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November 2 to December 1 Commander D. B. Beary, U. S. Navy Lieutenant Commander D. C. Ramsey, U. S. Navy
and
Professor Henry Bluestone, U. S. Naval Academy
United States
Coast Guard Academy................................................................................................................... 109
Broad Fleet Reorganization to Follow Concentration on April 1.............................. 110
Vessels under Construction................................................................................................................. Ill
Great Britain
Officers for the Navy.............................................................................................. Ill
Ships Nearing Completion................................................................................................................ 112
France
New Supersubmarine......................................................................................................................... 112
Reorganization of the Technical Board................................................................... 112
Germany
Six Years’ Construction Program........................................................................... 113
Turkey
The Yavouz Sultan Selim................................................................................................................... 114
The Maya............................................................................................................................................... 114
Merchant Marine
Foreign Built Vessels for American Companies.................................................... 114
Lloyd’s Register Annual Report............................................................................. 116
Engineering
Submarine Cables.............................................................................................................................. 117
The Dardelet Self-Locking Screw Thread...................................................................................... 119
Aviation
The Cairo-Cape Town Air Route............................................................................ 119
Aviation Training in Germany............................................................................... 120
New British Flying Boat.................................................................................................................... 121
The Air Ministry’s Future..................................................................................... 122
New Airplane Propeller Construction Methods....................................................... 122
The Fleet Air Arm............................................................................................................................... 124
Navy Views on Low-Wing Monoplane Types............................................................ 124
Miscellaneous
The Freedom of the Seas................................................................................................................... 125
The Role of the Destroyer.................................................................................................................. 127
UNITED STATES
Coast Guard Academy
To graduate young men with sound bodies, stout hearts, and alert minds, with a liking for the sea and its lore, and with that high sense of honor, loyalty, and obedience which goes with trained initiative and leadership; well grounded in seamanship, the sciences, and the amenities, and strong in the resolve to be worthy of the traditions of the commissioned officers in the United States Coast Guard in the service of their country and humanity, is the mission of the Academy.
Merchant Marine Bulletin, November. By George H. Toole.—The important work of training commissioned officers for the United States Coast Guard is carried on at the Coast Guard Academy at New London, Connecticut, an institution similar in many respects to the Naval Academy at Annapolis and the Military Academy at West Point. The wide range of activity of the Coast Guard demands officers of the highest type, versatile men capable of meeting emergencies of the most diversified character, so that the standards of this institution are unusually high. The cadets are given a comprehensive course which fits them to carry out the many duties assigned to this branch of the service.
Although the Coast Guard service was started in 1790, no provision was made at that time for the training of officers for this service. Commissioned officers were chosen from among those who had served in the Navy and the merchant marine until 1876, when Congress made provision for a two- year course of training. The first school was established at New Bedford, Massachusetts, and consisted of a training ship, the topsail schooner Dobbin, and a drill shed and rigging loft ashore. The Chase, a bark- rigged sailing vessel built specially for the purpose, was completed in 1878 and superseded the Dobbin as the practice ship.
In 1890 it was decided to place the school at New Bedford out of commission and to fill the vacancies in the commissioned personnel by appointing graduates of the Naval Academy. This plan was abandoned in 1894, and the Chase was returned to commission as practice ship, although the shore establishment at New Bedford was given up. The Chase spent the summer season at sea, while the winters were spent in port, first at Charleston, and later at Mobile, Pensacola, and St. Petersburg. In 1900 buildings were erected and drill and recreation fields laid out at Arundel Cove, South
Baltimore, and the school became a land- faring institution.
The facilities of the school were fast proving inadequate, so in 1907 the Itasca, a steamer with auxiliary sail power, took the place of the Chase as practice ship, and in 1910 the shore-going establishment was moved from South Baltimore to Fort Trumbull, New London. In 1920, the gunboat Vicksburg, a sailing vessel with auxiliary steam power, was renamed the Alexander Hamilton, in honor of the first secretary of the treasury, whose formal recommendation led to the creation of the Coast Guard, and succeeded the Itasca as practice ship. Congress recently appropriated funds for a new Coast Guard Academy, which is to be built on the New London side of the Thames River. The new academy will be dedicated in 1931, and will be one of the finest educational institutions in the United States.
Competitive examinations, open to high school graduates, are held annually, and those who pass the mental and physical examinations are eligible for appointment as cadet. The course of instruction is at present of three years’ duration, and includes courses in English, mathematics, physics, chemistry, mechanics, ballistics, engineering, naval architecture, electricity, navigation, astronomy, international and military law, and allied subjects. Beginning with the class entering the Academy in 1931 the course of instruction will extend for four years. During the practice cruises, which take place in the summer months, the cadets visit various ports of the United States, Europe, and Africa, and are given practical instruction in seamanship, gunnery, and various other phases of their work.
The cadets who complete the course and graduate from the academy may be commissioned as ensigns in the Coast Guard, having rank with second lieutenants in the Army and ensigns in the Navy. Promotion is made by seniority through the successive grades, lieutenant (junior grade), lieutenant, lieutenant commander, commander, and captain, and in each of these grades they receive the same pay and allowances as officers of the Army and Navy of corresponding grade and have relative rank with them. The present cadet corps consists of 143 members, representing 32 states, and the faculty is composed of 21 officers and professors. The superintendent of the academy is Captain H. G. Hamlet, who is himself a graduate of the school.
Broad Fleet Reorganization to Follow Concentration on April 1.
Washington Post, November 29.—A broad reorganization of the United States fleet was announced yesterday by Secretary Adams to take effect April 1, 1931, following fleet concentration at Panama.
The new organization divides the fleet into a battle force, scouting force, submarine force, and base force, provides for a second and third in command of the fleet and makes various other administrative changes.
The major unit of the fleet will remain in command of the present commander in chief, Admiral Jehu V. Chase, whose flagship will be the battleship Texas. The cruiser Chicago, on completion in the spring, will replace the Texas.
The newly created battle force on the Pacific will be composed of battleships, cruisers, destroyers, aircraft and minecraft, which includes the aircraft at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
Admiral Frank H. Schofield, commander in chief of the battle fleet, will retain his rank but will have his title changed to commander of the battle force, becoming second in command of the fleet. His flagship will be the battleship California.
The scouting force on the Atlantic will be composed of cruisers, destroyers, aircraft, and the training squadron.
Vice Admiral Arthur T. Willard, commander of the scouting fleet, also will retain his rank, but have his title changed to commander of the scouting force, becoming third in command of the fleet. His flagship will be the battleship Arkansas until the new cruiser Augusta is completed.
The submarine force will comprise all submarines of the fleet and of the submarine bases at New London, Coco Solo, and Pearl Harbor. Rear Admiral T. C. Hart, commander of the control force, will have his title changed to command of the submarine force, retaining the submarine tender Bushnell as his flagship.
The base force will be composed of auxiliary vessels not assigned to other forces, together with combatant vessels, aircraft, and land forces assigned for service with the fleet of base defense.
Rear Admiral William D. MacDougall,
Vessels Under Construction, U. S. Navy—Progress as of October 31, 1930
|
| Per cent of Completion | • Probable & date of completion | |||
Type Number and Name | Contractor | Nov. 1, 1930 | Oct. 1, 1930 | |||
|
| Total | On ship | Total | On ship | |
Light Cruisers |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Louisville (CL28) | Puget Sound Navy Yard | 96.4 | 95.4 | 94.6 | 93.6 | 1/31/31 |
Chicago (CL29) | Mare Island Navy Yard | 95.4 | 93.7 | 93.4 | 90.5 | 3/13/31 |
Augusta (CL31) | Newport News S.B. & D.D. Co. | 91.3 | 91.3 | 88.8 | 88.8 | 3/13/31 |
New Orleans (CL32) | New York Navy Yard | 2.9 | 1.2 | 2.9 | 1.2 | 6/ 2/33 |
Portland (CL33) Astoria (CL34) | Bethlehem S.B. Corp. (Fore River) Puget Sound Navy Yard | 29.6 3.9 | 17.2 .4 | 26.2 | 15.4 | 8/15/32 10/ 2/33 |
Indianapolis (CL35) | New York Shipbuilding Co. Philadelphia Navy Yard Mare Island Navy Yard | 34.5 | 28.8 | 28.4 | 21.9 | 8/15/35 |
Minneapolis (CL36) CL38 | 1.4 | .3 | 1.1 | .2 | 3/ 2/34 2/11/34 | |
Fleet Submarines |
|
|
|
| ||
V-7 | Portsmouth Navy Yard | 17.6 | 17. | 15.5 | 15. | 8/ 1/32 |
Authorized by act of August 29, 1916.
