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• A Guide to

3rd March 1933, Page 49
3rd March 1933
Page 49
Page 49, 3rd March 1933 — • A Guide to
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AFT SEL ECTION

Explaining the Information which Appears in the Following Pages Concerning Various British Makes of C mmercial Aircraft

MOTOR-COACH and road-transport operators who are looking into the proposition of running air lines will, before anything else, require certain basic information about the various models of the British aircraft suited to their different needs, and, for this reason, we describe in the following pages machines which, from the public service point of view, are some of the most interesting types; from time to time in the future other craft will be dealt with.

When presenting information of this nature to our readers, we believe in giving them the facts and figures they require in standard form and in making our descriptive notes subsidiary in importance to the technical data. For this reason, we have produced a standard table of data for each machine, giving the main features of load capacity, weights, performance and fuel consumption.

Aeroplanes vary widely, just as do the classes of service on which they are designed to operate. High speed is not necessary on short ferry services, but convenience of taxi-Mg, easy loading and unloading and a short take-off run, as well as a low landing speed, are, for such services, desirable.

For lines across estuaries or open sea, where but little, if any, land has to be crossed, seaplanes or flying boats may be found more convenient. Speeial machines in this respect are the Saunders-Roe amphibians, useful to a company operating a variety of serviees and requiring a dual-purpose machine. For feeder services a good selection of small aircraft, nevertheless affording cabin comfort, is available to choose from, whilst for regular, routes between popular centres there is no doubt that the bigger machines will become economically operated, and, for this reason, no apology is made for including even the big Handley-Page air liner and other multi-engiried craft.•

Large and small saloon aeroplanes nowadays nearly all incorporate adequate ventilation and heating plant.

It will be plain that the disposable pay-load may be divided between passengers and goods. In the tabulated data we have given merely a typical division and, naturally, this can be altered from journey to journey, according to the traffic offering. Likewise fuel-tank capacity and, therefore, fuel-tank range, are varied ; for long journeys it may be necessary to sacrifice a portion of pay-load in order to carry a safe reserve of petrol to cover delays in the air due to fog, head wind and other circumstances.

A word of explanation of the exPression "air miles" may be required, although this is almost self-explanatory. Fuel consumption is properly described in gallons per hour and, given the cruising speed, this can he converted into air miles per gallon, and the fuel-tank range can be expressed in air miles. Obviously, however, if the machine be Hying against a head wind of, say, 30 m.p.h., then 30 miles less over the ground will be covered in every hour, and the fuel-tank range will be correspondingly shortened. For this reason, we prefer to describe it in air miles, so that the figure itself serves as a warning against possibly unfavourable weather.

The data given have, of course, been supplied to us by the manufacturers, but, in most cases, the figures are supported by Air Ministry tests and can be guaranteed. Makers will freely provide information on such points if they are approached. Alterations in equipment may result in different performance figures and even comparatively big alterations in design to suit certain service needs are not, by any means, impracticable.

The importance of wireless equipment for all but small or short-distance Machines cannot be overemphasized.

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Organisations: Air Ministry

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