PROGRESS IN AVIATION.

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1041, 4 August 1930, Page 8

PROGRESS IN AVIATION.

GROWING POPULARITY DUE TO LIGHT ’PLANE FUTURE OF THE AIRSHIP “Any physically fit young nu n woman can learn to fly in very utile more time than it takes to learn to drive a car, and a modern light air. plane docs not cost a great deal more to purchase and maintain than a good motor-car,” said Squadron-Leader L. Isitt, in an address at the Method!** Mission brotherhood meeting held yesterday afternoon. “By means of the aero clubs, flying has been brought within the reach of the majority of people, while the average pupil should qualify for an “alicence after six to eight hours* dual instruction, and about live hours* solo'’ continued the speaker. It had been largely due to the efforts of Sir Godfrer Salmond that the modern light airplane, one of the most interesting types of aircraft, had been evolved. He had instituted competitions among airplane manufacturers of England to produce a light machine suitable for civil use. As a result, a number of aircraft were built with engines ranging from three to 15 horse power, but these had too low a speed, their endurance was too small, and It took a very skilfu! pilot to fly them. MOTH DEVELOPMENT One inventor. Captain G. De Havilland, produced a light plane with an 80 h.p. engine and it was from this that the popular Gipsy Moth had developer. It was evident. said SquadronLeader Isitt. that had aviation been left to develop itself, things would be different today, but the Great War turned aircraft designers toward performance at any cost, regardless of •x'onomy. Machines were developed with performance uppermost in the minds of the designers and it difficult to say whether the aviation world lost or gained by this move. “The great advances in aviation from 1912 to the present day will be apparent from the fact that thSchneider Cup race in 1913 was won by a Sopwitli machine with a IW* horse-power engine at 45.7 miles an hour, and last year the race wa.i won at more than 300 miles an hour.”

KNOWLEDGE OF AERODYNAMICS A greatly improved knowledge of aerodynamics had made possible lh" great advances in aviation, while the progress in engineering had aJ 'so playec a great part. The old type of aero engine weighed between three and seven pounds a horse-power developed, while today the average **ngioweighed about one pound a horsepower* and the best engir es somewhere about 71b a horse-power. “I feel that the airship will be ti means of Conveyance over long oces" routes in the future, but there are many difficulties yet to be overcome,” continued the speaker. Little wa* heard of the lighter-than-air craft ii. New Zealand, but those who decried this class should remember that airships today had reached the sam stage in their development that airplanes had before the war. The R and R 34, which were built during the war, were the immediate forerunners of the RIOO and RlOl, which were started in 1924 and should have been finished in 1928. The delay was occasioned by the failure of heavy-oil engines to develop as fast as had be**n expected, with the result that petrol engines had been installed in the R3O while alterations were at present being made to the KlOl to enable her to carry heavy-oil engines. The two airships were of a purely experiment.*! nature and there were plans for building a ship twice the size of the present ones.