12 Destroyers Nos. 348 to 359 inclusive—no funds for struction.
1 Transport No. 2—no funds for construction.
2 Fleet submarines Nos. 170 and 171.
Authorized by act of February 13, 1929. con- 9 Light cruisers.
1 Aircraft carrier.
1 Neff submarine No. 108—no funds for construction.
senior commander of the fleet base force, will have his title changed to commander of the base force, with the submarine tender Argonne as his flagship.
GREAT BRITAIN
Officers for the Navy
London Times, November 26.—The appointment, announced in the Times yesterday, of an Admiralty committee to consider the question of the recruitment of officers for the Royal Navy indicates a reopening of the subject which was first brought into prominence by the late Lord Fisher. His conviction was that any boy with the requisite ability and coming up to the necessary standard should have an opportunity of entry as a cadet. To this end he would have made the cost of naval education a charge on the state, as it is already in part, and would have provided scholarships whereby a boy from an elementary or secondary school might go to Osborne and Dartmouth, irrespective of the financial position of his parents.
I‘ was not merely a desire to obtain for the vy a number of picked candidates from the £°°reJ classcs which was at the back of this sug- refonT The duration and cost of a naval °wn,lg .t0 the Progress of science in the " ™uch increased, and this fact had op-
c!to™ °i!^iltrOUt a number of entries from those of a f.0r Stations had supplied cadets
the train-11 S°rt' Officers who had entered when was a two-year course in the Britan- the servir themselves_ unable to put their boys into substitute.! W1.>en ? four-year college course was less tlUlCd a5? when 14 was calculated that not than a thousand pounds was needed to be
spent on a boy for the Navy up to the time when he became a lieutenant. The objection to the proposed free education scheme was financial and not lack of sympathy in principle. Post-war conditions have, if anything, retarded its chances of adoption. The Geddes committee of 1922, for example, doubled the fees at Dartmouth College. The Admiralty have the power of admitting a certain number at reduced rates, a proportion of them being the sons of officers of the services. But the general position is that lack_ of means may, and does, keep out certain aspirants who might otherwise become useful officers. Furthermore, there has always been a strong feeling among educationists and some naval officers that the present age of entry into Dartmouth is too low. .
So important a subject as the recruitment^ of officers should naturally be reviewed from time to time in the light of experience, and no surprise was felt when in March last, during the debate on the Navy estimates, Mr. Alexander, the First Lord, after referring to the consideration which had been given to lower-deck promotions, said that he intended “to extend the inquiry to cover the whole question of the entry of cadets and officers.”
There are three main channels for the supply of naval officers at the present time. The first is via Dartmouth College, where a four-year course is provided from the age of thirteen and one-half years. Entries take place three times a year, and the fees are £150 per annum. Dartmouth was built to accommodate 600 cadets, and the average number now there is 500, and is decreasing. During the present year about 106 have been admitted, as compared with 130, 148, and 151 in the three preceding years. The second mode of entry is by a civil service examination at about the age of eighteen, held twice a year. This special entry, as it is called, was started in 1913, when it was necessary to supplement the supply of junior officers, and has worked very well in practice. The cadets have an intensive course of one year in H.M.S. Erebus at Devon- port, and reports show that with their broader outlook on life they make very suitable officers.
The vacancies offered are much fewer than via Dartmouth. For the examination to be held this month, only six executive and ten engineering cadetships are offered, or at the rate of thirty- two per annum, less than one-fourth of those at Dartmouth. A very few cadets from the nautical schools, the Conway, Worcester, and Pangbourne College, are accepted and join up with the special entries in the Erebus. It has often been advocated that the Navy might rely entirely on the entry from public schools at the age of eighteen. The Duke of Montrose put forward this view in a discussion he initiated in the House of Lords in May, 1927, but Lord Stanhope, for the Admiralty, replied that the main objection was that it was more than doubtful whether they would be able to get sufficient numbers if they relied only on one system.
The third avenue of entry to commissioned rank, from the lower deck, has two main forms: one the early selection of petty officers and men to qualify as mate or mate (E) and later as lieutenant; the other by the promotion of warrant officers in later years as a reward for meritorious service. The_ former has not yet established bona- fide promotion to the quarter deck because the candidates have either been too old to be able to reach the higher ranks, or have not had that specialist training which is in increasing demand as a qualification for advancement beyond lieutenant commander._ This branch of the subject, however, is under investigation by another committee. They are “to review the working of the system by which warrant officers, petty officers and ratings may qualify for promotion to the rank of lieutenant and above through the rate of mate, and to report whether any changes are desirable.” It will be noted that this committee is strictly a service one, as is fitting, but it may be hoped it will examine in the course of its survey the much greater opportunities open to men from the ranks in the Army and Royal Air Force.
Ships Nearing Completion
London Times, October 29.—The following list of the vessels which are expected to be completed for service in the Royal Navy during the coming twelve months: Cruiser, Exeter, at Devonport, end of June, 1931; flotilla leader, Keith, at Barrow, March; destroyers, Brilliant, Blanche, and Boreas, Tyne, February; Boadicea and Brazen, Tyne, March; Basilisk and Beagle, Clyde, March; Acheron, Southampton, uncertain (special type); sloops, Hastings, November 27, 1930; Penzance, December; Fowey, August, 1931; and Bideford, mid- November, 1931, all at Devonport; Shore- ham, at Chatham, June, 1931; submarines, Phoenix, at Birkenhead, December; Regent, Regidus, and Rover, at Barrow, November, December, and January respectively; Rainbow, at Chatham, September, 1931; destroyers for Canada, Saguenay and Skeena, at
Southampton, March and April, 1931. The total is twenty-two, all but one of which are small craft.
FRANCE
New Super submarine
Naval and Military Record, October 27.— The French submarine Prometheus was launched at Cherbourg today. She is 99 meters long, displaces 1,550 tons on the surface, and 2,000 tons under water, and carries 12 torpedo tubes, one 4-inch gun, a smaller gun, and a machine gun. She can cruise for thirty days.
France’s naval program includes twenty- five similar submarines, of which two are in the course of construction.
Reorganization of the Technical Board
Le Yacht, October 25.—Anyone having the patience to examine will surely find, in the files of the Yacht for the last twenty- five years, several articles bearing the above title. In fact, periodically, well-intentioned ministers feel the need of reorganizing the general board of the Navy with the view to making it more effective. Another effort of the same nature has just been made.
The technical board was created by an order of April 21, 1905, to replace the former board on works the existence of which dates from the middle of the last century. This board on works rendered useful service at the time when the evolution of material, rapid as it may have seemed at the time, was'still less rapid than it was going to become. On the files of this board will be found the proof that the chiefs of the old Navy, notwithstanding their naturally conservative attitude, generally judged sanely the important questions submitted to them, and that they had no fear of innovation.
However, composed exclusively of officers of a very high rank and advanced in age, the board on works was not competent to decide problems relative to new material, particularly relative to submarines. In 1903, there was added to this board, a committee on submarines composed of officers that had just been in command of such craft and engineers who had constructed and experimented with them. But the difference between the two elements was too marked: one was perhaps too old and the other a little too young. The reorganization of 1905 consisted in merging them into one under the name of naval technical board.
The technical board was divided into four sections each headed by a rear admiral: the section of high seas ships, dealing with battleships and cruisers; the section of defense ships, dealing with torpedo boats and submarines ; the permanent board on trying ships; and the board on supervision and revision of armament regulations. These two boards had already been in existence but were independent. It appeared wise to combine them under the authority of the vice admiral presiding over the technical board, in order that there be more unity of view in the conception, trial, and operation of naval material. The four sections could meet in joint sessions.
But it was not long before it was discovered that the board on armament regulations hardly had any business other than questions in which the administrative element was predominant, and that it was a useless hinderance to the work of the technical board. In 1909 autonomy was restored to this board, and at the same time the jurisdiction of the testing board was extended. Thereafter, it had absolute supervision over all trials to which new ships are subjected, including submarines which until then were not under its supervision, as well as over the local boards to which it could delegate part of its powers whenever it seemed advisable.
The president and most of the members of the testing board formed part of the technical board, but on the whole the board functioned independently. Thus things went until 1928, the date on which the minister decided to have the president of the technical board perform the duties of the president of the testing board. “Thus,” it was stated, “would be secured unity of action indispensable at present between the echnical board charged with supervising the material from the very outset when the C1-v *S C0I^cfived and the board charged W1]” supervising tests aboard the ships.”
