In the air

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 408, 17 July 1928, Page 7

In the air

A Famous Visitor Air-Marshal Sir John Salmond is i now in Australia to investigate the j condition of the R.A.A.F. When he i arrived Australians saw a brave disj play of ribbons. ' For after.the name of the famous fiye.r come the initials ; K.C.8., C.M.G., C.V.0., D. 5.0.. LL.D., i and other decorations include Legion of Honour. Croix de Guerre fFrench and Belgian), Order of Leopold (Belgian), and the White Eagle of Russia. In 1917, at 36 years of age, the visitor —he is now 47—was G.O.C. R.A*Fi in France, and he is regarded as one !of the biggest men in the world on ! the administrative side of defence avia- | tion. Another brother, Vice-Air Marshal 2Sir William Salmond. has also I "flown” up to near the top of the R.A.F. ladder —he is C.O. R.A.F. in | India. N.S.W. Aero Club I Xot only flying, but tennis and golf, j are also provided for members of ihr- ! Aero Club at Mascot, Sydney. The I golf links are under construction now. and should be completed by the end of this month. It is also anticipated that within the next few weeks extensions costing £ 2,000 will be commenced on the* club house in the form of bedrooms, caretaker’s quarters, and additional locker and shower rooms. One hundred and over flying hours a week! This is the record established now for many weeks past by the N.S.W. Aero Club. A few weeks ago club machines were in the air for 107 hours. The record week for the club stands at 121 hours—a world’s club record. The Air-Cooled Engine Tlio continued activity in transoceanic flight, both Atlantic and Pacific, has done much to stimulate the interest of motor-car owners in the design and the special peculiarities of airplanes. Ono of th features is the fact that airplane motors are aircooled. Possibly the most common conception of air-cooling in an airplane is that the cylinders whirl around. This is not true, as the engines used on the cross-ocean flights have all been fixed .radials, deriving their cooling

current from the propeller keyed to the crankshaft in much the same man- j ner that the motor-car engine gets its j cooling draught from a fan, likewise keyed to the shaft. Perhaps the public is confused by j the name ‘'Whirlwind." but it should be remembered that the Wright people likewise make a “Cyclone” engine which is air cooled, and that the Pratt and Whitney Company manufactures both a “Wasp” and a Hornet" air cooled engine. The names are purely : for identifying purposes and have | nothing to do with the methods of ; operation. Mail Planes in U.S.A. In America air mail routes, totalling ! nearly 10,000 miles, are now in operaj tion, and a huge transcontinental air i mail plan is in course of preparation, under the technical advice of Colonel ; Lindbergh. Air mail planes, owned 1 and operated by civilian contractors now fly more than 22,000 miles daily Wireless An Essential The appointment of a New Zealander jto the Southern Cross as wireless j operator emphasises the vital, importi ance of radio to trans-oceanic flights. ! Perhaps the outstanding lesson of the trails-Pacific flight is the value of radio transmitting and receiving apparatus on a long air journey. It is safe to prophecy that no future oversea voyage will be made without radio —unless the trip is for the purpose of demonstrating how light an airplane may travel. It is true that Charles A. Lindbergh, conqueror of the Atlantic in a solo flight flew 40,000 miles without carrying radio. Clarence Chamberlin, the American who flew across the Atlantic and landed in Germany, carried no radio, though he had intended to do so originally. Hut this is what he says: "If I should ever attempt to repeat the Berlin flight in the future, I would insist that the plane be equipped with adequate radio installation. By ‘adequate’ I mean a transmitter with a sending radius of 500 miles or more.” Now, the transmitting apparatus used by James Warner, on the flight from San Francisco to Brisbane, was first picked up at a distance of about 5,400 miles by the radio engineers at Garden Island. Shortly afterwards Australian amateurs who had been combing the ether pulled in the Southern Cross. From that time onward until the plane reached Brisbane, practically every owner of a receiving set in Australia and New Zealand was in direct touch with the plane. “The development of aviation awaits the development of radio,” said Clarence Chamberlin recently. “Even if flying conditions were almost excellent radio would make long-distance flights more practicable; but when flights must be made through storm, fog, heavy weather and darkness, and when sudden changes of weather may be encountered at any time during the flight, radio is almost indispensable. “Before commercial aviation in America can maintain schedules that are comparable with those of railroads, aviation must be linked with radio. We have the pilots, we have the planes; all we need is radio.”