Aircraft technical Basics: Introduction to Airplanes - Navy Training Courses Edition of 1944: Chapter 1 - Flight

CHAPTER 1 - FLIGHT

ROUTINE STUFF

You're going for a ride. Zip up your flight jacket and fasten the chin strap on your leather helmet. It quite likely will be cold up yonder. And don't forget a parachute. That's a "must." Before the hop is finished you'll be flying over water, too, so grab a "Mae West" out of the locker before you leave.

The ground crew rolls a trim little trainer onto the apron. That's your baby. The plane captain - Mr. Big of the ground crew - checks the inspection sheet, takes a look at the oil level in the tank, hops into the cockpit, sets the parking brakes, unlocks the surface controls, and makes doubly sure the ignition switch is off. Is there plenty of fuel? There must be, for he's getting ready to warm her up.

A member of the ground crew steps up at the plane captain's signal and turns the propeller by hand a. couple of times. Then he climbs to the wing walkway and cranks the starter flywheel to set it spinning. Mr. Big, still in the cockpit, sets the engine controls. When all's clear, he engages the starter. The engine starts to purr. After a few moments he waves in your direction that everything's ready.

You scramble into the back seat of the airplane. The plane captain steps out of the cockpit and the pilot steps in. Before you know it you're taxiing off the apron and onto the runway. The pilot revs his engine from a purr to a roar. You're moving - skimming the ground - pulling up into a smooth take-off. You circle the field and soar into the blue highway of the air.

Routine stuff, did you say? Maybe so. But nobody in the history of the WORLD had ever done it before 1903, which wasn't very long ago as history runs.

DREAM OF THE AGES

Man first started dreaming about flying ages ago. Back in Greek mythology there was a sculptor named Daedalus who supposedly made wings of wax with which he and his son flew out of the concentration camp where an unfriendly king had imprisoned them. You aren't required to believe this legend. It just goes to show you that folks were THINKING OF AVIATION long before your great-granddad's day.

As far as the basic principles of flying were concerned, some of the so-called dreamers of the past were pretty much on the beam with their thinking. Leonardo da Vinci, who is known best as a great artist of the Fifteenth Century, was really quite some shakes as a scientist and inventor. Among other things, he constructed a set of working plans for an airplane which would have flown with the right sort of engine. Many others made early efforts to fly with wings flapped by manpower, but they didn't work. The big hitch was the inability to propel such flying machines.

It was a big laugh to most people - the flyingmachine notion. So it took a lot of gumption for any serious inventor to stick to his guns and refuse to give up in the face of endless ridicule. Even some of the most famous scientists said, "It is physically impossible to build such a contraption." And they "proved" their profound pronouncements with formulas and figures.

For centuries the facts seemed to back up the scoffers. The dreamers, who believed that man would some day fly, were forced to be content with their dreams. In 1781, however, two Frenchmen named Montgolfier made a public demonstration of a flying balloon. It got its lifting power from hot air. The balloon, without ballast, rose to about 6,000 feet and drifted a mile and a half before descending. Later that same year another French pair made the first balloon flight as passengers. THE LID WAS OFF. Man had discovered one way of getting off the ground.

Few people played around with balloons for the next 60 years, experimenting with hydrogen and with gas from city gas mains, as well as with hot air, as a means of getting lift. All this, of course, came under the heading of lighter-than-air aviation. Very little was being done toward the development of heavier-than-air craft.

It wasn't until around 1846 that two English inventors, Henson and Stringfellow, built a successful miniature steam-driven airplane. This revolutionary machine, which weighed 6 1/4 pounds fully loaded with water and fuel, flew approximately 40 yards on its first test. It thus became the first power-driven airplane to fly.

However, it really was little more than a gadget, and couldn't have carried a pilot bigger than Mickey Mouse.

For reasons unknown, nobody was very excited about this 1846 model, and another 50 years went by before the next noteworthy step was taken. In 1896 Professor Samuel P. Langley, an American, brought forth a steam-driven affair having a 13-foot wing span and weighing 30 pounds. Langley had something in this package that previous flying machines had lacked - AN ENGINE WITH OOMPH. His model showed splendid stability and made a number of interesting flights.