• i ,recent reorganization has been inspired by the same conception. The testing oard becomes more than ever an emanation o the technical board, to which has again een attached the board for the supervision jm revision of armament regulations, us, according to the statement explaining e reasons for the order, “the jurisdiction
given to the president of the technical board affords him the means of supervising the execution of the successive sections of the naval program from the moment when the plans are drawn to the time when the completed units are attached to the active forces.” That would be true if this officer general held his office for a long time. But we have just seen a vice admiral leave his post at the end of hardly one year to take a command at sea; and the one succeeding him will not be able to hold the post more than two years if he holds until his age limit. It is fairly evident that an officer general reaching the top of the ranks has a broad enough experience not to need a long apprenticeship so far as material and organization are concerned. But he may be less well prepared for the discussions with the technical bodies in which continuity of life is more assured than in the General Board. Have we not seen very lately the members of the General Board give each a different answer when consulted individually on a very important question? It is to be hoped that the technical board will succeed better in establishing its doctrine.
GERMANY
Six Years’ Construction Program
Naval and Military Record, November 5. —The budget for 1931 will be submitted to the Reichsrat tomorrow by the Chancellor, Herr Bruening. The budget of the Ministry of Defence has been cut down by
7.0. 000 marks—a slight sum compared with the cuts in the budget of other ministries. The defence budget allows 34,700,000 marks—9,200,000 marks more than the previous year—for ship construction and armament, including a first installment of
10,830,0 marks for the armored^ cruiser “B,” which is to replace the battleship Lotli- ringen, built in 1904. The estimated total cost of the cruiser “A,” which will replace the battleship Pruessen—built in 1903—is
75.0. 000 marks. _
The construction of the cruiser “B” is
expected to begin next year, and be completed in 1934, its total cost being 73,000,000 marks. The total cost of the cruiser Leip- sig, which is expected to be finished next year, is 42,000,000 marks.
The program of the ministry of defence for the next six years includes the construe- tion of cruisers to replace the Brunswick and Elsass, the construction of four destroyers, five torpedo-boats, five coastal vessels, two artillery training vessels, six minesearching boats, and several smaller vessels.
The estimated average cost of the program of construction for the next six years is 50,000,000 marks.—Reuter.
TURKEY
The Yavouz Sultan Selim
Naval and Military Record, November 5. —The complete refitting of the ex-German battle cruiser Goeben has the effect of maintaining in the Middle Sea a factor of no mean influence on the balance of naval power. The Yavouz Sultan Selim—such is the present name of the ex-flagship of Admiral Souchon—is practically a new ship, thoroughly sound in the matter of hull and propelling machinery, and up to date also in the matter of equipment. She has in front of her an active life estimated at some fifteen years. Her bona fide sea speed, in the course of several tests in the Sea of Marmora and in the Middle Sea, has proved to be superior to twenty-six knots—which means that she is vas*tly superior to anything of the same speed and power combined in the Middle Sea and, strategically, much in the position that was hers when she defied the pursuit of the combined English and French squadrons. German ingenieurs, representatives of the builders have had at heart, by working in cooperation with French specialists from St. Nazaire, to modernize as much as possible that famous German Schlacht Kreuzer and to render her fit for the ordeal of warfare under the changed conditions of today and tomorrow, especially in regard to aero-chemical warfare. Turkish officers of the new post-revolution generation, who are intensely patriotic, not to say chauvinistic, are extremely proud of their renovated battlecruiser, that is capable in a light condition, of reaching thirty knots, and which they proclaim to be “the queen of Levantine waters”—which she is at least so long as the British Hood, Renowns, and Tiger are kept in the channel or Atlantic.
JAPAN
The Maya
New York Times, November 7.—The Maya, next to the last of the 10,000-ton cruisers which Japan may build within the limitations of the London Naval Treaty, is to be launched at the Kawasaki dockyard here Saturday.
Of the twelve vessels making up the 108,400 tons of first-class cruisers, or those carrying 8-inch guns, permitted to Japan by the London agreement, only the Cliokai, now under construction in the Mitsubishi dockyard at Nagasaki, remains to take the water after the Maya.
Eight of these twelve ships are completed and in commission—four of 7,100 tons each, the Furutaka, Aoba, Kako and Kinukasa, and four of 10,000 tons each, the Nachi, Myoko, Haguro and Ashigara. The ninth and tenth were launched earlier.
MERCHANT MARINE Foreign Built Vessels for American Companies
Merchant and Marine Bidletin, November.—In an article recently prepared, the National Council of American Shipbuilders discusses shipbuilding costs (see table below).
Wages per Hour
| United | Great |
|
|
Trade | States | Britain | Germany | Italy |
Blacksmith .......................................... | ..................... $0.70 | $0,305 | $0,219 | $0,199 |
Carpenter (ship) ................................... | ..................... 0.71 | 0.306 | 0.219 | 0.194 |
Coppersmith ........................................ | ..................... 0.79 | 0.317 | 0.219 | 0.199 |
Electrician .......................................... | ..................... 0.70 | 0.328 | 0.219 | 0.199 |
Joiner ................................................. |
| 0.310 | 0.219 | 0.175 |
Machinist ........................................... | ..................... 0.71 | 0.315 | 0.219 | 0.185 |
Patternmaker ....................................... |
| 0.346 | 0.219 |
|
Pipefitter ............................................. | ..................... 0.71 | 0.305 | 0.219 | 0.204 |
Sheet metal worker .............................. | ..................... 0.69 | 0.309 | 0.219 | 0.175 |
Shipfitter ............................................ | ..................... 0.71 | 0.305 | 0.219 | 0.194 |
The foreign press has devoted much space of late to comment on the awards to German and Italian shipyards for the construction of nine large oil-carrying vessels for one of our largest American oil companies. German and Italian papers are jubilant over receiving these orders at a time when the shipbuilding industry is seriously depressed
in each of those countries. Great Britain deplores the loss of this business to her shipyards and has indulged in much discussion as to how it is possible for continental yards to build ships cheaper than in her yards. If the press reports be true these contracts were taken at about $77 a deadweight ton in Germany and at $66 a deadweight ton in Italy, while British prices are stated to have been from $3 to $9 a ton higher than the German quotations, or from $80 to $86 a deadweight ton. These prices are, of course, very much less than prices in the United States for the construction of vessels of this type. American quotations for the same vessels would be not less than $135 a deadweight ton.
These vessels are to engage in foreign trade, in competition with foreign-owned vessels, and the owners cannot be blamed for placing these contracts abroad where these vessels can be purchased at so much lower figures, nevertheless, as we are passing through an era of business depression in this country, with considerable unemployment, it is regrettable that these vessels could not have been built in the United States. Our shipbuilding facilities are ample and at the present time only about one-third of our total building ways are in operation.
In addition to the nine vessels alluded to there are at least seven other oil-carrying vessels building abroad for American companies, three in Great Britain, three in Germany, and one in Italy, sixteen in all, at an approximate cost, if built in this country, of $34,500,000, which would have given employment to about 18,400 men for one year at a time when they needed it—one-half of them in our shipyards and the other half in the many allied industries that furnish materials and equipment.
The reason, of course, for the much greater cost of ship construction in the United States is the higher wage paid in this country and which must be paid to enable our workmen to conform to our superior standards of living which should be maintained. Wages, nevertheless, which are established by our protected industries and which must be paid by shipbuilders although their industry is not a protected one.
The tabular statement in another column shows the wages paid in some of the most important shipyard trades in the United States, Great Britain, Germany, and Italy, also the prices paid by the wage earner in these respective countries for some of the staple food commodities as ascertained by the International Labor Review of April, 1930. •
These tables show that wages in the United States are about double those in Great Britain; triple those paid in Germany, and about three and one-half times those paid in Italy. Food prices, however, do not show any such difference. In fact some of the principal food supplies are even higher in those countries than in the United States.
On the basis of weekly rations, provisions allowed and served out per week for a member of a crew of a merchant vessel, which should represent approximately the food requirements for a wage earner, the relative cost of weekly ration, using the United States as unity, would be in Great Britain .74, Germany .81, and Italy .85, which is out of all proportion to the relative wage rates.
Staple Food Commodities United Unit States | Great Britain | Germany | Italy | |
Kilogram | $0,192 | $0,102 | $0.1928 | $0.1046 |
Kilogram | 1.147 | 1.022 | 0.9663 | 1.0210 |
Kilogram | 0.834 | 0.768 | 0.5736 | 0.7075 |
Kilogram | 0.979 | 1.208 | 1.5494 | 1.5696 |
Kilogram | 1.621 | 0 974 | 2.2848 | 1.0436 |
Kilogram | 0.858 | 0.600 | 0.4593 | |
Kilogram | 0.086 | 0.040 | 0.0262 | 0.0416 |
Kilogram | 0.136 | 0.128 | 0.1476 | 0.3582 |
Litre | 0.125 | 0.122 | 0.0690 | 0.0710 |
One | 0.053 | 0.058 | 0.0428 | 0.0358 |
rates: Great Britain, 1 pence—2 cents; Germany, 1 mark—23.8 cents; Italy, 1 lire
Article
Bread ..............
