BENEATH THE WINDSOCK

Evening Star, Issue 20995, 8 January 1932, Page 2

BENEATH THE WINDSOCK

[By Gipst Mote.]

TO JOIN R.A.F. On Sunday morning the Wanganui Aero Club Committee and pupils assembled at the hangar to make a presentation to Mr John Craig on the occasion of his departure this month to join the Royal Air Force in' England (says the Wanganui 1 Herald ’). The chib’s gift, made by Mr J. R. Franklin, was a pair of military hair brushes in a leather case bearing a shield and an ■ inscription concluding with the words: “May all your landings be happy ones.” Mr v John Craig is the first local pupil to qualify both in practical and theoretical tests for Royal Air Force entrance examination. SAFETY IN THE AIR. An arresting comparison, calculated to illustrate the degree of safety reached by modern air transport, was proffered by Dr N. A. V. Piercy in a lecture recently before the Royal Society of arts. He stated that in all the services operated by Imperial Airway in 1930 the average fatal accident rate was one to every 3,000,000 passenger-miles. To reproduce the aerial average a motor car would be obliged to cover 10,000 miles a year, for at least three hundred years before the first fatal accident to its passenger fell due. He pointed out further that an effective safety factor against breakage of aircraft in the air was the discomfort experienced by the human pilot if 1m imposed severe stresses on the machine. In manipulating the controls he spared his own feelings, and avoided violent evolutions.

KING’S CUP RACE,

The Royal Aero Club has given up tljp attempt to make the annual race round Britain for the King’s Cup an event for amateurs only, a decision which caused fierce controversy last year and seriously reduced the number of competing ’planes. Next year’s race will again be open to all British subjects .and all kinds of aeroplanes, subject only to the handicappers’ assumption that every craft entered can fly round the course at a speed of at least 110 miles an hour.

Exclusion of ‘‘ professional pilots ” —a term given very wide interpretation by the racing committee—lessened this year the number of entries by more than half, and gave undoubted advantage to Royal Air Force pilots, who were cl»ssined as “ amateurs.’’ Further, the provision that each machine entered must be privately-owned virtually excluded all high-powered aeroplanes, very few people in this country possessing aeroplanes bigger and more powerful than the fight 'plane with its 85-120 h.p, engine. The present intention is to plan a course for the 1932 race approximately the same length—l,oso miles—of this year’s event. As many as possible of the local Flying Club aerodromes will be touched by the chosen circuit. ■' BABY ”. AEROPLANE. Advice has been received from the Director of Air Services, Squadronleader T. M. Wilkes, by Leading Aircraftsman W. S. Dim’, of St. Albans, that a certificate of airworthiness has been granted for the “ baby ” aeroplane manufactured and recently perfected by him (reports the Christchurch ‘ Star ’V. The machine, which in trials over the city attained a speed of sixty-five miles an hour and an altitude of 2,300 feet, is the first New Zealand-made ’plane to be awarded a certificate, and it speaks highly for the workmanship put into the craft. Mr Dini is now awaiting receipt of the certificate and registration papers, which must be in his hands before he can embark on a flight to Ashburton and back—a trip which he has been contemplating _ for some time. Until the papers arrive in Christchurch, however, the plane is not permitted to be flown away from gliding distance of the Wigram Aerodrome, where it is housed. Once a machine has been awarded a certificate of airworthiness, it is considered to come up to the standards required by the Aeronautical Inspection Directorate in. England. Several short flights have been made in the diminutive craft during the past week or so, and on each occasion it has behaved perfectly. It was first flown in Christchurch by Captain Buckley in September, 1929, but was found then, and in subsequent flights, to be underpowered. Since then a wealth of experimental work has been carried out by Mr Dini, assisted by Mr E. Rump, also of St. Albans, and the machine is a vast improvement on the original design. The machine weighs about 3001 b, accommodates the pilot only, has a wing span of 25ft, is 16ft in length, and stands Oft from the ground. A POPULAR FALLACY. “ Thousands ol people still believe that if the engine of an aeroplane stops in the air that is the finish of the pilot and passenger,” said Flightlieutenant D. M. Allen, instructor to the Auckland Aero Club. “It is a popular myth among laymen that a crash is the inevitable result of the engine stopping while the machine is in the air, and few, apart from pilots, realise that the engine is virtually stopped every time a machine is landed.”

The instructor explained that the carburetter and throttle on an aeroplane were arranged similarly to those on a motor car, so that when the throttle was closed the engine would not stop, but would continue to “ tick over ” at a very slow rate. In the case of an aeroplane, even if the engine was actually switched off, the propeller would continue to revolve until stalling speed was reached. Under these conditions a pilot could maintain forward speed without the use of the engine by keeping the nose of thp machine down. Even if the engine stopped altogether it was always possible to glide to a safe landing, always presuming that there was a landing ground within reasonable distance, at the rate of approximately a mile per thousand feet elevation, in still rir, and there was no

need for the engine to be kept going at all in a normal landing. At this stage, Mr Allen decided to give demonstrations of landing with a “ dead stick ” —that is, with the propeller stopped, and also of stopping the engine in the air, and restarting by means of a dive (writes " Aileron,” in a northern paper). He took off in the blue Moth, and climbed to 2,000 ft, where he switched off the engine, and purposely stalled the machine, causing the propeller to stop. From the ground the propeller could be seen stationary, although the instructor had some difficulty m flying sufficiently slowly to cause it to stop The machine was then brought gently down in a shallow glide, the pilot making a landing in a restricted area, to indicate the control over the machine, in spite of the engine being stopped It was noticeable that the machine landed very slowly, and came to rest after a very short run. Mr Allen then took off again, climbed to 2,000 ft, and again stopped the engine. As soon as the propeller was stationary, he put the machine into a vertical dive and after dropping some 500 ft, and reaching a speed of about 100 miles an hour, the engine suddenly started, and the machine was this time brought down in the orthodox* manner with the engine “ ticking over.” The prejudice many people held against flying was largely due to the danger they imagined to exist in the event of the engine stopping in the air ,Mr Allen said. Many people, in fact, had firmly refused to make a short flight on account of their firm belief in this imaginary danger. The demonstration had proved clearly, however, that ns long as a pilot had the requisite skill, and flew_ in a sensible manner without attempting to do vertical banks close to the ground with a cold motor, there wns_ no danger to bo anticipated from this source. It was not possible to restart the engines of all machines by means of a steep dive, on account of the high compression of the engines of .certain types, but it could always be done with Moths and planes fitted with similar engines, the instructor added. There was, however, little chance of an engine stopping in the air, unless on account of the carelessness of the pilot, as each motor was thoroughly examined by the ground engineer before a flight, and every care taken to see that it was in perfect condition.