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Aviation History
1961
1961 - 1618.PDF
722 FLIGHT, 9 November 1961 The Birth of the Big Aeroplane SIR FREDERICK HANDLEY PAGE LOOKS BACK ACOMPARATIVELY large audience in the Royal AeronauticalSociety's Lecture Theatre on October 30 heard Sir FrederickHandley Page reminisce—the only suitable verb, for he certainly did not lecture—on The Birth of the World's First BigAeroplane. Sir Owen Jones, the president of the Society, took the chair; and an H.P. atmosphere was created from the start whenSir Frederick gently put him right on one or two points of fact in the biographical notes with which he had been supplied. In his introduction Sir Frederick gave dates to indicate the lengthof his association with aeronautics—he joined the Society in 1907, he read a paper 1911, and so on. The need for a large aeroplane was first felt by the Royal Navy andin 1914 Sir Frederick started his association with the Air Depart- ment of the Admiralty when the Department was housed overAdmiralty Arch. The consulting engineer with whom he was in contact was Harris Booth, a man of slightly eccentric ways, one ofwhich was a habit of changing into carpet slippers for the office. Captain [later Rear-Admiral Sir Murray] Sueter was in charge ofthe Air Department and Captain Schwann was second in command. Also connected with the Department was Cdr Samson who, re-porting back from the scene of war, asked for an aircraft that would be a "bloody paralyser." This request was backed up by WinstonChurchill, and a specification was drawn up and conveyed to H.P. on December 25,1914. The requirement was for a machine to carry a crew of two,6 x lcwt bombs, and having a speed of not less than 75 m.p.h. It must fit into a shed 75ft x 75ft x 18ft to the eaves; anythinglarger would have to have folding wings. The arrangement of the two 200 h.p. engines led to some argu-ment in the drawing office, but it was finally decided to fit them one on each side of the fuselage with the propellers rotating inopposite directions. Harris Booth called for a 51b/sq ft loading. A further requirement was armour plating as a protection againstrifle fire. The first aircraft accordingly had 10-gauge plate on the front and 14-gauge on the side. Total weight of the plate was 1,2001b.In this first machine, the seats were so placed that the engineer (who was given a rifle) could stand over the pilot (who was in awicker basket chair) and protect him from attack. The design team had, in the first place, to design a machine ofsome 13,5001b gross weight as against the 3,0001b of the average contemporary aeroplane. This in spite of the fact that Lanchesterhad laid down a limit, so the lecturer said, of 1,1001b (11,0001b?). Limited to 51b/sq ft, a 1,500 sq ft wing surface (biplane) was de-cided on. The span of the upper wing was 100ft, that of the lower 80ft and the chord of the RAF 6 section was 10ft. As SirFrederick said, "We gave it a long tail—there's nothing like a nice long tail." All the components were broken down as a percentage of thewhole, and weight-savings made wherever possible. The signi- ficance of grain direction in wood was not at first appreciated and asa result some components had to be rebuilt. It was finally found that percentage structure-weights came out much the same as those for the smaller aircraft built hitherto. This was due to the moreefficient design of members. At last the machine was ready for transfer to Hendon for thetrial flight. This was a Naval operation, and the towing along the road was done by ratings under petty officers and officers. For astart there was a series of tyre bursts, due to such causes as failure to secure the tyre properly to the wheel. At Colindale Avenue thestreet lamps got in the way. These were dismantled—leading sub- sequently to a row with the local gas company, who were referred toAdmiralty. It was by now nearly midnight. Next, trees interfered with the machine's passage and were lopped as necessary. No com-plaints ensued. The party finally arrived at Hendon at about 5 a.m. The aeroplane made its first flight at Hendon on December 17,1915. Apart from minor troubles, such as the misting of the glass in the cockpit and the failure of a magneto, the machine behaved well.The design was later improved by the scrapping of the armour plating and a rearrangement of the cockpit, and the machine thenreached a speed over 70 m.p.h.; but now there was