FLIGHT FOR EVERYONE

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 313, 30 September 1926, Page 7

FLIGHT FOR EVERYONE

HOW THE WINDMILL ’PLANE WORKS 2#’ NO SKILL NEEDED (By Captain F. T. Courtney, in London “Evening News?’) Ever since flying began we have heard periodically of some new aeroplane which would bring aviation to everybody. Machines which, "everybody can fly” and “can be kept in the garage,” and "can land in your gardes,” have appeared in print with creditable regularity, but never seem to have appeared, so to speak, in the flesh. The recent light aeroplane competitions were to produce tho “motor-cycle of the air," and we were to have everybody flying about on "cheap, safe aeroplanes.” Actually not one of these aeroplanes has ever been seriously used. The da Havilland “Moth,” the only machine of that class to bo used in any numbers, was not at first considered officially suitable for a competition for "everybody’s aeroplane.” Price, maintenance costs and Air Ministry regulations have something to do with this, but the plain reason why an aeroplane is not a means of conveyance for Tom, Dick and Harry is that, for the average man who can manage a car, yacht or motor-cycle, flying is too difficult; It stands to reason that when highlytrained Air Force officers crash frequently, almost invariably through some form of difficulty in the handling of their machines, those difficulties are going to hamper the ordinary man who has no particular skill or judgment of hand or eye such as is required in dealing with an aeroplane. Incidentally, the “light.” aeroplane, with its tinv, overloaded engine, is car harder to handle than something with a moderate - reserve of power. When Fenor de la Cierva devised .the autogiro he did not merely attempt to build something which was new differently. He set out logically to get rid of the two features which make an aeroplane dangerous. First, the characteristics of aeroplane wing are such that, to give support, it must move very rapidly. If it is fixed to the body of the machinX then the body must also move rapidly. Thus, in landing, the machine must keep up a high speed, requiring great judgment and accuracy to put it correctly on to a given piece of ground. Tom, Dick, and Harry cannot do this.

Again, this ground must be long and smooth enough for the fast approach and the subsequent run. Our friends, in looking for this nice ground, will lose speed and crash. Secondly, when your wings are fixed to the aeroplane, a turn, voluntary or otherwise, causes different parts of your wing (o move at different speeds, and therefore give different amount of lift. All these differences must he met by skill and judgment in using tho controls. An error means loss of control and a crash.

Tho Autogiro has wings which are hinged to a rotating bearing on the top of the machine. The motion through the air keeps them spinning. If the machine loses all forward speed it drops slowly, at the same speed as you would drop if you jumped from a table four feet high. Yet this drop is enough to keep the wings spinning so rapidly that the tips arc doing 200 miles an hour and giving you plenty of support. Tho impossible complications of the helicopter arc completely absent. If something happens to give too much lift to one wing, this wing simply moves upward on its hinge and promptly distributes the extra lift. Thus the machine cannot got out of control. Hence the would-be pilot, of the Autogiro has no stability or loss of control or loss of flying speed to think about. Ho has only his elevator if he wants to move up or down and his rudder if he wishes to turn—no more completed a control than that of a yacht. For actual landing—the great difficulty with an ordinary aeroplane—no skill is required. The nose of the machine can be pulled up anywhere you like, and the machine drops slowly down to the ground. A certain amount of skin will, ot course, be required to allow ior winds, just as a yacht must allow for winds and currents. But this comes .to any average individual with practice. As he has not to fear a serious.crash from an error while learning, this will present no difficulty. . Apart from that it is probably true to say that, in calm air. anybody with a mechanical turn of mind could safely fly an'Autogiro without a single lesson. Such a. state of affairs will start an ever-widening circle, for as the safety of tho Autogiro brings more people into the air, so will the costs of flying rapidly decrease, and thus flying will—really, this time—be brought to those w '*° would if thev were only sure they could. \ .