BUDGET OF BRITISH AIR NEWS.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 18847, 9 April 1931, Page 4

BUDGET OF BRITISH AIR NEWS.

NEW MONOPLANE AIR LINERS. BRITAIN'S LATEST PASSENGER 'PLANES. EXAMPLES OP SPEED AND BEAUTY. New Stvle of Famous Engines; Launch of Biggest Civil Flying Boats; "Sciplo Africanus”; Light 'Plane Survey In West Africa; More Private Owners; the First Air Mail to Africa. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON March 3. Monoplane air liners now being built in Great Britain for operation by Imperial Airways on the African trunk route and designed for fast flying over regular air lines anywhere in the world attain new standards of performance and efficiency. The secret of their construction was carefully guarded till a few days ago; though detailed design work was actually begun more than six months ago few people outside the firms immediately interested had heard of the enterprise. Enough information is now released by the makers the Sir W. G. Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft Company to indicate that these new liners will rank among the swiftest air transport vehicles in the world being capable of a maximum velocity of 145 miles an hour and cruising easily at 115 miles an hour with the four motors developing only three-fifths of full power. Further, the design incorporates novel features sufficient to show that the British aircraft designer possesses imagination equal to the most brilliant of his foreign competitors. Beauty and Efficiency: The new craft, graceful and racy in outline, is a high-wing monoplane, lifted, that is, by a single pair of wings located above the fuselage. From tip to toe these wings spread ninety feet. They constitute a cantilever structure, without exterior bracing wires or struts to cause air “interference” and thus to diminish efficiency by increasing resistance to movement through the air. In the leading or front edges of the wings are placed four powerful radial air-cooled engines, two on either side of the fuselage—a most unusual engine arrangement. These motors are carried in stream-lined nacelles, or “power-eggs,” which are designed to merge as smoothly as possible into the shape of the wings. Drawings of the machine show that the engines are cowled with Townend rings, a British device which markedly cuts down the resistance of the star-shaped radial motor. The landing wheels are depicted encased in streamline fairings; throughout the machine every effort is made to avoid unnecessary excrescences likely to diminish aerodynamical efficiency. The spacious cabin, measuring 17& feet in length and with more than six feet of head-room, provides accommodation for seventeen passengers and their luggage. There is a steward’s pantry and buffet, a large freight compartment forward and wireless compartment. The main cabin, being well aft of the zone of rotation of the engines and airscrews, is comparatively quiet, and the noise is still further lessened by taking the engine exhausts over the top of the main plane. Freedom from vibration, as compared with the normal three-engined air liner, is secured by the absence of an engine in the nose.

Safety: Safety tyica! of British aircraft construction is implicit in many details. With full load the aeroplane is designed to continue level flight at any height below 7,000 feet with any one motor stopped and to be able to maintain in those conditions a true air speed of no less than 90 miles an hour. The wheel brakes are strong enough to enable a pilot to bring the machine to a standstill on an aerodrome in less than two hundred yards, even on a calm day. The cabin windows are so designed that at need they become emergency exits; a single sharp blow is sufficient to knock them out. The design was governed by the idea of carrying a given pay load at the highest possible cruising speed on the smallest possible consumption of fuel, and with the engines running at relatively low speed of revolution, thus ensuring economical operation and long life and low maintenance charges for the engines. Fully loaded the aeroplane weighs nearly eight tons, of which approximately two tons is pay load. Each of the four Armstrong Siddeley “Double Mongoose” motors has ten cylinders and develops 340 horsepower. The framework of the fuselage and wings is steel strip, the wings being covered with three-ply wood. Britain’s Biggest Passenger Flying Boats: “Scipio,” the first of three four-en-gined biplane flying boats of the new “Kent” class being built by Short Brothers for operation of the Mediterranean sections of the Imperial Airways routes to the east, was launched on the river Medway at Rochester last week and later made first trial flights. These new flying machines are the largest marine passenger aircraft yet constructed in Great Britain, carryingfifteen passengers in a luxurious saloon cabin and with space for no less than 1£ tons of mails. The four Bristol “Jupiter” air-cooled motors develop between them up to 2,400 horsepower. Their maximum speed is 132 m.p.m. and the cruising speed, in still air, about 100 miles an hour. Fully laden, each boat weighs more than 13 tons. Developed from the smaller threeengined “Calcutta” boats, the fourengined craft embodies many of the lessons learned in “Calcutta” operation. Its size means increased seaworthiness. A feature of the hull structure is the planing bottom of stainless steel, eliminating water corrosion. The first boat is shortly to go to Felixtowe Marine Air Station for test flying in the hands of Royal Air Force pilots. When these are successfully completed it will be ready for regular service. “Kestrel” and “Buzzard.'* New nomenclature is decided for two well-known British aero engines, one of them the power unit fitted to the latest fighters and day bombers supplied to the Royal Air Force and the other famous as the engine from which was developed the mighty racing motor in the monoplane that won the last race for the Schneider Trophy and established the world’s speed record of 357.7 miles an hour. These engines were previously styled the “F” and “H” engines respectively. In naming them the makers, RollsRoyce Limited have followed the tradition of the firm and the names of birds are chosen to add to a family already represented by “Eagle,” “Falcon,” “Condor” and “Hawk” engines. Thus the 500 h.p. “F” engines become , “Kestrels” and the 825 h.p. “H” motors