considerable tail oscillation with a movement of 9-12in. It was found that slackcontrol wires were allowing nutter. This was corrected, and an order was received by the company for four aircraft at £6,400. A subsequent step in design was to fit engines turning in the samedirection. Originally they had been fitted to rotate in opposite directions to counter torque, and also as a relic of the originaldesign of the Wright brothers. At this point Sir Frederick showed two slides of a machine thathad been hit by gunfire. Pieces of fabric hung down like the sheets of an unmade bed. Further slides showed the adaptation of bom-bers to passenger use, with such refinements as wicker armchairs and a rather cruder version for conveying Service pilots abroad.The more "luxurious" versions were for delegates to the Paris Peace Conference. In 1917 Lord Weir, the Air Minister, sent for Handley Pageand asked for an aircraft to fly 600 miles out and back. By April 1918, at Harland & Wolff's factory, it was ready to fly. The firmhad a strike on its hands, so it was brought to Cricklewood. It crashed on its trial flight and all on board were killed with theexception of Alec Ogilvie (who had flown with the Wrights and is alive today). Nevertheless, 100 of these machines were ordered forthe purpose of bombing Berlin; but peace negotiations were in train and the order was not needed. The Afghan War broke out and a four-engined machine droppeda 112-pounder on a harem wall—"thus striking a blow for female emancipation in Afghanistan." On the homeward flight two ofthe four engines failed but the aircraft reached base, where it was finally dismantled and the fuselage was used for an office. A succession of slides showing H.P. machines ended with theHerald, which gave Sir Frederick an opportunity of mentioning his anti-speed-for-speed's-sake doctrine and extolling the virtues ofa money-spinner. This brought him back to the original method adopted with the first big aeroplane—"solve the problem of eachcomponent on its own." CLOSED-CIRCUIT AT 1,482 m.p.h. Alexander Fedotov AT Tushino airfield near Moscowrecently, Pilot Alexander Fedo- tov set up a new world speed record inflights along a 100km closed circuit. Flying a Soviet E-166, he achieved anaverage speed of 2,385km/hr (1,482 m.p.h.), and registered 2,730km/hr(1,706 m.p.h.) over separate sections. This exceeds the record of US pilotCdr John F. Davis, who about a year ago covered the 100km circuitat a speed of 2,237km/hr (1,398 m.p.h.). The brilliant feat of A. V. Fedotov,^0 years old and a native of Stalin- gi ad, was made possible by the inten-sive work of a large group of aviation workers. The performance data ofthe single-seat E-166 delta-wing air- craft, with great thrust and many newfeatures, instilled confidence in its success. One serious problem for the pilotwas that at the great speed, nearly treble that of sound, the slightest FROM "Soviet Weekly" comes this note on the recent attempt—suc-cessful subject to FAI confirmation—on the world closed-circuit speed record by Alexander Fedotov in the Soviet E-166 delta-wing aircraft.The writer is M. Donisov. deviation from its course could shoot the aircraft off the flight-path it had to follow over the check-points, and thus nullify the results. Altitude had to be not less at the end of the circuit over thecheck points than at the beginning. There were also other condi- tion which Fedotov had to observe absolutely. The E-166 took only a few seconds to gain altitude in a steepascent and reach the stratosphere. After completing the manoeuvre for directing his aircraft at the first reference-point, Fedotov beganto gather speed. On the ground, observers watched his flight with the help of radar and telemetric devices. At the observation stationsthe air was broken by incessant aerodynamic shocks. Defying heavy stresses, the pilot kept the machine strictly on course ancsucceeded in keeping to the pre-set route. The aircraft instruments showed an outside temperature oalmost — 60°C, but the skin was heated and in the cabin the tempera ture was maintained at the normal level. When descending thipilot cast a glance at the surface of the delta wing and saw that i was covered with tiny wrinkles. The flight lasted for only 15min. The Chkalov CentraAeroclub of the USSR is sending data to the International Aero nautical Federation for registration as a world speed record.
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