Butter (fresh)
Beef ...........
Coffee.........
Tea ........... ' "
Cheese .........
Potatoes
Sugar ___
Milk ........ ] "
Eggs ’ ’ ’
Conversion —5.26 cents.
It is evident, therefore, that the lower cost of ship construction in those European countries is due to a lower standard of living than that which exists in the United States. No one would wish to see our standards of living reduced, but may it not be well to shape our shipping policy so that our important American shipping companies can
afford to build their cargo-carrying vessels for foreign trade here. The cost is about 50 per cent greater than in Great Britain. We have not hesitated to provide protection of even more than 50 per cent for the development of many of ourjinternal industries, why not provide similar protection for shipbuilding as it is a factor in the promotion of the welfare of all of our industries through the creation and development of our foreign markets?
Lloyd’s Register Annual Report
The Marine Engineer and Motor ship Builder, November, 1930.—Some interesting statistics relating to the trend of propelling machinery developments as shown by the report of Lloyd’s Register of Shipping for the year ended June 30, 1930.
We comment editorially on the recently issued annual report of Lloyd’s Register of Shipping, which reviews the operations of the society for the year ended June 30, 1930. Three facts in connection with the development of international shipping call for special notice, viz., the large volume of tonnage built to class with the society; the large proportion of that tonnage built for the carriage of oil and other commodities in tanks, and the continued increase in the demand for internal-combustion engines, especially in the new tanker tonnage.
The table given above, compiled from the society’s records and from the statistics, which form such an interesting and valuable section of Lloyd’s register book, shows the relative proportions of (i) reciprocating steam engines, (ii) steam turbines, (iii) motors, fitted in vessels built to class during recent years. It also serves to illustrate the motive power used, showing the proportion of tonnage propelled: (a) by use of coal; and (b) by use of oil, i.e., as fuel for boilers or motors. (A number of these vessels can, however, burn either coal or oil in the furnaces of their boilers.)
| Total steam and motor tonnage classed (including auxiliaries) | Type of Engines |
| Fuel |
| |||
Year | Steam recipro cating | Steam turbines | Motors | Coal |
| Oil |
| |
| Tons gross | Tons gross | Tons gross | Tons gross | Tons gross | Per cent | Tons gross | Per cent |
1918-19............ | 3,760,806 | 2,633,570 | 1,051,302 | 75,934 | 2,491,213 | 66.2 | 1.269.593 2.075.593 | 33.8 49.6 |
1919-20............ | 4,186,882 | 2,821,031 | 1,286,046 (all geared) | 79,805 | 2,111,289 | 50.4 | ||
1920-21............ | 3,229,188 | 2,373,067 | 754,513 (all geared) | 101,608 | 1,260,465 | 39.0 | 1,968,723 | 61.0 |
1921-22............ | 2,517,513 | 1,420,924 | 870,037 (all geared) | 226,552 | 895,032 | 35.5 | 1,622,481 | 64.5 |
1922-23............ | 1,610,624 | 842,358 | 603,037 (all geared) | 165,229 | 662,565 | 41.1 | 948,059 | 58.9 |
1923-24............ | 874,651 | 610,851 | 99,464 (all geared but one) | 164,336 | 468,153 | 53.5 | 406,498 | 46.5 |
1924-25............ | 1,311,277 | 894,807 | 114,009 (all geared) | 302,461 | 671,405 | 51.2 | 639,872 | 48.8 |
1925-26............ | 1,324,789 | 575,984 | 146,354 (all geared) | 602,451 | 418,503 | 31.6 | 906,086 | 68.4 |
1926-27............ | 967,062 | 405,280 | 168,557 (all geared) | 393,225 | 297,948 | 30.8 | 669,114 | 69.2 |
1927-28............ | 1,875,068 | 853,613 | 209,018 (all geared but one) | 812,437 | 631,240 | 33.7 | 1,243,828 | 66.3 |
1928-29............ | 1,737,736 | 784,046 | 167,337 (all geared but one) | 786,353 | 600,270 | 34.5 | 1,137,466 | 65.5 |
1929-30............ | 1,804,246 | 856,357 | 100,486 (all geared) | 847,403 | 680,699 | 37.7 | 1,123,547 | 62.3 |
The second table, embracing all existing vessels of 100 tons and upwards, as recorded in Lloyd’s register book, is appended to emphasize the continued increase in motor ton-
| Total steamer and motor tonnage (including auxiliaries) | Type of Engines |
| Fuel |
| |||
Year | Steam recipro cating | Steam turbines | Motors | Coal |
| Oil |
| |
| Tons | Tons | Tons | Tons | Tons | Per | Tons | Per |
| gross | gross | gross | gross | gross | cent | gross | cent |
1922... | 61,342,952 | 51,653,324 | 8,149,165 | 1,540,463 | 45,338,327 | 73.9 | 16,004,625 | 26.1 |
1923. . . | 62,335,373 | 51,775,239 | 8,893,749 | 1,666,385 | 44,876,570 | 71.9 | 17,458,803 | 28.1 |
1924. . . | 61,514,140 | 50,742,758 | 8',795,584 | 1,975,798 | 42,384,270 | 68.9 | 19,129,870 | 31.1 |
1925. . . | 62,380,376 | 50,566,029 | 9,100,274 | 2,714,073 | 41,862,181 40,935,114 | 67.1 | 20,518,195 21,736,823 | 32.9 |
1926. . . | 62,671,937 | 50,040,978 | 9,137,675 | 3,493,284 | 65.3 | 34.7 | ||
1927. . . | 63,267,302 | 49,767,495 | 9,228,983 | 4,270,824 | 40,514,719 | 64.0 | 22,752,583 | 36.0 |
1928. . . | 65,159,413 | 50,045,048 | 9,682,063 | 5,432,302 | 40,674,097 | 62.4 | 24,485,316 | '37.6 |
1929. . . | 66,407,393 | 50,573,689 | 9,205,602 | 6,628,102 | 40,358,396 40,069,679 | 60.8 | 26,048,997 | 39.2 |
1930. .. | 68,023,804 | 50,780,877 | 9,146,590 | 8,096,337 | 58.9 | 27,954,125 | 41.1 |
Note.—Vessels fitted with a combination of reciprocating and turbine machinery are now included under the heading of “Steam reciprocating”; prior to 1929 they were included under “Steam turbines.’
nage, and attention is at the same time drawn to the fact that, in the current year, the tonnage of vessels using oil as fuel, either in motorships or steamers, has for the first time reached over 40 per cent of the total tonnage.
Interesting features in connection with marine propulsion observed during the course of the year in the proposals submitted for the consideration of the committee have been:
(1) The tendency towards the use of high-pressure steam, up to about 450 pounds per square inch, water-tube boilers being employed for this purpose.
(2) The employment of higher mean indicated pressures, obtained by supercharg- •ng, in Diesel oil engines of the four-stroke cycle single-acting type.
(3) The increased use of double-acting °d engines of both four- and two-stroke cycle type.
The total number of vessels fitted with steam tui"hines, classed by the society during
e year, amounted to thirteen, of 100,486 g°?£' 1° one vessel, the SS. Santa Clara, 3 tons, the turbo-electric drive is employed but in the remainder the turbines injr USTb n conJ unction with reduction gear- eirml ^ a turbo-electric drive is also being consf0^6 •m ^ree large vessels now under scrfn,rUotl0n to ^ie society’s class, viz., twin- Stmti tratllaird, 21,500 tons, twin-screw scn ^/w^jT 21,500 tons, and the quadruple- Wach Mtd-Ocean, 17,500 tons. The Bauer- steam tS^em connecting an exhaust- urbine to the main shafting of steam reciprocating engines by mechanical gearing and hydraulic clutch has been adopted in nine new vessels, of 45,430 tons, classed by the society during the period under review, and the satisfactory performance of vessels in commission thus equipped has led to a further number of existing steam reciprocating engines being converted to this system.
In another new vessel, the SS. City of Barcelona, 5,698 tons, fitted with steam reciprocating engines, an exhaust-steam turbine drives a directly coupled electric generator, which supplies power to a motor.
Among the vessels classed by the society during the year, sixty-one steamers of 276,144 tons were fitted for the use of oil fuel, i.e., 29 per cent of the steamer tonnage built to class in that period.
ENGINEERING Submarine Cables
The Western Society of Engineers, October.—It was only a few years back, in 1924, that the Western Union laid its first high speed or “loaded” cable.
Fig. 1 is a drawing showing the construction of a “loaded” cable, which is typical of the type the Western Union has laid recently. The conductor consists of a copper wire a little over one-eighth inch in diameter, over which are wound five thin copper tapes. This construction is used instead of stranded conductors, because it has been found that the construction was more compact and the lower electrostatic capacity was obtained thereby, permitting faster working.
