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Aviation History
1962
1962 - 1351.PDF
FLIGHT International, 2 August 1962 Letters The Editor of" Flight International" is not necessarily in agreement with the views expressed by correspondents in these columns. Names and addresses of writers, not for publication in detail, must in all cases accompany letters. Naming the ACV SIR,—Is AIRPLANE too easy a solution for a better generic term for the ACV? The vehicle can truly be said to plane over a cushion of air. This would kill two birds with one stone, and stop the mis-spelling of that delightfully sounding word, aeroplane. Stevenage, Herts s. RAYNER SIR,—I have never understood where the Hovercraft got its name from. Surely to "hover" means to sit motionless, like a hawk. Hover height means, surely, height of the craft with lift engines working and propulsion inoperative; phrases like "hover height at 60kt" seems to be self-contradictory. London, WC2 H. WILLIS SIR,—The Heaven-sent name for ground-effect vehicles like the VA-3 and its successors built at the old Supermarine works at South Marston is SUPERMARINE. And for land vehicles SUPERTERRAIN, if his successors have as much imagination as the founder (and coiner of the word) Super- marine, Noel Pemberton-Billing. Thus they would be keep ing alive the name of the firm that built all the seaplanes that won the Schneider Trophy for Britain (except the 1914 Sopwith Tabloid); the immortal Spitfire; and the Swift that won the world's absolute speed record in the 1950s. The VA-3 both looks and is a Supermarine. London W14 GEOFFREY DORMAN SIR,—Why not call it a HOVERCRAFT? After all, that is what the public calls these particular machines. The first one to catch the public eye, the SR.N1, was (and still is) called a hovercraft. A BP advertisement featuring the VA.3 called it a Hovercraft too. Why don't people climb down from their technical differ ences and call everything that has a vestige of air cushion about it a "hovercraft" ? Or is it too much for some aircraft spotters to climb down from their lofty perches and call an "aircraft" by the name that everyone else uses? Abingdon, Berks GUY GREENOUS [The name "Hovercraft" is the trade-mark of Hovercraft Development Ltd and can only properly be applied to the products of constructors who, by arrangement with that company, are registered users of the name. An increasing number of ACVs are outside this category; hence the quest for a generic term.—Ed.] Pull-up Pools SIR,—Mr Jackson's letter (July 19) is very obviously on the right lines, and with a little development work the idea could be brought to a fruitful conclusion. Water provides a good resilient buffer, provided that one does not hit it too hard— that is to say that one observes the school-book rules about "MV = mv," with the obvious corollaries suggested by Bernoulli and others. Some ten years ago I was invited by the Admiralty to look into the problem of providing a crash barrier on an aircraft- carrier deck which would cope with both a propeller-engined aircraft and equally with what they described as one having a soft nose. I spent a week at sea in the working-up period of HMS Eagle, then newly commissioned, and which had a squadron each of Gannets and Crusaders on board. There were many aspects to the problems which need not concern us here, but the upshot of it all was that I suggested a decellerator not unlike Mr Jackson's, except only that the medium used should be "foam" of the kind supplied by the Pyrene Co Ltd for fire fighting. Model tests at one-tenth scale showed quite remarkable 177 Minibus v/itb mast- mounted camera, used by the Rood Research Laboratory in accident investigation work (see letter from A. N. Clark Engineers) Ltd Crown copyright photo graph, HM Stationery Office ""IT _ «w results, and the system had the additional advantage that it did not add such a weight of top-hamper at deck-level height, foam having such a small specific gravity, combined with high surface-tension properties. However, the scheme was killed by the development of the angled deck, which allowed the rogue aircraft to shoot over the side into the drink without running into the final barrier—that is, the other aircraft ranged towards the forward end of the flight deck. Thin layers of foam are now suggested for an entirely different purpose, to act as fire-suppressants on concrete runways when there has been an undercarriage failure and a metal-to-concrete frictional landing seems imminent. Reigate, Surrey MARCUS LANGLEY Aerial "Aerial" Photography SIR,—I notice that in Flight International for July 5 your columnist Roger Bacon shows a photograph of a telescopic mast being used to carry a camera in order to carry out high- level photography. 1 found it very interesting, as this company has over the past years supplied several of its standard telescopic aerial masts for this purpose. The Road Research Laboratory has actually been using this technique experimentally for several years now and a picture [reproduced here—Ed] of one of their vehicles suitably equipped with a mast is enclosed. We have always considered that we were the leading British makers of telescopic aerial masts and therefore find mention of Aero Stills' mast particularly interesting. You may be interested that one of our masts, a 70-footer mounted on a trailer, is being exhibited at Farnborough this year. This particular one is used for the checking of the glide path and localizer beams in ILS systems. It is a technique which has been developed in collaboration with Signals Command, Royal Air Force. Southern Instruments Ltd, of Camberley, are producing the electronic instrumentation side of the equipment. I simply mention this in passing to indicate that we also have an interest in aviation. London SW19 A. N. CLARK (ENGINEERS) LTD, A. N. Clark, Managing Director SIR,—I was interested to read in "Straight and Level" (July 5) about recent activities with "balloon photography." However, Roger Bacon need not kick himself "for not having thought of it first," because Griffith Brewer was taking photographs with cameras fitted with remote control and attached to small spherical balloons, as early as 1902. Cody, too, was photographing for the Navy in 1903 with cameras attached to a string of kites. Hounslow, Middx H. F. COWLEY [// was the mast that Roger Bacon regarded as really novel.—Ed.]
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