SAFE FLYING

Hokitika Guardian, 5 January 1928, Page 4

SAFE FLYING

ASTONISHING DEMONSTRATION. LONDON, Nov. 25. Personal trials wore made by Sir Samuel lion re (Secretary of State for Air) and Lady Maud Hoare in an aeroplane fitted with a device which marks one of the most recent developments in aeronautics. This is. the Handley Page automatic safety control. In a Bristol Fighter biplane, flown by Squadron Lender T. H. England, and fitted with the new automatic wing slot, which gives tho pilot control of his machine, even when it lias lost normal flying speed, Sir Samuel went through a number of astonishing evolutions. Stalls, flat turns, and lilt-like descents were made, and all the rules of flying were deliberately broken at so low an altitude that, with ordinary controls, disaster would Lavo been unavoidable. At times the aeroplane reared itself on its tail and appeared to hang almost stationary in the sky, at other moments it would fall towards the ground quite slowly and maintaining a level keel.

A remarkable advance. “I regard this as a very remarkable advance,” Sir Samuel Hoare said in an interview after landing. “When the machine stalled there was almost the effect of a blow, yet the aeroplane remained under control. This development is one more example of what can be done by co-operation between private enterprise and official research workers, tl is being fitted to machines of every service type to which it appears suitable. It is still a question, at this stage, whether the power of manoeuvre of high-speed fighting aeroplanes would lx? affected by fitting the control.”

After their flights. Sir Samuel and Lady ALiud Hoare, with Sir Philip Sassoon, were conducted to the wind tunnel ,in which a model of the control was suspended. They watched through a glass inspection window while the model wing as set at different angles to the air stream which rushed through the tunnel. Every time, as the wing massed a certain angle of incidence, the small slot- in the leading edge flew open. It was explained that the slot was opened by the formation of the air currents passing over the wing. The slot automatically anticipated the stalling angle and gave the wing lift when otherwise mast of the lift would have disappeared.