NEW'VORK;
NEW ORIEAI
Western Union
TRANS-ATLANTIC CABLES AND . CONNECTIONS
FIG. 1.
Over the copper tapes is wound a “permalloy” tape, .005 in. thick and .08 in. wide. The permalloy is an especially alloyed metal composed of iron and nickel. This permalloy tape acts to increase the inductance, which counteracts the effect of the electro-static capacity, thereby permitting the sending of signals more rapidly and consequently increasing the speed of operation.
Over the permalloy tape is placed a covering of gutta-percha, which insulates the conductor. Next is applied a layer of jute yarn as a cushion for the galvanized armor wires which are next applied. Another layer of jute is applied as a further protection. The overall diameter of the deep sea section of the cable is about one inch. As the water becomes more shallow, heavier construction is used. The final shore end is almost three inches in diameter. The copper conductor, however, is of uniform diameter throughout, the increase in weight and bulk being in the protective armor.
The first high-speed cable was laid in 1924 between New York and the Azores, that group of islands 800 miles west of Portugal. The second, in 1926, consisted of two sections, one between New York and Newfoundland, and the other section between Newfoundland and England. These cables are operated in only one direction at a time. A third cable was laid in 1928 between Newfoundland and the Azores.
In the 1928 cable “mumetal” was used for loading. This is an alloy of nickel and iron similar to permalloy. In this cable the middle sections were heavily treated with mumetal, the loading being diminished
an
HOW A DEEP SEA CABLE IS MADE FOR HIGH SPEED TELEGRAPH USE towards the ends and the final 160 miles at either terminal was not loaded at all. This graduation of loading was made in order that the cable could be operated duplex, thereby increasing the capacity, and facilitating handling of rush traffic.
The 1924 and 1926 cables have capacities of about 1,500 and 2,500 letters per minute respectively. The 1928 cable has a capacity °f 2,100 when operated in one direction only, and a duplex capacity of more than 2,800 letters per minute. The loaded cables thus have a capacity of five or more times that of the old non-loaded type.
The combined length of the new type loaded cable installed by the Western Union in the last five years is over 7,000 nautical miles, the longest section being over 2,300 miles.
Cable traffic more than doubled between 1913 and 1927. The figures for the Western Union alone were 38,000,000 words in 1913 compared to 93,000,000 words in 1927.
The operation of the loaded cables is somewhat similar to that of the multi-plex, except that we have more delicate signals to deal with, necessitating the use of apparatus capable of responding to very minute currents and of very close adjustments.
The Dardclet Self-Locking Screw Thread
Referring to the item on the Dardelet Self-Locking Screw Thread in the November issue, the editor has been informed that the Dardelet screw thread products are handled in this country by the Dardelet Threadlock Corporation of New York City.
AVIATION
The Cairo-Cape Town Air Route
New York Times, November 9.—Less than thirty years ago a gun carriage, drawn hy straining horses, bore the body of Cecil Rhodes to its last resting place amid the ^chy summits of the Matopo Hills, near Bulawayo. Within a few months airplanes, ymg on schedule and carrying passengers of°th ^aPe t0 Cairo, will cast the shadow their wings upon his grave. The African w^re which was the dream of Rhodes jjr- be knit together by an airline that will 5 70n ^a.’ro within eight days of Cape Town, dav rm^es away, and London only eleven Pro? *r°1?1 Table Mountain. Despite the sress in colonization and transportation in the seventy years since the era of “Darkest Africa” and the days of Burton, Livingstone, and Stanley; despite the work of Rhodes himself in driving a railroad up the backbone of a continent, it will remain for the airplane to close the existing gaps of communication and make possible an unbroken journey from end to end of that unique jumble of colonies and mandates, states, and protectorates which is Africa.
It would be hard to imagine a more varied or more romantic terrain than that whicli will unroll itself beneath the traveler on the modern magic carpet of flight. From Cairo eighteen-passenger landplanes will take him to Khartoum, where the ivory and ostrich feathers of the Sudan come to market. Thence up the broad Nile and across Lake Victoria, fifteen-passenger flying boats will bear him above one of the great river valleys of the world to Mwanza, and a little later, when ground organizations have been further developed, to Kisumu on the shores of the lake. This will be the terminus of the first leg of the transcontinental line to be opened to the public in January. Four days of flying by daylight, with tea at airdromes and night stops at Assuan, Khartoum, and Juba, will account for 2,620 miles.
From Kisumu, a few months later, the rest of the far-flung route will be opened to the Cape. The passenger, switched once more to fourteen-passenger landplanes, will fly above the termini of the Kenya railways and cross many of the main arteries of travel which run from east to west rather than from north to south. All the way to Broken Hill, in Northern Rhodesia, a distance as great as that from New York to Miami, the airline will be the only north and south route in regular operation. The air traveler will follow the highlands, a course selected for both flying and commercial reasons, and will lunch, the fifth day out, at Moshi, near the slope of Kilimanjaro, towering 19,000 feet into the blue. Mbyea will mark the night stop of the fifth day out from Cairo, after a flight over the sisal plantations of Tanganyika. The next day Northern Rhodesia will pass under his wings and the night find him at Salisbury, across the huge Zambezi. It will be on the seventh day of flight to the south that he will pass above the Rhodes cenotaph as he heads for Johannesburg, while a final journey of 825 miles will bring him to Table Mountain and a landing at the new airdrome of Cape Town.
What unbelieving eyes would the African traveler of even a quarter-century ago have rubbed at the thought of a “trek” of nearly
6,0 miles in eight days! The Cape-to- Cairo airline of Imperial Airways should write a new and inspiring chapter in air transport.
Aviation Training in Germany
New York Times, November 9. By John Graudenz.—Besides the Hindenburg slogan, Ordnung muss sein, which of late has become world famous, there is another proverb more typical of the German character, Die deutsche Griindlichkeit, or thoroughness.
This thoroughness is the basis of the methods applied by the “Deutsche Ver- kehrsflieger Schule,” or German transport pilots school, known as the'D.V.S., in training commercial pilots for land- and seaplanes. The school is a limited liability company of which the German Ministry of Transportation and the Deutsche Lufthansa are the sole shareholders. It receives an annual subsidy from the Reich of about $550,000. The managers of the school, one of whom, Wolfgang von Gronau, recently flew successfully via Iceland, Greenland and Newfoundland to America, declare that the expenses involved in maintaining a sufficiently large number of land- and seaplanes, including several multi-engined flying boats, does not permit a private school to give its students the thorough all-round training which the D.V.S. is able to afford. The courses are three years for pilots of landplanes and four years for seaplane pilots.
Besides some fifty land- and seaplanes and sea craft, beginning with small rowing boats and ending with seagoing vessels, the school not only possesses all the modern instruments for nautical and meteorological observation, for blind flying and other equipment required in aviation, but is able to boast a wireless station of its own.
The headquarters of the school are at Braunschweig, in Western Germany, with branches at Schleissheim, near Munich, Bavaria, and seaports at Warnemuende and List on the Isle of Sylt in the North Sea.
Although the courses involve considerable expenses for the students, the number of applicants is more than 1,000 every year. Only twenty to twenty-five are accepted. The students, accepted at from eighteen to twenty-six years, must have passed high- school graduation examinations. They must have the bronze medal awarded to gymnasts and athletes, have a speaking knowledge of English or Spanish and be generally fit, physically and mentally. The boys are submitted to special physical examination and to psycho technical tests prepared from the viewpoint of aviation. The students pay about $40 a month for full board and training fees. Of this amount $5.00 is refunded for pocket money to purchase cigarettes, stamps, and soft drinks, alcohol not being permitted on the premises.
During the first eighteen months the training is identical for both groups. It begins at Braunschweig, where the students remain four weeks. By the middle of April the young men go to the yacht school at Neustadt, near Luebeck, for five months, where they receive practical training in seamanship, which includes trips to the three Scandinavian countries, to Danzig, and Finland. During this time the students live a regular sailor’s life, with all its hardships. Here they also receive the fundamentals in navigation and radio, and at the end of the five months they pass an examination.
October 1 they return to Braunschweig or Schleissheim, where they remain six months, of which three are devoted to the workshops and three to actual flying with landplanes in preparation for the “A” license, which corresponds to the American private license. The student must also have had thirty hours of flying time, a climb of about 6,000 feet, where he must remain for an hour, and make three spot landings within a limited area of 800 by 160 feet. Further requirements are two cross-country trips covering about sixty-five miles and one cross-country flight of about 185 miles, during which he must make two landings at airdromes marked on a map handed to him just before starting. Finally, the student must make a dead-stick landing without using the throttle from an altitude of about
3,0 feet, fly over the field at a height of 1,500 feet, close the throttle at a signal of a pistol shot fired from the ground and make a spot landing, a maneuver necessary in case of motor trouble. The planes used for this training are of the Flamingo type.
