Air Transport News
Page 47
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NEW LONDON-LISBON SERVICE.
PRESENT indications are that the new daily air service of Crilly Airways; Ltd., between London and Lisbon will start on February 1. The first of four Fokker F12 machines, which have been bought from the Royal Netherlands Air Lines (K.L.M.), is ready, except for fitting a Plessy homing device to the radio set. The machines have been inspected at Amsterdam by British Air Ministry officials.
Probably two or three survey trips will be made in January to demonstrate that the journey of about 1,100 miles can be comfortably done in a day. The Gritty pilots are studying for navigators licences, which are required by law on aservice of this kind.
The contract to carry Portuguese mails to London was signed in Lisbon on December 13, and commercial and banking circles there seem to be optimistic about the value of the service.
MARKED EFFICIENCY DESPITE DIFFICULT WEATHER.
DURING December, the airways of L/Europe, especially the western sector, which includes the internal lines of Great Britain, have experienced difficult weather conditions. Besides the fog, there has been much low cloud, also strong and gusty winds. Another had feature has been that critical combination of temperature and humidity at certain levels above ground level which produces ice-forming conditions.The " icing layer " has been at 1,000 ft. to 1,500 ft. and upwards.
Pilots have had to fly below this level whenever possible. Few machines are yet equipped with de-icing devices.
All things considered, the services across Great Britain and to the Continent have maintained a remarkable degree of efficiency, but the need for more extensive ground equipment, such as radio stations and lighted airports, and for de-icing apparatus, is marked.
COMBATING ICE FORMATION.
STEPS have been taken and other proposals are being considered to :ender the big Avro 642, of Commercial Air Hire, Ltd., as nearly immune as possible from the effects of ice formation. The air supply which drives the Sperry directional gyro and artificial horizon, also the Reid and Sigrist bank and turn indicator (three instruments that are indispensable when flying in
cloud) has been arranged in the slipstream just behind the exhaust pipe of one of the engines, where freezing up is impossible.
The Dunlop Rubber Co., Ltd., is working out a scheme for fitting the Dunlop de-icer on this aeroplane. This device, developed originally by the Air Ministry, consists of a leather strip along the leading edge of the wing, through which ethylene-glycol is made to ooze from a perforated supply pipe. The liquid does not freeze around 32 degrees F. and ice cannot settle on a liquid surface. If it does start to form, it very soon blows away.
POPULARITY OF PARIS NIGHT . SERVICE.
SINCE the winter schedule started early in October, more than 1,500 passengers have flown by Imperial Airways' night services between London and Paris. Each service has carried on the average 10 passengers. Considering the unusually severe weather, cancellations have been infrequent. By this service, the traveller has a full day in London or Paris, gets to the company's headquarters in town at about 6 p.m., and is delivered in the other city by about 10 p.m., having had dinner on board.
WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY ON AN AIR TAXI.
WE learn that Birkett Air Ser'vice, Ltd., is fitting a two-way wireless telegraphy set into its Miles Merlin machine, which his just returned from Abyssinia. This must surely be the first small air taxi to change over from telephony to telegraphy. As the Merlin is used a great deal abroad on urgent charters for the Press, Capt. Birkett decided to prepare for all conditions.
WINTER ARRANGEMENTS OF BRISTOL FERRY.
THE air ferry between Bristol and Cardiff, operated since September, 1932, by Norman Edgar Western Airways, Ltd., is not being maintained as a regular service this winter, but machines and pilots are available on demand. The object of starting off with a regular winter service in 1932 was to show that it was possible to maintain reliability in all weathers, and this was done by visual navigation alone. On purely commercial grounds there is not enough traffic yet to support a regular winter schedule.
300 M.P.H. AT 40,000 FT.?
rRUISING at a height of 40,000 ft. %sae and at a speed of nearly 300 m.p.h. is forecast by Professor G. T. R. Hill, Kennedy Professor of Engineering at London University, as a possibility of air-line travel in the near future. Professor Hill is famous as the designer of the Westland-Hill Pterodactyl .tailless aeroplanes. He takes as,a basis a passenger-transport aeroplane of relatively small size, weighing 9,000 lb. fully laden and carrying up to five passengers over a distance of 2,500 miles. He limits maximum power to 800 b.h.p. and goes a short step farther in the directidn of fuel economy than is vet achieved.
Engines are assumed to be fully supercharged to a height of 30,000 ft., after which the normal loss of power in a further 10,000 ft. will enable the craft to cruise economically at full throttle, but only two-thirds power, at the required height of 40,000 ft. The cabin and pilots' compartment would be sealed and carry their own atmosphere at pressures not far below ground-level pressures.
ENGINE OVERHAULS IN QUICK TIME.
Whave frequently Wreferred to the
scientifically equipped workshops of Airwork Engine Services, Ltd., at Heston Airport, where, besides aero engines, engines of commercial vehicles, cars and motor-boats are overhauled and reconditioned to aircraft standards of precision. The company does much work for corporations and for motorbus and lorry operators.
Recently, in 60 working hours, the shops executed 240 boring operations: they were completing an order from a large commercial-vehicle manufacturer for sleeving 30 cylinder blocks. As each cylinder had to be bored out and the sleeves had to be finished to a given size, the task entailed two boring operations per cylinder.
NEW NAVIGATION SCHOOL.
THE new term of the Imperial School of Air Navigation, at 87, High Street, Notting Hill Gate, London, W.11, opens on January 8, to prepare students for the Air Ministry examination, in March, for the second-class air navigator's licence. Mr. C. W. Martin, who was for some time lecturer at the Imperial Airways Pilots' School, is the principal.