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Aviation History
1972
1972 - 1535.PDF
878 A Royal aviator On June 1 the body of the Duke of Windsor was fittingly flown into RAF Benson, the home of the Royal Flight. For it was in 1928 that the Communications Flight of No 24 Squadron at Northolt set aside a Bristol Fighter as a VIP aircraft to be used by the Duke, then the Prince of Wales, thus forming the embryo of today's Queen's Flight. It was as the Prince of Wales that he did so much by his own example to further aviation in Britain. After earlier frus trated attempts he learned to fly and soloed in 1929 and in the same year purchased a de Havilland Moth, built to his own order. He used this machine so often, always in com pany with a safety pilot, that he employed a full-time per sonal pilot, Fit Lt E. Fielden (now Air Vice-Marshal Sir Edward Fielden). During the next few years the Prince of Wales owned many aircraft, including another Moth, four de Havilland Puss Moths, a de Havilland Dragon, an assort ment of de Havilland Rapides and a special Vickers Viastra which he used on official occasions. His interests extended to air racing; he entered a Gipsy-engined Comper Swift in the 1932 King's Cup, and with Fielden as pilot secured second place. Like all his aircraft, the Swift flew in the red and blue colours of the Brigade of Guards. With the death of his father, King George V, the Prince of Wales chose to fly to the Accession Council which had to be held within 24hr, and in so doing became the first British monarch to fly. During his short reign he officially formed the King's Flight with Fielden as captain, a post he held until 1961. The Prince of Wales' procession of aircraft included I D.H.60M Moth G-AALG; 2 D.H.80A Puss Moth G-ABBS; 3 D.H.84 Dragon G-ACGG; 4 Vickers Viastra X G-ACCC; and 5 Comber CLA.7 Gipsy Swift G-ABWW FLIGHT International, 15 June 1972 SYSTEMS duce, simultaneously, a by-pass chan nel across the auto-control jack piston, so that the jack can be returned to centre under the action of a spring. Pressure feedback is incorporated within the Jaguar actuators to ensure effective damping of control surfaces. Any steady load on the control sur face causes a differential pressure be tween the fluid in its associated re traction and extension jack chambers. Pressure on one side of the ram pis ton is sensed in one cavity of a pres sure-feedback module. At the same time, this pressure is transmitted through a fine orifice to be sensed by the second cavity on the module, which is connected to a compliant oil volume. Because the two cavities are inter connected, the pressures are always equal at low frequency. At the higher frequencies associated with resonance, the fluctuating pressure in the con trolling jack chamber cannot be trans mitted through the fine orifice, caus ing a differential pressure to act on the two ends of a spring-loaded car riage, which is displaced by an amount proportional to the differential pres sure. This displacement will select the servo valve in the required sense, causing the actuator to "yield" under each oscillatory cycle and so provide a finite dynamic stiffness. Thus, at resonant frequency, energy can be ex tracted from the oscillating surface to provide damping. As the applied frequency falls, the effect of the flow through the restrictor orifice steadily increases the actuator's apparent stiff ness to an extremely high value under static load. Thus the Jaguar's powered flying control units have the "intelligence" to react differently, according to the frequency applied either from the in put or the output. The pressure-feed back module also serves to limit the load which can be applied to the out put circuit during any resonance aris ing from dynamic conditions asso ciated with inertia and stiffness. Production of flying-control actuators for the Jaguar is proceeding satisfac torily, both in the UK, where Fairey is manufacturing the rudder and spoiler actuators, and France, where SAMM is building the tailplane actuators under Fairey licence. •
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