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Aviation History
1964
1964 - 1620.PDF
SUPPLEMENT TO FLIGHT International MAY 1964 Air-Cushion Vehicles DESIGN • COMPONENTS • APPLICATIONS SIMPLICITY AND CHEAPER POWER in this issue 62 International News 64a HD.1 Research Vehicle 66 Hovercraft in the Transport Role 70 Hovercraft Ferry—Part 2 72 Japan's Ram-wing Re- search 73 Letters Editor-in-Cbief Maurice A. Smith DFC Editor H. F.King MBE Technical Editor W. T. Gunston Managing Director H. N. Priaulx MBE VOLUME 4 NUMBER 23 °ffie Transport Publications Ltd Oonet nouse) Stamford Street, London SE1 i'ephone: Waterloo 3333 (Telex 25137) 'wegranu; Flightpres London Telex A l subscriptions 18s. Overseas 18s. Canada and USA $3 Branch OfficesX;,, Corporation Street, Coventry »«ephone: Coventry 25210 ard House, New Street, Birmingham 2: Midland 7191 f^Sate, Manchester 3one: Blackfriars 4412 or Deansgate 3595 Titf!ope Sweet, Glasgow C2"lephone: Central 1265/6 ^-' Street> Brist°> •ne: Bristol 21491/2 ork. N.Y. 1 "Broadway1 e' & C°mpany (Polishers) Ltd T«'ephone: Digby 9-1197 ftrnSUr TransP°rt Publications Ltd 1964.leitSpr;'" ° r«Prod>*e illustrations and »«reem-v r?H Eranted °nIV under written•naifc ,",u ™ extracts or comments may be rw'th due acknowledgement. WHEN WE INTRODUCED OUR SURVEY of "The Cockerell Papers," in Febru- ary 1963, we remarked: "There was also the civil servant in the then Ministry of Supply—Mr R. A. Shaw —a man of courage and imagination and who is acknowledged by Mr Cockerell as having played a vital role." As Assistant Director (Aircraft Research), Ministry of Aviation, Mr Shaw maintains an interest in the further development of air-cushion vehicles the extent of which is apparent from a recently delivered paper, reviewed in this issue. It begins with a flashback to the base- ment of a London patent agent's office seven-and-a-half years ago, with two men in cloth caps crouched over "a small turtle-like object." Mr Shaw recollects that one of the men "had his hand wrapped up in his handkerchief because he had cut his finger swinging the propeller ... He was Christopher Cockerell." The turtle-like object, of course, was the now-famous Hovercraft demonstra- tion model. And how does Mr Shaw view the scene seven-and-half years later? We are, he says, "just at the very beginning"; everything we have done already is "no more than a prelimin- ary skirmish." It is clear from other passages of the paper that this is no denigration of Britain's effort to date (the financial scale of which, incidentally, is put by Mr Shaw as between £5 million and £10 million). What he has in mind is "seeing that this British invention is put to use around the world." We have, he says, to build, with all the ingenuity that we can muster, the craft that people will want to buy and can afford, craft which will give them such good service when they have them that they will want to come back and buy more. Today's Hovercraft is likened by Mr Shaw to the handmade motor car of Edwardian days. We have to learn, he says, as the motor industry has done, to design better and to use cheaper materials and manufacturing methods. About one-third of the initial cost of a hovercraft, he points out, is imposed by the powerplant, and this will be the hardest nut to crack in getting costs down because we are already using commercially available engines. However, as we build larger ACVs we shall be able to use larger engines, and these will be cheaper on a horsepower basis. At the same time we shall build lighter, more efficient, structures, and in this way shall increase the work capacity for a given installed power. What Mr Shaw has to say about simplicity and cheapness must be very clearly recognized. We know of at least one famous engineering com- pany, seeking diversification and continuance of employment, which closely considered ACV construction and decided against it because these vehicles were going to be "too simple." Having regard to the type of labour available this particular decision was probably correct; but the fact remains that the hoped-for "simplification" which accompanied the introduction of the turbojet for aircraft use must, in the case of the air cushion, be fully and truly realized before this new mode of transport can be established. ACV-«1
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