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Aviation History
1913
1913 - 0135.PDF
Flight,'February 8, 1913. imr^ ^^W/ First Aero Wceklv in th<? World. ^r7 First Aero Weekly in the World. Founder and Editor: STANLEY SPOONER. A Journal devoted to the Interests, Practice, and Progress of Aerial Locomotion and Transport. OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE ROYAL AERO CLUB OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. No. 215. (No. 6, Vol. V.)] FEBRUARY 8, 1913. ["Registered at the G.P.O.l rWeekly, Price 3d. L as a Newspaper. J L Poat Free, 8|d. FMgfiat. Editorial Office: 44, ST. MARTIN'S LANE, LONDON, W.C. Telegrams: Truditur, Westrand, London. Telephone: Gerrard i8a8. Annual Subscription Rates, Post Free. United Kingdom ... \$s. od. Abroad tot. od. CONTENTS: 'Editorial Comment: The Army Monoplane Report ... Men of Moment in the World of Flight : Mr. T. O. M. Sopwith Engine Speed Indicators and Safely. By G. M. Dyott Eddies. By " Oiseau Bleu " Royal Aero Club. Official Notices What there will be to see at Olympia Army Monoplane Report From the British Flying Grounds Stability Devices. By Mervyn O'Gorman Foreign Aviation News Models. Edited by V. E. Johnson, M.A Things We Should Like to Know Correspondence 135 137 i i 140 M 144 J-4 158 l6l X62 165 "7 "7 EDITORIAL COMMEHT. The Army Monoplane Report. Presented on the 3rd of December of last year, the Report of the Departmental Committee on Accidents to Monoplanes has been published after an interval of exactly two months. It appears in extenso elsewhere in this issue of FLIGHT, and should prove an intensely interesting document to all classes of our readers, inasmuch as it touches upon a variety of sub jects, and concludes with a long list of summarised conclusions of an exceedingly suggestive character. In short, the Report finds that the accidents to monoplanes specially investigated were not due to causes dependent upon the class of machine to which they occurred, nor to conditions singular to the monoplane as such, and sees no reason to recommend the prohibition of the use of monoplanes, provided that certain precautions are taken, some of which are applicable to both classes of aeroplane, biplane as well as monoplane. Thus the Committee's findings may be said to consti tute a whitewashing of the monoplane as a type, using the word in no offensive sense, and it may now be taken as read that the monoplane is re-established in official favour. That the Committee has seen fit to reach the conclusions it has may be viewed with a considerable amount of relief by all who are interested in the aero plane either as a commercial proposition, as an accessory to the scheme of national defence, or from the more academic stand-point of a contribution to the tale of scientific progress. It is naturally with the two former aspects of the question that we are more immediately con cerned. Taking them in their orderas we have placed them, we should have been deeply concerned if the verdict had gone the other way, because there are many firms in this country—as the count of aeroplane manufacturing concerns is told—which have pinned their faith -to the monoplane and have sunk considerable capital in its development. That they should have received the almost killing blow that an adverse decision would have meant, would hare been a serious thing for an industry which is none too stable at the present moment, although its future is certainly to be viewed with unalloyed optimism. Next from the point of view of national defence, we should have considered it as being something almost akin to a national calamity if a type had been condemned which we know to be doing satisfactory service in the hands of the flying corps of other countries. In France particularly, the monoplane is regarded as an absolutely essential type for services which cannot be so readily performed by the biplane. Without pretending to go deeply into questions, which are for the tactician to decide, it is quite obvious that an air-fleet consisting entirely of comparatively slow-travelling biplanes must be at an initial disadvantage compared with one which includes a high percentage of very fast and manoeuvrable monoplanes. Not but what we should have accepted the conclusions of the Committee as inevitable had they been the other way about, but still we should have deplored the necessity of abandoning an exceedingly useful type of machine. However, it is unnecessary to dilate upon what might have been, and we can but record our satisfaction at the turn of events. As we publish the Report in full, there is no need for us to dip too deeply into its details, but there is room for useful comment upon certain of the data and the reason ing out of their details which have led to the decisions of the Committee. The conclusion was reached that " with regard to the cases investigated .... it has been clearly demonstrated that the accidents were not primarily due to causes dependent upon the fact that the machines were monoplanes." Nothing could be more conclusive than that. We have already touched b 2
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