Jan 1946 Archive pollo gloster meteor engines tbles

THE ENGINEER ta.nk design which in one way or other does no industrial experience from which to draw not c la sh with other aspects. The result of for the design of the tank. Hence, develop- these clashes is that , the final design can never ment facilities specifically for fi g hting equip- be bett er than a compromise, and a ny corn- ment must be maintained and utilised vigor- promise leads to differences of opinion. If ously if we are to keep in the forefront in it is remembered that ther e is no parallel in suoh matter s and to give the designers even industr y to the relatively high speed yet a reasonable chance of meeting th e acce lerated very heavily tra cked armoured fighting demands which war , or the fear of war , vehicle, it will be appreciated that there is inevitably bring. Aeronautics 1945 • Ill No. I Military Aircraft H AD hostilities a. littl e longer than they did, we would undoubtedly ha ve seen the introduction on a large scale by all th e belligera.nts of some striking development s in the design of military aircraft, notably a. rapidly increasing employment of jet propulsion for both bombers and fighters. • uncerta inty following th e iutroductiou of the atomic bomb. Th e world is a.t a sol emn moment in i t::; hi s tory . If , unhappily, the efforts now being made to restrict or outlaw the use . of that terrible mi ssile should fail, the consequences for humanity will dire. Incid entall y, the whole futur e of military aircraft design will be great ly affected. With a. single li ght aircraft able to carr y as much • JAN. 4, 1946 evolution, and yet hes itating to commit it se lf l est the coming of the atomic bomb should r ender all improveme nts obsolete before th ey can be brought fully int o serv ice. Th e year may be said to be c hi e fly notabl e as marking. the fulfilm ent of th e prolonged effor ts to apply th e j et propulsion system successfully to mili tary aircraft. In this country chief public int erest was focussed on the Gloater " Meteor " and th e de H a. villa.nd " Va.mpire " jet-prop elled fighters. Other firms, notabl y the Br istol Company, ar e, however, known to be well ad vanced wi th the development of similar a ir c raft Th e Gloster ' ' Meteor " IV on November 7th a.t H e rn e Bay set up a new world speed record by travelling at an average of 606 m p.h. on four, runs ov er the trial courl:!e. Th e previow; int ernat ionally recognit ;ed record wal'> 460 m.p.h., a.nd wa. s held by Genna.ny. Th <, " Meteor" IV is in operational service with the R.A.F. as a single-seater fighter, and if-i driven by two Rolls-Royce " De rwent" V j ot eng in es. Duri ng the record-breaking flight the engines were not allowed to develop their full power . Th e fli ght is, in fa c t, claimed t o hav e been mad e und er almost "cruising " GLOSTER .. METEOR" SINGLE- SEAT JET-PROPELLED FIGHTER As it wa s, the wars ended before these development s co uld be fully deployed, with the res ult that the aircraft in use during 1945 were in the main simply advanced typ es of tho se in service or a. bout to go into service in the autumn of 1939. In this country, for in stance, we continued to the end to place main reliance upon the " Lancaster " a nd " Halifax" bombers, " Sunderland" flying boats, and " Spitfire " and " Mosquito " fighters, all of them of pr e-war origin, although by successive modifi cat ions they had been great ly improved in performance. The " Hurricane " fighter h ad dropped out of the running, but it s place had been taken by two direct descendant s, the " Temp es t" and the '' Typhoon .'' In normal peacetime circums tan ces a P .e riod of about five years is generally co n- sidered to be the average int erval ela.p s in<>' between the conception of a new design a nd its produc ti on i.J;l quantity. In wartime an impetus towards shortening that interval exists, but it is co unt era cted by other factor s, and on the whole it is probable that the interval remains much th e same. Thus the wars ended at a time when an influx of new designs, begun as a. result of operational experience in their earlier s tages, was due and wa.s taking pla ce. From the information released concerning the se new aircraft it might be p ol:ls ible to obtain s0me idea of'th e probable trend of design during th e next few ye ar s. Any de du ct ions under thi s h ead mu st , however, be qualified by a. lar ge measure of des tructive energy as was released during a " thousand-bo mber" raid in the lat e h os - tilities, bombers and bombing ta cti cs as we have known them will become outmod ed . And if in s tead of transporting the atomic explosive in an aircraft it is, as it might well be, carried in a long-range rocket, the inter- • co nditions. The performan ce of the " Vam - pire " ha s not yet b een o ffi cially di sclosed. It is driven by a single de Ha. villa nd "Goblin" jet engine, and its speed is stated to be in the neighbourhood of 540 m.p.h. A na va l version of " Va.mpire "has been pr odu ced. Littl e is known concerning oth er Briti sh • ME 262A SINGLE- SEAT JET-PROPELLED FIGHTER ceptor fi g ht er class of aircraft will bec ome archai c. In the::;e c ir cumstances we have the st rang e spectacle of military aeronautical design ready. to rea p all the fruits of six years of war e xpen ence and to e nt er a new phase in it s now being developed, but 1t may be s urnnsed th at thi s co untry is not lagging behind the s tage of development reached in Gennany at the e nd of the war. How fa.: th e ene my had proceeded with jet propuls1on was fully disclosed by th e Air

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Jan 1946 Archive pollo gloster meteor engines tbles