On April 1, after nearly thirteen months have expired, the students start on a crosscountry trip leading through all Germany to acquaint them with German flying fields. The trip, which lasts two months and covers over 3,000 miles, is made in all kinds of weather and flying conditions. At the same time the students are taught stunt flying. _
At the beginning of June all students shift over to Warnemuende, which is the only German base with a combined land- and seaplane airdrome. It has a large landing field and large inland lake separated from the sea and a concrete runway to the open sea.
Here the students make twenty flights on seaplanes with instructors and thirty solo flights, three spot landings on the lake where a space of the same size as on the landing field is marked off by buoys and three landings in the open sea during a sea of force two. After each landing they must stop the motor, drop a sea anchor, restart the motor and take off again. An over-sea flight of about fifty miles and two landings at given places complete the course, after which the student receives “A” license for seaplanes. Up to this time the student has made 100 flights all told.
At the beginning of the third year the seaplane pilots go to List on the Isle of Sylt, North Sea, which is the most northwesterly point of Germany, where training begins on larger, low-winged seaplanes, which takes all summer. The flights, which cover about
6,0 miles, include trips to England, Norway, and Dutch islands. During these trips the students receive practical courses in radio operation and navigation, which on the North Sea is more difficult than on the Baltic. By the end of this summer the students are sent to the Lufthansa for practical flying qs second pilots in passenger planes for a period of from four to six weeks, dur- lng which they cover about 6,000 more miles.
Six round trips on steamers running between Warnemuende and Denmark with the students at the wheel by day and night ;? get used to practical navigation before "ey start to navigate seaplanes also are °bligatory. This is again followed by overSea flights with larger seaplanes fitted with radio direction finders. After passing a final lamination in motor knowledge, aerodynamics, meteorology and other requirements, the students receives the full “B” license, which entitles him to carry passengers in seaplanes.
Then the students return once more to List to begin training for the “C” license, which corresponds to the American transport license. The students here cover about
8,0 miles with large flying boats of the Dornier, Junkers, and Heinckel types.
Before he receives the “C” license the student must fly another 5,000 miles with traffic planes.
New British Flying Boat
Aeroplane, October 15.—The latest Short boat seaplane is being built to a specification which has been issued by Imperial Airways, Ltd., as a result of their experience in the Mediterranean. One would therefore expect such a boat to be just about the last word in boat-seaplane design.
The new boat is a four-engined version of the Short Calcuttas which have been giving such a good account of themselves on the Salonika to Alexandria stage of the air route to India. Perhaps the most interesting innovation is the fitting of a stainless- steel bottom to the newest boat. This has already been successfully done to one of the latest Short machines, the Singapore Mk.
A bottom of such material, when it is extended to well above the water line, removes the necessity for frequent inspection which is required if a duralumin sheet is used. There is interest in noting that the real difficulty in coping with corrosion of duralumin bottoms is not preventing the sheets from being affected, but the rivets. The closing up of the rivets by the hammer spoils the protective film, and makes them nuclei for the formation of corrosion. Stainless steel rivets used with stainless sheet do not give this trouble.
Another point of difference is that the pilot’s cockpit is completely enclosed. There is a crew of three and accommodation for sixteen passengers, chairs for whom are arranged in rows of four. Between the compartment for the radio operator and the cabin is a compartment, with a capacity of 1,600 kgs. (3,530 lbs.), for the transport of mails. The lavatory accommodation and baggage space will be as completely adequate as they were on the Calcuttas.
There will be special fittings on the hull so that the machine can be towed behind a ship. Another novelty will be the fitting of a quick-release hook at the stern so that the engines may be run up while the machine is moored to a buoyS and the machine can be let go with engines fully alive.
The engines will be four Bristol Jupiter X.F.B.M., geared, air-cooled, radials, arranged in four nacelles between the wings. These engines are moderately supercharged up to 5,000 ft., so the new flying boat will have its best performance at this height. Arrangements will be made for the complete refueling of both tanks from one fitting on the hull.
The weight of the machine empty, inclusive of cabin equipment, will be 17,900 lbs., the disposable load will be 12,410 lbs., and the weight loaded 30,310 lbs. (13^ tons). The estimated top speed is 132 m.p.h. at
5,0 ft., the cruising speed at that height is 100 m.p.h., and the landing speed 60 m.p.h.
Imperial Airways, Ltd., seem to have insisted on this type so that they may use the same type of engine throughout their system. Otherwise a machine with four radial engines, each head-on to the air, cannot compare for performance with one like the Short Singapore Mk. II, with its four Vee-type engines in tandem pairs. The reason seems to be inadequate when we consider that speed is the essence of the contract in an air mail service.
The Air Ministry’s Future
Army, Navy, and Air Force Gazette, October 30.—At a singularly inopportune moment, when the minds of the authorities are occupied with matters of much more immediate importance to the development of aviation and the efficiency of the Royal Air Force, certain newspapers have felt it incumbent upon them to attack the present system of a separate air ministry and to call for the abolition of a department which they represent as redundant. There may be, and in fact there are, strong arguments which can be advanced in favor of the Navy and Army resuming direct control of the production as well as the operation of the aircraft required for their own purposes, and of the handing over of the control of civil aviation to the ministry of transport. But there are equally strong arguments to be heard in favor of the existing plan, which only last year was copied in France. A battle royal is therefore certain if the issue is forced into the realm of practical politics, and in view of the uncertainty which would be created, and the distraction that would be caused, whether or not any change was made, it is obvious that such a controversy ought not to be entered into at the present time. The position, after all, has not materially changed since 1923, when it was the subject of cabinet investigation, and the principle of a single air service was then firmly upheld. It is far better to allow the existing organization to continue, since it is working reasonably well, until such a time as it can be reviewed more calmly in the light of further experience, and when those who may be called upon to decide are not encumbered with memories of past controversies and prejudices.
New Airplane Propeller Construction
Methods
Aviation, November. By Lieut. L. D. Webb, U. S. Navy.—Recent propeller development has as its incentive the desirability of reducing the weight of present propeller assemblies and the possibility of improving both strength and efficiency. This effort has taken two logical but decidedly divergent paths. One method seeks to reduce weight and centrifugal stress through the employment' of lighter alloys; the other accomplishes the same result with hollow blade construction fabricated from high strength alloy steel.
The alloys of magnesium offer considerable promise in the reduction of propeller weights, as the specific gravity of the material is about 1.80 as compared to 2.80 for the present aluminum alloy blades. The magnesium alloy which now appears best suited for propeller use consists of approximately 96.6 per cent magnesium, 4 per cent aluminum and 0.4 per cent manganese. This alloy has demonstrated an ultimate strength varying from 38,000-40,000 lb. sq. in. in the forged condition. The elongation under these conditions is from 15 to 20 per cent and the alloy has a fatigue limit for propeller use of about 11,000 lbs. per sq. in.
Several experimental propellers of this material are now under construction at the
plant of the Hamilton Standard Propeller Company for the Bureau of Aeronautics of the Navy Department and when completed will be used in extensive service tests to establish definitely the advantages or disadvantages of the material for propeller serv- ■ce. A propeller of this type designed for the 225 hp. Wright Whirlwind engine, weighs 52 lbs. complete with hub. A similar aluminum alloy propeller assembly for the same engine using alloy blades and a steel hub weighs 78 lbs.
The experimental blades of this design were produced from billets which were alloyed, cast and heat treated. They were then machined all over and subjected to X- ray inspection. Following the inspection the sound billets were extruded to a diameter slightly greater than the largest shoulder on the end of the blade. They were then re-extruded to a form from which the blade sections could be pressed and the end of the extruded blank was left in the press to form the shoulder at the hub. After extruding, various portions of the blades were pressed out in a series of operations to form a rough blank from which the propeller blade could be machined. These blanks were then roughed to size on a special type of duplicating machine and finished by grinding and polishing.
The magnesium alloy propellers have so far been made for a new type of hub for which the inner ends of the blades are made hollow, resulting in a semi-hollow propeller, combining the advantage of the solid forged blade with the saving in weight possible with a hollow inner portion.
This hub is made up of a spider which hts onto the engine shaft and which is provided with two tapered extensions. A taper of one in six is used as it has been ound that this taper gives a very tight of1V£’ ^Ut will not se'ze- The inner ends the blades are provided with a conically aPered bore, which fits accurately on the aPer of the hub extensions. This pro- th CS ^°r- ^r've the propeller and s ?. ^jtttnfugal force is taken by a short t1 tt hub member which extends beyond are ?h°ulders. The blades and hubs -.lA machined so as to give a shrink fit of
abo t u su as lo &Ive a snnnK nt OI mut -003 in. on the tapers. The propellers
the^bl 6 as®embled by heating the ends of togeth CS 'n boiling water so that they go ° ber freely and draw up tight on cooling,
or they may be assembled by tapping the ends of the blades to drive them up onto the ends of the taper.
