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Swings and Roundabouts

Swings and Roundabouts Aircraft Engineering Swings and Roundabouts is concerned, though how they compare for ship-board use with catapults and 'assisters' we have insufficient information to say. For HER E is considerable interest at the present time in the vari­ the specific aim of shortening the take-off run rockets have the great ous means of obtaining a temporary increase in aeroplane advantage of ceasing to exist as an excrescence as soon as they are performance for some special purpose and the paper by M R fired. So far as a momentary acceleration of speed or rate of climb A. D. BAXTER in this issue on power boosting by re-heat is, therefore, in combat aeroplanes is concerned the relative merits of rockets and timely. Actually, it is based on experiments and experiences with water injection are a matter for calculation since in cither case extra Wellands in Meteors to meet the threat of the German V-1 missiles weight or drag-arousing encumbrances have to be carried around and so concerns itself only with work done four years ago behind the which reduce the overall performance of the aeroplane. Re-heating veil of secrecy imposed by war conditions;details of which it has not of a jet engine also involves increase of weight, particularly if the been thought politic to release sooner. It is none the less interesting, desirable feature of a variable-area orifice is incorporated, so that here not only because it deals with principles, which do not change, and again, as in all such aids, a price has to be paid. The increased fuel shows how the first problems were tackled and difficulties overcome, consumption during the period of operation of the engine boosting but also because it establishes the fact that, as in so many other device, whatever it may be, is another penalty which is more serious matters to do with aviation, it was the engineers of Great Britain and in the case of the jet than the piston engine in view of its already high nowhere else who pioneered the way into a then unknown develop­ ratio in this respect. ment of the jet engine—which was itself at that time a comparatively Considering the whole subject in all its aspects there are clearly a new type of power plant evolved in this country. number of matters to be taken into account and M R BAXTER'S paper A little over two years ago, in October 1946 to be precise, we pub­ is useful in giving an opportunity for ventilating them. We should lished an article by M R E. P. HAWTHORNE on a related device for ob­ welcome any further contributions readers may care to send us, taining a momentary increase in the power of, this time, the piston whether in the form of correspondence or articles giving information engine by the injection of oxygen or water. on experience with recent developments. Transatlantic Enterprise A Random Reflexion So far as England was concerned, both systems seemed for a time to be discarded and it was, we believe we are right in saying, in It is an ironical attribute of human nature that as soon as a new America that they were taken up again and reintroduced—by no mechanical device is invented and developed to the practical stage means the first examples of the practical value of novelties originally —particularly when, as in the case of the jet engine, it offers advan­ evolved over here being subsequently appreciated and the devices tages of simplicity and a fewer number of working parts compared developed across the Atlantic. with its predecessor, in this instance the piston engine—someone Under pressure of the urge for occasional powers of extra accelera­ always seems to look round for complexities that can be introduced tion to meet exceptional conditions or circumstances a number of into it. It is, we suppose, desirable in the sense that it is perhaps the methods of boosting performance, either, as in the two instances we result of a striving after better and still better tilings—or at any rate have given, in the engine or directly in the aeroplane itself, have that is usually the ostensible justification claimed for the search for emerged in recent years. The addition of rockets, more particularly improvement. nowadays for assisted take-off, is an example of the latter form of application. Another, which may perhaps rather be considered as between the two, is the method recently applied to at any rate one A Literary Parallel aeroplane in the United States of adding a jet engine, purely for ex­ At the same time, one cannot help wondering sometimes if there is ceptional use, to a machine normally powered by piston engines. not some strange perversity in man's mind which makes him—like This, we confess, seems to us so extravagant in conception as to Nature, abhorrent of a vacuum—in some twisted way allergic to the amount almost to a reductio ad absurdum. simple. It finds expression in its highest, or at any rate most fully developed, form in the Civil Servant's dislike of the straightforward An Independent Survey phrase which eggs him on to the invention of ever more tortuous and The pros and cons of the various methods, with particular refer­ complex circumlocutions. But we cannot help feeling that in many ence to the take-off of commercial aircraft, were examined and ad­ instances the engineer suffers from a somewhat similar twist and the mere sight of a straightforward piece of machinery engenders in him mirably summed up by MR HULS—who, incidentally, makes a fur­ a desire to introduce into it a complication merely—though doubt­ ther contribution on an interesting point in connexion with down- less as a rule unconsciously—to give himself the pleasure of finding wash in this issue—in an article which we printed in December 1946. He then came to the conclusion, which is we think now universally a solution of the fresh problems he has introduced. agreed, that for this special purpose rockets have the advantage over We are not, let us hasten to disarm criticism by declaring, saying all other methods. The same arguments, we conceive, apply in re­ that these reflexions apply directly to the matter of re-heating jet gard to military aeroplanes so far as improving take-off performance engines. It is just the fact that—well, it always seems to happen. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology Emerald Publishing

Swings and Roundabouts

Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology , Volume 20 (12): 1 – Dec 1, 1948
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Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
Copyright © Emerald Group Publishing Limited
ISSN
0002-2667
DOI
10.1108/eb031696
Publisher site
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Abstract