become “Buzzards.” The various types of engine in each class, differing m gear and compression ratios, are distinguished by the addition of a Roman numeral and a letter. For example, the engine formerly styled “FXII.B,’ a system of nomenclature found by the Air Ministry to cause confusion, is nowcalled “Kestrel II.B” and so on. The degree of supercharging is still indicated by the addition of the letters MS or S. Power for War ’Planes: The “Kestrel,” a power unit of astonishing efficiency and compactness, is largely responsible for the surpassing speed and effectiveness of the most recent British service aeroplanes. One or more “Kestrel” motors provide the power in British fighters, day bombers, night bombers and flying boats, which are admittedly each in their class far superior in every aspect of performance to any aeroplanes built outside Great Britain. The “H” engine, which received the compliment of a recent order for a batch of three from the United States Government, is again this year, in the “boosted” “R” or racing form, to provide the power for the British Schneider Trophy defenders. In 1929 the “R” engine produced about 1,900 horsepower from a total weight of less than 1,600 pounds. Private Flying: Further evidence of the steady progress of private flying in Great Britain is contained in the latest list of privately owned aircraft, issued by the technical magazine “Flight.” It contains the names of 312 owners, possessing between them 349 aeroplanes. Two of the owners on the list possess four aeroplanes each, five own three each, and 26 own two; on the other hand four pairs of owners are shown as sharing one machine. The number of people with one aeroplane each is given as 271.

The aeroplanes listed show plenty of diversity, though the majority of them are naturally light aeroplanes. They range from very small “baby” singleseaters to the tremendous three-engin-ed flying boats employed as air yachts by the Hon. A. Guinness, which carry ten or twelve occupants in luxury and at high speed over long distances. One apparent omission is the name of the world's most illustrious private aeroplane owner, the Prince of Wales. Close study of the list, however, reveals that his “Gipsy Moth” biplane and “Puss Moth” cabin monoplanes are declared as the possession of the Prince’s personal pilot, Mr E. H. Fielden. Incidentally the “Moth” biplane is shown to be the most popular “aerocar” in Great Britain, the list citing 179 of these machines. Next in number is the “Puss Moth” with 50, followed by “Avians” (28) and “Bluebirds” (19).

A Light ’Plane Adventure: Month by month the long distance air tour becomes more and more a commonplace. Trips which only two or three years ago were considered ambitious and aroused much attention in newspapers and conversation are now dismissed with casual mention. But there is novelty sufficient to interest those most familiar with flying developments in the long journey just begun in a light aeroplane from London by Miss Delphine Reynolds and Flight Lieutenant W. G. Pudney. Miss Reynolds, who is a daughter of Sir James Reynolds, a member of the British Parliament, and her companion plan to fly to the Cape by way of the west coast of Africa. Their machine, a Blackbird “Bluebird,” will fly alternately with landing wheels and seaplane floats. In land form the aeroplane will be steered by way of Paris, Toulouse and French air mail route to the town of Dakar, in Senegal, and Bathurst, in the Gambia. There the land wheels will be taken off and substituted by floats; no expert help being available Miss Reynolds and Mr Pudney will do the job themselves. With floats on the small machine is then to tackle a serious air survey of a region where a recent report to the Air Ministry revealed great scope for seaplane services, the riverine lands of Sierra Leone, French and Portuguese Guinea, the Gold Coast, Ivory Coast, and Liberia. There, in country unknown to white men a very few generations ago the flyers expect to discover much that will hasten the day when seaplane air liners ply regularly through the length and breadth of a mysterious and, frequently, picturesque land. Lonely Coast and Desert: Survey work finished, the “Bluebird” will be headed south, calling at many harbours along the coast, including Lobito, Walvis Bay, Mossamedes, Libreville and Luderitz Bay. The flyers will rest in Cape Town for a few days and then start north again. Floats will be discarded at Calabar and the landing wheels replaced for a journey along the Saharan desert route to North Africa and Europe. Few air journeys over the world’s surface nowadays offer equal chance of adventure. The network of aerodromes and landing grounds extends daily and the finding of really unfrequented “air” is no longer easy. But Miss Reynolds and Mr Pudney plan, particularly on the return journey, to fly long stages over desolate and undeveloped land where no landing grounds exist and the natives are untrustworthy. Even within the last year or two ground survey parties have had unpleasant brushes with natives lin districts that the “Bluebird” is to traverse.

The machine is a normal “Bluebird” light biplane with the typical side-by-side seating. It is the first of its kind to be equipped with the “Gipsy III.” inverted 120 h.p. air-cooled engine. The inversion gives far better view and has improved the aerodynamical qualities of the aeroplane, giving it a cruising speed of nearly 100 miles an hour and extending the stillair range to about 700 miles. First Africa Air Mail: When the first air-liner carrying mail for the northern section of the African airway left the London Air Station, Croydon, on Saturday, it marked a new and important stage in the history of civil aviation. The new air route provides not only a regular service from Britain to the Sudan and Central and East Africa, but also brings India, Persia and Iraq into aerial communication with a great part of the African continent by connection at Cairo with the India airway. Included in the mail carried by the first machine were official greetings from government departments in London addressed to administrative authorities along the new route and more than 10,000 letters consigned in special covers by stamp collectors. On Thursday this week the mail is timed to reach Khartoum. Next Monday it will be unloaded at Mwanza, in Tanganyika Territory, only nine days after the departure from London: the swiftest surface transport takes more than twenty days. For the first few months the service will terminate at Mwanza, but during the summer Imperial Airways plan to extend it to Cape Town, providing communication between Cape Town and London in eleven days. The mail steamers take seventen days.