleigh and Drake, British genius can beat the world." Splendid! This is the sort of stuff that sells British aeroplanes. Mind you, I think we should resist the temptation to paint Union Jacks all over production aircraft, though a small marble statue of Queen Victoria in the passenger cabin might not be out of place. Come to that, THE title of this new feature does notimply that "Flight" has ever been any- thing else. But the lighter thoughts whichoccur as we report and comment upon th« momentous affairs of contemporaryaviation demand expression; and this,is to be the chosen instrument. I can see no objection to supplying selected excerpts from The White Man's Burden with each export aircraft, and also, perhaps, a record of Elgar's Crown Imperial (made, of course, by the massed bands of the Brigade of Guards) to play over the public address system during flight. After all, the exporting of air- craft in a harsh, competitive world market is a serious business, and the public is entitled to expect the industry to conduct its business in a serious and adult manner. • Everybody knows all about Growth Factors; but nobody seems to know about my special pet, the Shrinkth Fac- tor. It operates just like the other one, but in reverse. Eliminate any one item and you can not only cut out a dozen others but you can choose thinner gauges of material and cut down the size of everything that's left. The only trouble is one never gets a chance to apply it. Suppose someone institutes a prize—say, the smallest silver tankard in the world—for annual award to the firm which is most successful at the game. And I don't mean the firm which itself shrinks the most; too much of that already. What we want is BIGGER companies doing SIMPLER aeroplanes. • Holland, France, Italy, Germany, the U.S.A. ... all made famous tri- motor aircraft during the 1920s and 30s. Funny how the idea of three engines has become absolutely dead. Never see one nowadays; you can choose between one engine, two, four, six, eight or ten (or a couDle of hundred in some jet-lift con- cepts), but three is strictly taboo. Except for the interesting fact that three jets at the back end makes just about the nicest short-haul jet liner you ever saw. I feel sure that we'll be back in the tri- motor era again in five years. And there's always the mighty Atlas ICBM— that's a tri-motor too—three motors at the back, just like the short-haul jet. Well, almost like it. • Remember how a rotary engine used to work? The crankshaft was clamped to the front bulkhead and the whole engine rotated around it, with the prooeller fastened to the crankcase. Nobody can have been really surprised when the idea faded away in favour of the present arrangement. Now I'm going to bring it all back aeain. Consider a gas turbine—say, a simple axial turbojet. The reaction of the air or gas on the compressor stators and turbine nozzle guide vanes tends to make the whole engine spin round in the opposite direction to the main rotating assembly inside. Well, let it; and fix propeller blades round the casing. Then you have a self-stabilizing turboprop, with no gearbox, ample hub size and a perfect intake. You patent it, I'm lazy. • Skyline, one of the best magazines produced by any aircraft-manufacturing company (it is edited by Adrian Sorrells, of North American Aviation, Inc.), recently published a description of the new T2J jet trainer which N.A.A.'s Columbus Division are preparing for the U.S. Navy. Their subtitle is quotable; it states that the T2J is "designed to confute Murphy's Law: if an aircraft part can be installed wrong, it will be installed that way." I like these spoof laws; very often they make a lot of sense, like Parkinson's Law (which I shall ask my colleague's deputy assistant to ex- plain to you some time). Does anyone know of any other such Laws? • I see that Lockheed and Allison have standardized on the name "prop-jet" for the Electra. Personally, I think it's much catchier and more ticket-selling than the word turboprop. Who'd fly in a turbo- prop if he could fly in a prop-jet? The de Havilland company, whose English is as pure as its jets, insist on "propeller-turbine." As propeller- makers, they're entitled, I suppose, to take a strong etymological line: but I think prop-jet is a word which moves more with the times. Vickers and Bristol seem to be thinking so too. • The spectacle of so many apparently civilized engineers trying to make super- sonic rotors for helicopters frankly shocks me. Bearing in mind the delight- ful bit of useless knowledge that "a B-52 makes as much noise as everybody in the world talking at once," I suppose a supersonic helicopter rotor would make the same noise as everybody yelling his or her head off. But then, as people in America are beginning to point out, one has to "learn to live with new noises." When people say this it means they can't find any solution to the problem. ROGER BACON
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