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fandomhigh2008-11-06 06:56 pm
crazypilotman.livejournal.com) wrote in fandomhigh2008-11-06 06:56 pm
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Aviation & Avionics, Thursday November 6
Murdock arrived to class a few minutes late. He just grinned at his students, "Had a slight dog problem this morning."
Trying to contain three dogs at once wasn't necessarily a good idea.
"I was thinking about how class is going and thought maybe a discussion of some specific aircraft and how they affected the history of aviation is in order."
With that, he turned to the blackboard and began writing.
(ocd up!in min sorry for the lateness, RL went crazy)
Trying to contain three dogs at once wasn't necessarily a good idea.
"I was thinking about how class is going and thought maybe a discussion of some specific aircraft and how they affected the history of aviation is in order."
With that, he turned to the blackboard and began writing.
(ocd up!
Sign In.
Re: Sign In.
Re: Sign In.
Re: Sign In.
Re: Sign In.
Quality Class Time
No naughty mags! It is school, after all.
Re: Quality Class Time
Ze Lecture.
Aren't you happy?
Re: Ze Lecture.
Lindbergh felt that multiple engines resulted in a greater chance of failure while a single-engine design would give him greater range. To increase fuel efficiency, the Spirit of St. Louis was also one of the most advanced and aerodynamically streamlined designs of its era. The large main fuel tank was placed in the forward section of the fuselage, in front of the pilot, which improved the center of gravity. Locating fuel tanks at the front reduced the risk of the pilot being crushed to death in crash, thus there was no front windshield, and the pilot's view was limited to the side windows. A periscope was installed to provide a forward view, as a precaution against hitting ship masts, trees, or structures while flying at low altitude; however, it is unclear whether the periscope was used during the flight. Lindbergh also used special navigation instruments such as the Earth Inductor Compass as its main instrument, allowing Lindbergh to navigate while taking account of the magnetic declination of the earth.
Travel Air's big success was the Model R - commonly called the 'Mystery S' (http://www.aviation-history.com/travelair/mystery.html), a racing ship designed by two of Travel Air's engineers, Herb Rawdon and Walter Burnham, in their spare time. The sleek little black and red Model-R mono-plane was flown to Cleveland from Wichita just before the 1929 National Air Races and was immediately placed in a hangar and covered with a canvas tarp. This secrecy resulted in the plane being nicknamed the 'Mystery Ship'. The striking red and black aircraft appeared in the grand finale race, the highlight of the closed course races. The Mystery Ship was piloted by Doug Davis and he actually took the lead twice, Davis cut a pylon on the second lap, re-circled it, as the rules required, and because he momentarily blacked out in the tight turn, circled it again. By this time Davis had been passed by the rest of the field, but took the lead again and easily won the race at an average speed of 194.9 mph. His fastest lap was 208.69 mph and he was doing 235 in the straight aways; faster than any other civilian airplane had ever flown in the U.S.
Some of the most famous racing planes designed and built in the 1930's, were the Gee Bees. (http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Explorers_Record_Setters_and_Daredevils/Gee_Bees/EX23.htm) Built by the Granville brothers of the Granville Brothers Aircraft Company, Springfield, Massachusetts. Their airplanes won many races and set new speed records. Their racing aircraft made use of new and bold design concepts to get as much speed as possible. The brothers built many racing planes. Their most notorious was the Gee Bee Super Sportster, models R-1 and R-2. James Doolittle won the 1932 Thompson Trophy race flying a Gee Bee R-1 at a speed of 252.686 miles per hour.
Re: Ze Lecture.
The Piper Cub became the primary trainer aircraft of the CPTP. Seventy-five percent of all new pilots in the CPTP were trained in Cubs. Civilian-owned Cubs joined the war effort as part of the newly formed Civil Air Patrol, patrolling the Eastern Seaboard and Gulf Coast in a constant search for German U-boats and survivors of U-boat attacks. Piper developed a military variant, collectively nicknamed 'Grasshoppers' and was used extensively in World War II for reconnaissance, transporting supplies and medical evacuation.
Entering service on 22 May 1933, a Boeing Air Transport 247D set a cross-country record pace of 19½ hours on its San Francisco to New York inaugural flight. The Boeing Model 247 (http://www.aviation-history.com/boeing/247.html) was an early airliner, considered the first such aircraft to fully incorporate advances such as all-metal, anodized aluminum construction, a fully cantilevered wing, wing flaps and retractable landing gear.
Other advanced features included control-surface trim tabs, an autopilot, and deicing boots for the wings and tailplane. The 247 first flew on 8 February 1933, and entered service later that year. Subsequently, engines and airframes became larger, and four-engine designs emerged, but no significant changes to this basic formula appeared until cabin pressurization and high-altitude flight were introduced in the early 1940s with the first pressurized airliner, the 307 Stratoliner.
The Douglas DC-3 (http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Aerospace/DC-3/Aero29.htm) is a fixed-wing, propeller-driven aircraft whose speed and range revolutionized air transport in the 1930s and 1940s. Because of its lasting impact on the airline industry and World War II, it is generally regarded as one of the most significant transport aircraft ever made.
The DC-3 was engineered and first flew on 17 December 1935. The amenities of the DC-3 popularized air travel in the United States. With only three refueling stops, eastbound transcontinental flights across the U.S. taking approximately 15 hours became possible. Westbound trips took 17 hours 30 minutes due to typical prevailing headwinds, still a significant improvement over the competing Boeing 247.
During World War II, many civilian DC-3s were drafted for the war effort and just over 10,000 US military versions of the DC-3 were built. The armed forces of many countries used the DC-3 and its military variants for the transport of troops, cargo and wounded. After the war, thousands of surplus craft were converted to civil service and became the standard equipment of almost all the world's airlines, remaining in front line service for many years. The ready availability of ex-military examples of this cheap, easily-maintained aircraft jump-started the worldwide, post-war air transport industry.
Numerous attempts were made to design a 'DC-3 replacement', over the next three decades, but no single type could match the versatility, rugged reliability and economy of the DC-3 and it remained a significant part of air transport systems, well into the 1970s. Its ability to take off and land on grass or dirt runways also makes it popular in developing countries, where the runways may not always be a paved surface.
Talk to Murdock
He hopes, anyway.
OOC