Aircraft Engineering Swings and Roundabouts is concerned, though how they compare for ship-board use with catapults and 'assisters' we have insufficient information to say. For HER E is considerable interest at the present time in the vari­ the specific aim of shortening the take-off run rockets have the great ous means of obtaining a temporary increase in aeroplane advantage of ceasing to exist as an excrescence as soon as they are performance for some special purpose and the paper by M R fired. So far as a momentary acceleration of speed or rate of climb A. D. BAXTER in this issue on power boosting by re-heat is, therefore, in combat aeroplanes is concerned the relative merits of rockets and timely. Actually, it is based on experiments and experiences with water injection are a matter for calculation since in cither case extra Wellands in Meteors to meet the threat of the German V-1 missiles weight or drag-arousing encumbrances have to be carried around and so concerns itself only with work done four years ago behind the which reduce the overall performance of the aeroplane. Re-heating veil of secrecy imposed by war conditions;details of which it has not of a jet engine also involves increase of weight, particularly if the been thought politic to release sooner. It is none the less interesting, desirable feature of a variable-area orifice is incorporated, so that here not only because it deals with principles, which do not change, and again, as in all such aids, a price has to be paid. The increased fuel shows how the first problems were tackled and difficulties overcome, consumption during the period of operation of the engine boosting but also because it establishes the fact that, as in so many other device, whatever it may be, is another penalty which is more serious matters to do with aviation, it was the engineers of Great Britain and in the case of the jet than the piston engine in view of its already high nowhere else who pioneered the way into a then unknown develop­ ratio in this respect. ment of the jet engine—which was itself at that time a comparatively Considering the whole subject in all its aspects there are clearly a new type of power plant evolved in this country. number of matters to be taken into account and M R BAXTER'S paper A little over two years ago, in October 1946 to be precise, we pub­ is useful in giving an opportunity for ventilating them. We should lished an article by M R E. P. HAWTHORNE on a related device for ob­ welcome any further contributions readers may care to send us, taining a momentary increase in the power of, this time, the piston whether in the form of correspondence or articles giving information engine by the injection of oxygen or water. on experience with recent developments. Transatlantic Enterprise A Random Reflexion So far as England was concerned, both systems seemed for a time to be discarded and it was, we believe we are right in saying, in It is an ironical attribute of human nature that as soon as a new America that they were taken up again and reintroduced—by no mechanical device is invented and developed to the practical stage means the first examples of the practical value of novelties originally —particularly when, as in the case of the jet engine, it offers advan­ evolved over here being subsequently appreciated and the devices tages of simplicity and a fewer number of working parts compared developed across the Atlantic. with its predecessor, in this instance the piston engine—someone Under pressure of the urge for occasional powers of extra accelera­ always seems to look round for complexities that can be introduced tion to meet exceptional conditions or circumstances a number of into it. It is, we suppose, desirable in the sense that it is perhaps the methods of boosting performance, either, as in the two instances we result of a striving after better and still better tilings—or at any rate have given, in the engine or directly in the aeroplane itself, have that is usually the ostensible justification claimed for the search for emerged in recent years. The addition of rockets, more particularly improvement. nowadays for assisted take-off, is an example of the latter form of application. Another, which may perhaps rather be considered as between the two, is the method recently applied to at any rate one A Literary Parallel aeroplane in the United States of adding a jet engine, purely for ex­ At the same time, one cannot help wondering sometimes if there is ceptional use, to a machine normally powered by piston engines. not some strange perversity in man's mind which makes him—like This, we confess, seems to us so extravagant in conception as to Nature, abhorrent of a vacuum—in some twisted way allergic to the amount almost to a reductio ad absurdum. simple. It finds expression in its highest, or at any rate most fully developed, form in the Civil Servant's dislike of the straightforward An Independent Survey phrase which eggs him on to the invention of ever more tortuous and The pros and cons of the various methods, with particular refer­ complex circumlocutions. But we cannot help feeling that in many ence to the take-off of commercial aircraft, were examined and ad­ instances the engineer suffers from a somewhat similar twist and the mere sight of a straightforward piece of machinery engenders in him mirably summed up by MR HULS—who, incidentally, makes a fur­ a desire to introduce into it a complication merely—though doubt­ ther contribution on an interesting point in connexion with down- less as a rule unconsciously—to give himself the pleasure of finding wash in this issue—in an article which we printed in December 1946. He then came to the conclusion, which is we think now universally a solution of the fresh problems he has introduced. agreed, that for this special purpose rockets have the advantage over We are not, let us hasten to disarm criticism by declaring, saying all other methods. The same arguments, we conceive, apply in re­ that these reflexions apply directly to the matter of re-heating jet gard to military aeroplanes so far as improving take-off performance engines. It is just the fact that—well, it always seems to happen.

Journal

Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology – Emerald Publishing

Published: Dec 1, 1948

There are no references for this article.