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Aviation History
1975
1975 - 0645.PDF
' FLIGHT International, 3 April 1975 tive flight envelope. Experiments here were largely concerned with horizon tal stabilisers, in an effort to de-sensi- * tise the handling at the much higher speeds of which the airframe/engine combination was capable." i Unfortunately, horizontal stabilisers t are not the answer to all problems, as many experts believed. From 1961 Wg Cdr Wallis has been experiment ing with conventional, vee- and T- tails, and with fixed and movable < surfaces. It is significant that most of his machines are still not fitted with horizontal stabilisers. Even G-ARRT, the world autogiro speed record holder has only a minute pitch 1 trimmer surface. It can be trimmed for hands-off level flight at over lOOkt, and handles well at speed. G-BAHH, its nearest successor, does have a k small horizontal stabiliser which is probably beneficial at the higher speeds this machine should attain. More powerful Commanders > The General Aviation Division of , Rockwell International has announced the development of two further ver sions of the 112A. Turbo-charged and greater capacity engines are to be fitted. Production of the current 200 < h.p. model (see our Team Test in Flight for February 20) is now run ning at 14 per month and is expected r to reach 22 per month by the end of the year. f Bede approves Xenoah A Japanese Xenoah 781cc three- <• cylinder two-stroke air-cooled engine has been tested by Bede Aircraft and ! is to be installed in both production s and home-built versions of the BD-5 in place of the Hirth engine which is j no longer available. It has a dual capacitor-discharge ignition system, and provision for oil injection. The current version develops 75 h.p. but an output of 90 h.p. is considered possible. Specific fuel consumption is 0-671b/h.p.hr. Flight tests have been completed and cooling Is satisfactory without the airscoops previously seen on BD-5 research aircraft. Uprated Chipmunk Nine years after its demob in 1957 Chipmunk G-AOSU had its Gipsy Merely "large" horizontal stabil isers are likely to be positively dan gerous in a gyroplane because they set up nasty pitch oscillations. Also, they can degrade performance at low speeds and, in the case of the Cierva C-30 may well have been the cause of a fatal tendency to dive-in uncontrol lably at high speed, when the rotors tended to pitch down. There were practical limitations on how far the manoeuvres could be developed. The accident report con tinues: "Because a high speed bunt is dan gerous in a gyroplane and because the theory is only applicable to small ex cursions from the "in trim" condition, neither the flight tests nor the theo retical work included this manoeuvre. Its theoretical investigation would need considerably extended work to ideally include rotor aeroelastic effects, and feed back from a pilot in a suit- engine removed with a view to re placement with a Lycoming unit. When the Royal Air Force Gliding and Soaring Association acquired the aircraft last January, the modification was still unfinished, but seven week's work by Dick Stratton and off-duty American service personnel completed the work and the first flight took place early in March. With its 180 h.p. O-360- A1A engine and Sensenich propeller, the Chipmunk climbs at about 1,700ft/ min with one occupant. No service modifications had been applied to the aircraft for 17 years and after the Gipsy had been replaced by the Lycoming (which is 401b lighter), its weight was 1401b below current RAF standard. To bring the e.g. forward to its original position, the battery is being moved from the rear fuselage to an enclosed housing in front of the engine firewall. A Special Category Certificate of Airworthiness will be obtained and the aircraft is to be used for glider towing. Rapide retires The wood and fabric de Havilland Dragon Rapide, which has made almost daily flights skirting the City of Oxford on its way to drop parachutists at Weston-on-the-Green, is to be retired. G-AGSH was operated by the Royal Air Force Sport Parachute Association (RAFSPA) and carried the "Robins" free-fall display team to local fetes and shows. Maintenance expense has now dictated its replacement by a secondhand Cessna 206. The Rapide was laid down in 1942, intended to become a military Domi nie, but was not completed until the end of the war. It eventually took to the air in civil guise named T'James Kier Hardy" and flew with the BEA fleet of 20 such aircraft. After 12,634hr flying, it was sold to West Point Air lines at Exeter in Devon, from where it joined the RAFSPA at Abingdon, 573 able flight simulator." The accident report points out that the light gyroplane has certain hand ling characteristics not found in either fixed-wing aircraft or helicopters that can only be adequately demonstrated in flight. There appears to be no sys tem of training specifically for gyro plane pilots, who must necessarily dis cover these characteristics for them selves. The absence of such a system of training could well have an ad verse effect on the safety in operation of these aircraft, particularly when flown by inexperienced private pilots. Three of the four fatal accidents to gyroplanes occurred when the aircraft were either appearing in an air dis play or being demonstrated to poten tial buyers. The quite natural human desire to give one's best when per forming in the public eye may well have been a factor leading to inad vertent erosion of safety margins. to be renamed "Paranymph." With almost 15,000hr behind it G-AGSH is now to go to Jersey, where the Pioneer Aviation Trust will use it for occa sional Air Training Corps joy rides. It is hard to imagine a better aircraft for the job. Trigull funded The development of the Trigull 320 amphibian by Trident aircraft of Rich mond, British Columbia, Canada, is to be funded by a loan of $1 million from the British Columbia Development Corporation and the federal Indus trial Development Bank. A further $2 million will also be underwritten by the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce if the company can find a source of such a sum. The Trigull follows the classic Sea- bee pattern with stepped hull and a single pusher propeller mounted just above the wing centre section. The main undercarriage retracts into the fuselage sides and the nosewheel folds forward to form a nose buffer. Hang-gliding champions The first international hang-gliding championship was won at Kossen in Austria by David Cronk of California, USA. He flew a Quicksilver and gained 89 53 points out of a possible 100. Werner Tscherne of Switzerland came second with 82 15 and another Ameri can, Roy Haggard was placed third with 78 00 points. Ann Welch is to report on the com petition in an early issue of Flight. Beware large can»pies Peter Lovegrove, writing in the Popular Flying Association house magazine, warns that large cockpits have an adverse effect on engine-off stability and recommends that home- builders should carefully investigate directional control before adding large fairing areas forward of the e.g.
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