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Aviation History
1959
1959 - 0869.PDF
430 FLIGHT The roof and main panels in the Dart Herald cockpit, at left, are neatly arranged against a pale blue background. Two red strips of emergency controls are immediately above the middle windscreen panel. The central warning panel is just below the glare shield The flap control has only three positions, up, take-off anddown, flap position being indicated by a battery of six small lamps on the engine panel. The top pair of «vhite lamps indicates flapsin transit and pairs of green lamps light when the flaps reach the appropriate setting. A conventional three-light undercarriageindication is also on the engine panel. Elevator, rudder and aileron trim wheels mounted in their natural senses and incor-porating their own indicators are disposed at the rear -of the pedestal, immediately beside the pilots. Although the rear andcentre portions of the central pedestal are within very comfortable reach from both seats, they do not interfere with access and Ifound that I could jump quickly into tne right-hand scat without clambering or bumping into anything. Additional controls andswitches are disposed along two consoles against the cockpit walls. Ample roof panels accommodate the various radio controls and,immediately aft of the windscreen, there are the engine emergen- cies, starting, water/methanol and fuel system switches. Twored panels, one for each engine, carry switches for full feathering, l.p. cock, boost pumps, fuel-pressure warning lights and t*o-shotextinguishers. These can be quickly operated in an emergency. Just in front are two cut-outs for isolating the electrics. Another feature is that all electrical, engine and propeller warn-ing lights are mounted together immediately below the centre windscreen panel. If, for example, a generator fails a rectangularred panel will light up and clearly illuminate a black "GEN" engraved on its face. A small orange lamp at either end of thispanel indicates operation of the feathering pumps. The flying controls themselves consist of adjustable rudderpedals with toe bars for controlling the powered hydraulic brakes and a conventional wheel and column for aileron and elevator.The columns themselves are mounted close to the cabin walls and swept inwards to reach comfortably in front of the pilots. Thenose wheel is steered by means of a small tiller wheel mounted in the centre of the left-hand aileron wheel. Hydraulic steering HANDLING THE HERALD BY MARK LAMBERT THE general impression I gained from flying the HandleyPage Dart Herald at Radlett last week was that the aircraftis simple, responsive, comfortable and tough—in fact, a true pilot's aeroplane. During more than two hours of general exercis-ing and experimenting, four of us with widely varying experience put it through its paces pretty thoroughly and we all agreed after-wards that it was well worth-while. The actual machine was G-AODF, the second prototype, powered by two Rolls-RoyceDart RDa.7s, giving 2,100 e.h.p. each at take-off. Maximum gross weight is 37,000 1b and I flew it at about 34,500 1b withalmost full tanks, two batteries of auto-recording test instruments, about eight people and a considerable quantity of ballast. Thee.g. was at 30 per cent s.m.c, that is, at the mid-position. The cabin was mostly furnished, and had several rows of seats;but the forward end of the passenger compartment had only basic sound-proofing because of the numerous additional wiring bar-nesses concerned with the test instruments. The flight deck, laid out for two-pilot operation, is considerably raised above the cabinfloor level, but is roomy and comfortable and all switches and levers are well within reach. The windscreen is generous bymodern airliner standards and the visibility is above average. Both wing tips can just be seen from either pilot's seat and nearsidevisibility extends to the air-conditioning intakes beside the Darts. The immediate impression is one of neat layout and goodgrouping against a pleasant background of pale blue crackle finish. Fuel-flow and -quantity gauges, cabin-pressure and -altitude, andsimilar indicators are grouped together with the main engine instruments on the central panel. On either side are the duplicatedflight-instrument panels for the two pilots, including I.L.S. and Sperry Zero Reader cross-pointers. A very neat central pedestalcarries, from front to rear, throttles, h.p./feathering levers, ground-fine pitch lock, parking brake and throttle friction lever.Aft of these are the fuel trimmer switches, main and emergency flap and undercarriage controls, worked by levers and push-button. jacks on the nosewheel strut are controlled by electrical mico-s witches at the tiller so that the strut continues to rotate so long as the tiller is held over. Control on the ground during take-off andlanding is excellent. The aircraft can be steered through the tightest turns without brake and was, during this demonstration,taxied with one engine feathered and turned sharply towards the live engine. The Goodyear brakes are without exception the bestI have ever used, and the makers seem to have struck exactly the right balance between brake response, pedal movement and loads.The disc brakes are very powerful and have an anti-skid device. Eight people went aboard the Dart Herald at Radlett withHandley Page test pilot "Spud" Murphy. The plan was to let four pilots fly it and play it off the cuff according to what eachwanted to try. Spud started up, taxied out and made the first take-off. With the brakes on he opened up to the maximum of15,000 r.p.m., paused briefly and then let go. Although the group of people standing behind the pilots took firm hand holds, thesurge forward nearly shot them all into the back and the Herald was off the ground and climbing steeply in 12 sec after unstickingat 88 kt. Maintaining full throttle and flying at around 160 kt, we seemed to hold at least l,800ft/min climb until we emerged fromthe cloud top at 4,500ft. The noise level was high in the fuselage section forward of the wing, but the completion of cabin furnish-ings should improve this to some extent. Having climbed to about 7,000ft, Spud throttled back to flight idling at about 10,000 r.p.m.and trimmed the Herald at 1.3 Vs "clean" at 112 kt. Maintaining height as we slowed down, the Herald finally stalled straight aheadafter a minimum of warning buffet. It was obviously a completely innocuous occurrence. Spud then lowered take-off flap and under-carriage and trimmed at 1.3 VSL at 95 kt. In this case there was a fraction more warning and the stall itself was a little moredecided, once at 74 kt and once at 72 kt at 7,000ft. Holding it ri^ht into the stall we seemed to lose about 1,000ft of height.Finally, Spud lowered full flap and after a noticeable buffet at 70 kt the Herald stalled firmly at 65 kt with the wheel hard back.
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