You'd have thought that Langley's success with his model airplane would have squelched the skeptics. But most people were still far from being convinced that anybody would ever build a contraption that would carry a man during flight. Congress apparently believed it was possible, however, and appropriated $50,000 to enable the Professor to build a man-carrying airplane. Langley built a machine, but it didn't fly successfully. Before further trials could be made, Langley died.

Meanwhile, quite a number of people in various parts of the world were experimenting with gliders. Otto Lillienthal, in Germany, was one of the outstanding glider pioneers. In fact, one of the contrivances he built was so well thought out that a little two-horsepower engine would have kept it up in the air - ONLY he didn't have such an engine. Then there were the Wright brothers- Orville and Wilbur - of Dayton. Ohio. They hit the JACK POT.

They went to Kitty Hawk, N. C., in 1900 to experiment with some gliders they had built. WHY did they pick Kitty Hawk? There was a fine slope called Kill Devil Hill at this North Carolina town - just right for gliding. Moreover, the prevailing wind there was unusually steady, and generally in the right direction for good glider flights.

For three seasons the Wrights studied the behavior of their gliders, made improvements, and perfected their skill in piloting. Finally they had collected enough dope on gliding to try the pay-off stunt that was in the back of their minds all the time. In 1903 they constructed an airplane with a 16-horsepower engine driving 2 propellers. It was a rickety, odd-looking device by modern standards - resembling an overgrown kite. But it flew ! With Orville Wright inside its maze of wires and braces, the airplane LEFT THE GROUND, STAYED ALOFT 12 SECONDS, AND FLEW A DISTANCE OF 120 FEET. MAN HAD CONQUERED THE AIR!

The famous Kitty Hawk incident might have taken place, quite comfortably and with space to spare, on the deck of a modern carrier. It was a short flight. But the same principles which lifted the first awkward airplane into the air enable today's giants to span the seven seas.

TYPES OF AIRPLANES

Aviation has come a long way since the Wright brothers proved to the world that man could fly. Present-day types of airplanes can be counted in the hundreds. You see some of them in figure 1.

One way of classifying airplanes is by the number of wings. The MONOPLANE has one wing. The BIPLANE has two - one above the other.

Figure 1

Figure 1a

Monoplanes are further described by the location of the wing. On a PARASOL MONOPLANE the wing is entirely above the rest of the airplane, and is supported by means of struts. If the wing is attached to the top surface of the fuselage, the air-plane is called a HIGH-WING MONOPLANE. The MID-WING MONOPLANE has the wing attached near the center of the fuselage. The LOW-WING MONO-PLANE carries the wing at or near the bottom of the fuselage.

Another way to classify airplanes is by the number of engines and where they are placed.

Thus you have SINGLE-ENGINE, TWlN-ENGINE, and MULTI-ENGINE airplanes. Few airplanes made today, except those for experimental purposes, have more than four engines.

Airplanes with propellers located in front of the engines are called TRACTORS. If the propellers are behind the engines, the airplanes are called PUSHERS. The majority of airplanes in use now are the tractor type.

Landing gear gives you still another way of classifying airplanes. LANDPLANES are equipped with wheels, either fixed or retractable, for taking off and landing on airports or carriers. SEA-PLANES and FLYING BOATS take off and land on the water, and are equipped with flotation gear. The flying boat alights on its hull, which is simply the bottom of its fuselage. The seaplane has one or more floats attached below it. On some airplanes the floats can be interchanged with landing wheels. AMPHIBIANS have both wheels and hulls (or floats) for alighting on either land or water.

In the Navy, airplanes are classified according to their purpose. There are TRAINERS and TRANSPORTS, OBSERVATION SCOUTS, SCOUT BOMBERS, FIGHTERS, TORPEDO BOMBERS, and PATROL BOMBERS. A system of designation symbols is used to distinguish Navy airplanes. When you know this system you can tell the manufacturer, the model, and the purpose of the airplane from its symbol.

AUTOGIROS and HELICOPTERS are in a class by themselves. The autogiro obtains its support from wings which rotate above the rest of the airplane. This rotation is produced by the forward motion of the autogiro through the air. The helicopter also gets its lift from rotating wings above the fuselage, but its wings are engine-driven. The helicopter can rise and descend vertically, go backward or forward, or hover over one point as long as your please. The FLYING WING is still in the experimental stage.