Governmental air services require that all radically new propeller designs be thoroughly proven by “whirl testing” prior to actual approval of the design for flight purposes. A sample magnesium alloy propeller of the type described herein was accordingly subjected to the whirl test, and after successfully passing the minimum requirement of ten hours of 450 hp. was successively tested by one hour runs at 100 hp., increasing the power until 1,200 hp. was reached. It was then run for 10 hrs. each, at 900, 1,000, and 1,200 hp. without failure. It was finally run one hour each at 1300, 1,400, 1,500, and 1,600, hp. At the end of the 1,600 hp. run a small crack had appeared in one blade which had its origin in a dent caused by a mechanical injury. This would have led to failure in further running and the test was therefore discontinued. As a result of this test it may be said that the magnesium alloy blades of this particular design have ample strength to withstand any normal centrifugal stresses.
Although the whirl test with its strenuous loading, can probably be accepted as adequate proof of propeller strength, a new design involving a change in material is usually run on an engine test-stand for a considerable period before using it in flight. The object of this phase of the test is to establish that the propeller will withstand successfully the widely varying stresses encountered with certain “rough running” engines. There have been numerous instances where a propeller has passed a whirl test at high loading and a similar blade has failed in the course of an engine test conducted at a far lower output. Failures of this nature are due to fatigue conditions in the metal, developed by rough running.
Two widely different types of hollow steel blades have completed an entirely satisfactory whirl test similar to that described in the discussion of magnesium blades. One of these types has had an appreciable amount of satisfactory flight testing. The other is now in the process of exhaustive engine stand and flight tests. A third type is under development at the plant of a large manufacturing corporation.
All of these hollow steel blades are fabricated from high strength alloy steels, one type using a chrome vanadium S.A.E. No. 6130 steel, another a chrome molybdenum steel. The ultimate tensile strength and the fatigue limit of propeller blades built of these materials are of the order of 100,000 and 50,000 lbs. per sq. in. respectively, as compared with the corresponding values of
55,0 and 12,500 lbs. per sq. in. respectively for aluminum alloy blades. Since the material can be placed where it is most needed, the weight handicap due to the use of steel can be readily overcome and present experimental hollow steel propellers in this respect compare favorably with standard aluminum alloy blades even when the steel blades are used with the standard type of hub now in general service. One of the great weight saving features of the hollow steel type of propeller construction is the fact that radically new hub designs weighing far less than the present standard types may be used without sacrificing strength. The weight reduction of this character which is already in sight will range from 20 to 50 lbs. on propellers of varied service sizes.
It is hoped, and confidently expected, that the hollow steel type of blade construction will to a large extent eliminate the troublesome pitting and erosion now encountered in seaplane service with aluminum alloy blades. Spray tests conducted some time ago by the Bureau of Aeronautics with various materials inserted in the leading edge of alloy blades indicated that the alloy steels had the best spray resisting qualities of the materials tested. Flight tests of the hollow steel blades under severe seaplane operating conditions are now in progress and will be continued for an indefinite period.
The Fleet Air Arm
Aeroplane, November 5.—The Fleet Air Arm, Royal Air Force, took part in the display given by the Atlantic Fleet off Portland on November 1 for the dominion premiers. Coast defence was represented by a formation of supermarine Southampton flying boats of No. 201 (flying boat) squadron, which flew from Calshot alighted off Portland and thereafter circled the flagship from which the premiers were watching the display.
During the afternoon the aircraft borne in H.M.S. Courageous flew off her deck and, after picking up formation, flew past the flagship. Visibility was so bad that a number of the thirty or so machines which had flown off the deck had to alight on shore. One of the fleet spotter reconnaissance machines suffering from engine trouble came down in the water and turned over. Within a few minutes the crew were rescued and the airplane sank.
The R.A.F. units in H.M.S. Courageous include three fleet fighter flights, four fleet spotter reconnaissance flights, and two fleet torpedo bomber flights. The senior air force officer is Wing Commander R. Collishaw, D.S.O., O.B.E., D.S.C., D.F.C.*
Navy Views on Low-Wing Monoplane Types
New York Herald Tribune, November 16.—Though they speed Captain Frank Hawks and Colonel • Charles A. Lindbergh to new records, low-wing monoplanes, which are revolutionizing commercial aviation, seem destined to be passed up by the Navy.
Watching with interest the performances of this new-type ship, Navy engineers and design experts are standing pat on a decision reached some years ago, the design division of the Bureau of Aeronautics said today, and will make no attempt at present to change from the biplane, which has been so satisfactory for a long time.
Several apparent disadvantages, in the opinion of Navy designers, bar the monoplane for the present, the most important being that they are not capable of carrying the loads or standing the strains required by service operations. While they perform satisfactorily enough in record flights and have sufficient lifting power to carry small loads of mail or express, these ships, the Navy feels, cannot be expected to maintain their speed when loaded down with machine guns, radio apparatus and additional personnel.
Biplanes still hold favor because they are more compact and can be stowed away better on carriers, cruisers and battleships. To make the change in type of planes would require reducing the size of the squadrons
* Note—When the Courageous was placed in commission as an aircraft carrier on January 1, 1928, the assigned complement of aircraft units was: 1 fighting flight, 2 fleet spotter reconnaissance flights, and 2 torpedo bomber flights. The Courageous displaces 18,600 tons.
assigned to various Navy craft and, theoretically, weaken the air arm of the service.
“It would be necessary to have a greater wing span were we to load down monoplanes with the equipment our biplanes carry,” one naval aviator and designer explained. “That would mean we couldn’t accommodate as many planes on a carrier or cruiser, for the flight deck as well as the hangar space is severely limited.”
Increasing the wing span, this officer added, would increase the hazard in operat- *ng from decks of the carriers. The biplanes have been designed to provide the best possible visibility for the crew, he said, and can be landed safely because of this feature as well as because they can operate from a narrower stretch of deck.
The possibility that monoplanes with folding wings could replace biplanes has been considered and discarded. Dissatisfaction with folding-wing planes is widespread and the chance that such an arrangement might be made is remote.
The high-speed feature of the low-wing ships might not be an advantage in Navy aviation, the design division declared.
Relative strength, too, is a factor which the Navy considers gives the biplane an unquestionable advantage. Subjected to all kinds of flight tests, biplanes have been designed for the particular uses to which the Navy puts them and have a factor of safety beyond that of any - common commercial ship. The demands of service aviation, which requires power, dives with heavy loads as well as the ability to stunt, would require expensive experimentation to reach featS*l!n embodying the necessary structural
The Navy does not speak without good authority, it was explained at the design civision of the bureau, for although it is watching from the sidelines at present it has ad experience with monoplanes in former du^H • Low-winS monoplanes were intro- or<t mt° nava* aviation ten years ago, rec- pl s show, and for several years a few nes of this type were used extensively.
MISCELLANEOUS
e Freedom of the Seas
5 Military Record, November
has ^ ^’r ^ert>ert Russell.—“Navy Day” StatreCently ,been celebrated in the United es- In his message apropos of the occasion the Secretary of the Navy expressed the hope that the event would bring home to the American people a better understanding of what their Navy means to them and its relation to that great element of 'pros" perity which lies in their ocean commerce. An excellent, statesmanlike message, and interesting to us on this side of the Atlantic since it sheds illumination upon a subject which rather puzzles us why the United States, at this pacific juncture in history, is so insistently demanding the rapid creation of what we recognize she intends to be the most powerful war fleet in the world. She has an immense and rapidly expanding oceanic trade, and, although she cannot profess to believe that any threat to her sea commerce exists anywhere today, she is resolved that it never shall exist for want of the power to counter it. Would that there were a more general sentiment to the same purpose in this country.
But the message of the Secretary inevitably leads us into reflections which go much beyond its bare purport. By an easy and natural association of ideas it carries us on to the subject of the freedom of the seas, a doctrine to which America is very much wedded. There was some relief at the fact that, contrary to wide expectation, this matter was not raised in any shape or form by the United States delegation to the London naval conference. That it will be raised in the not distant future, however, is pretty certain. America is very dissatisfied with the present state of international law as it affects the rights of neutrals— or perhaps I should say what she regards as the rights of neutrals. As her Navy grows relatively stronger so will her voice grow louder upon this subject. President Wilson gave the cue when, in his list of “points” as a basis for peace terms, he laid down the freedom of neutral nations to continue trading as usual during other people’s wars. It was not difficult to trace the origin of this demand. The activity of the British Navy in trying to arrest the flow of supplies from America to Germany during the early stages of the war was very irritating to Americans.
