PROGRESS OF AVIATION

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21802, 6 June 1936, Page 22

PROGRESS OF AVIATION

RAPID TECHNICAL CHANGES

IMPORTANCE OF “GEODETIC” CONSTRUCTION (PROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) LONDON, May 2. The complexity of the aircraft in-, dustry and the rapidity of technical progress in the art of aircraft building were apparent in t!ie terms of Sir Herbert Lawrence’s speech to the shareholders of Vickers, Ltd., which controls two important concerns in the British aircraft manufacturing industry—Vickers (Aviation), Ltd;, and the Supermarine Aviation Works (Vickers), Ltd. Sir Herbert said: “The aircraft industry is yet in the experimental stage. Changes in technique are rapid and influenced by developments abroad as well as at home. Your board will continue the policy of giving every encouragement to new ideas and technical advances.” He referred particularly to one important development in aircraft construction fostered by the company and now successfully embodied in the structure of an aeroplane. This is the Vickers-Wallis system of “geodetic” construction, invented by Mr B. N. Wallis and developed by him in conjunction with the Vickers concern, which reduces structural weights and makes possible the attainment of practical ranges of action and useful load that were formerly beyond the scope of all but grossly over-laden “record” aeroplanes. The first fully geodetic machine is the Wellesley monoplane which has been ordered in considerable numbers for the expanded Royal Air Force. Details of its performance may not yet be published, but it is stated that if the Wellesley could be loaded with fuel in the plgice of other useful load its range in still air would be no less than 8000 miles, and. that without infringing the international regulations which control the loading of commercial aircraft. The present world record for distance flown in a straight line by an aeroplane is less than 6000 miles. Sir Herbert Lawrence mentioned thqt during 1935 two types of Supermarine flying-boat were adopted by the Air Ministry and put into production. He added that the new Supermarine fighter was now flying; this is the second of the “300 miles an hour and more” single-seat multi-gun fighters .mentioned by Sir Philip Sassoon in'his speech introducing the Air Estimates for 1936-37 to the House of Commons, Sir Philip said it that it was confidently expected to be at least as fast as the first of the group—the Hawker monoplane which is going immediately into large-scale production and is stated officially to be the fastest military peroplane of its# category in the world.