In August, 1914, a popular subject with American cartoonists was Uncle Sam “raking in the shekels” whilst the nations of the old world bled for their patriotism. It did not occur to the cartoonists then that the
British Navy might rather queer the pitch for the shekel snatchers. When they did realize it their cartoons took quite another character. One can understand the chagrin and sense of intolerable interference just as easily as one can understand how some four years later the American Navy was trying to outvie our own in this selfsame game. How circumstances alter cases, to be sure!
The subject of the rights of neutrals is extraordinarily difficult because it is extraordinarily beset with complications and contradictory conditions. On the face of it, to lay down that a peaceful people must suffer heavily, possibly fearfully, on account of a quarrel in which they have not the slightest concern, is manifestly most unjust. We adhere to this “regrettable necessity imposed by war.” And yet no nation on earth has more to gain than ourselves from a full and complete application of the principle of freedom of the seas. American opinion generally—I do not say unanimously—deprecates any interference with trading vessels, neutral or belligerent owned, in war, leaving the issue to be fought out by armed ships. That would be fine for us and no mistake! Under such a code the U-boat campaign would have been impossible and the old bogey of a famine-forced submission would be scuppered once for all. On the other hand, this sort of thing is not war.
Those who seek to “humanize” war do not take it seriously. The Germans take war fearfully seriously. They are prepared to go to any length of frightfulness and to any sacrifice to get it over as quickly as possible—victoriously, of course. We do not take it quite so seriously, although we do not falter in sacrifice nor shrink from responding to frightfulness. That vast element of American opinion which puts “business as usual” first, and makes “humane” proposals to this end, is merely reducing the whole conception of war to a farce. I wish it were possible to reduce war to a farce; what jolly, popular, rollicking affairs the military professions would become!
As far as it is humanly possible to foresee, no great nation is less likely to be drawn into a war for her very existence than the United States. If such a war should come upon her, she could virtually wage it from out of her own self-contained resources.
Of course, she would suffer prodigious inconvenience and prodigious loss were she cut off from external communication—a thing in itself quite impracticable beyond a certain point. Realizing this, America not unnaturally views war from the standpoint which it suggests. The primary presumption in that standpoint is that America will be neutral in the sea warfare for the conduct of which she wants to dictate the rules of neutrality. In brief, she wants to maintain her own commercial interests, probably improve them, and she wants a supreme Navy to insure that she shall be in a position to do so. Well, these are practical politics, if not particularly heroic. But other nations have their standpoint, too, none more antagonistic to the American view than our own. Admittedly, our own standpoint has become ingrained from the usage of centuries. The idea that “Britannia rules the waves” implies the capacity to enforce our standpoint, whether it be right or wrong. Siege is one of the oldest methods known in warfare, and naval blockade is but a sea siege. In the jargon of the day we call it “economic pressure.” War on the modern scale would be an interminable affair if it were to be determined by the conflict of well-fed, well-munitioned armed forces, with well-nourished nations behind them. Sheer exhaustion of wealth might ultimately end it, for neutrals would not go on trading with the poorer side, unable to pay. Our view of war—and the view of all the great nations into whose histories war has entered so largely—is that we do not want it to be an interminable business. We want to get through with it as rapidly as possible, and there is only one way of doing this—the way of a outrance.
Freedom of the seas would make war easier for our people at the price of prolonging it beyond calculation. Regarding war in all its hideous seriousness, we ask ourselves whether we lose more by allowing the enemy to intercept our trade than we gain by intercepting his trade. In this age of submarines and high-speed surface raiders there can be but one answer; we lose much more. But if we can endure beyond the point when the shadow of famine begins to darken the land we may hope to reach victory, owing to the much greater destructive efforts which we should anticipate from our superior naval power. This
sounds rather paradoxical. But in the great war Germany destroyed infinitely more seaborne commerce destined for this country than we destroyed sea-borne commerce destined for Germany. We thus lost much more in this way than she did, yet we were able to endure when she collapsed, not wholly from inanition, but very nearly so. In launching her unrestricted submarine campaign against us, Germany definitely hoped to reduce us to peace terms—to her peace terms, of course—by hunger. In our °wn blockade of Germany we hoped to reduce her to peace terms by general physical exhaustion, in which hunger would certainly play a very prominent, if not the whole part. It is no use to mince matters; methods differed with circumstances, but ruthlessness was the principle on both sides when the two nations had got their backs to the wall and struggled for existence.
I do not question the sincerity of the American desire to see war “humanized,” but the thing is impossible. You cannot humanize that which is essentially inhuman. You cannot play at “the rules of the game” as in a boxing ring, in our era of warfare which has developed aerial bombing, flamethrowing, submarines, mines, and—most sinister of all—gas. It is easy and pleasant in peace time, in a congenial and convivial environment for international delegates to sign a convention restricting submarine warfare. They quite mean what they sign; they do not feel in the least like submarining one another. But when it comes to the horrid reality the men who have to do the fighting are not going to submit to having one hand tied behind them. They are going to use their weapons to the fullest possible scope. Splendid fellows, who in normal tunes would shrink from the mere idea of nlling women and babies, will loose bombs 0ver a city without thinking. They dare n°t think. Once you begin to think in war y°u are soon face to face with the unan- Werabig fact that it is simply murder; that filing men ;n uniform with deliberate in- ®nt is even less justifiable than killing jj °men and babies by accident. We have Wa a *0t psychological sob stuff about sj. .r..°I late. If it tends to render the pos- ’'ty °f war still more remote, well and jla° • But to imagine that it is going to Cne . ^east restraining effect should war e ls mere bunkum.
And thus it is with regard to the freedom of the seas. President Hoover says that it is barbarous to starve noncombatants in war. So it is. But since it is impossible to put down a ring fence, and say that hostilities must only be carried on within it, clearly you cannot feed noncombatants without also feeding combatants. President Hoover must perfectly well know that the American people need never fear famine in the event of a war. Therefore, he can only be attempting to lay down a humane code for other nations not so fortunately circumstanced. America might feed those other nations and supply them in various directions. This would either be humanity or profiteering, according to the point of view. But whichever we may call it, the result would be the same; it would indefinitely prolong the war. America is at war against intemperance; she denies the freedom of the seas for the benefit of those perfectly reasonable people who like a little drop of something neither “soft” nor flatulent.
In the past this country has never been confronted by a neutral so powerful as to be able to dictate the principle of trading with the enemy. Our Navy has always been of such strength as to be able to maintain blockade. Twentieth-century Socialism is changing all this, and quite ecstatically surrendering the trident to the United States. There is no “bunk” about American principles in relation to peace or war. It is “America first and the rest nowhere.” This is a fine sentiment—for Americans. But it means that other people’s wars must not interfere with American business with those peoples. This is the real gist of the demand for freedom of the seas. In peace time it can all be put into conventions, treaties, pacts, and all the rest of the gold- fountain-pen, horn-rimmed documents. In the deadly struggle of modern war no nation is going to accept defeat because of scraps of paper. America quite realizes this, and so she wants the most powerful Navy in the world. In other words, her conception of the freedom of the seas appears to be supremacy on the seas to enable her to carry on “business as usual.”
The Role of the Destroyer
Naval and Military Record, October 29. —The French and Italians have built, and
are building, “superdestroyers” of considerably over 2,000 tons displacement. These vessels are reputedly designed for ocean work. The latest British destroyers are about 1,300 tons in displacement, an advance of about 300 tons;upon the average burden of the war period. The new flotilla leader Codrington is of barely 1,800 tons displacement and a trifle smaller than the average of the vessels of this category. The much heavier tonnage favored by the Continental powers leads to some interesting speculations as to how far the distinctive role of the destroyer is becoming lost in the evolution of type. Vessels of this description, armed with guns firing shells of 80 pounds in weight, are really small light cruisers. But the modern cruiser is actually equipped with more torpedo tubes than the modern destroyer, so that it is pretty evident she is intended to fulfil the functions of the destroyer. Apparently these French and Italian “super” boats are not designed for flotilla work at all, but for general “coast and colonial defence duties,” just whatever that may mean as a specific metier.
The evolution in size is not justified by any increase in speed. In spite of the much- advertised records of certain foreign vessels it is open to question whether the forty knots actually touched by one of our Tribal class of 970 tons some twenty-two years ago has really been surpassed under equivalent conditions. But growth of displacement has brought a much wider sea-keeping radius. If we are to regard the destroyer as a fleet unit, it may be asked what advantage lies in such a large extension of cruising capacity. Our Amazon and Ambuscade managed to cross from the channel to South America and they are little more than half the size of the continental “superdestroyers.” What, then, is the explanation why the torpedo unit, destroyer and submarine alike, has been carried to a stage of development which appears wholly supererogatory to her original purpose? Why have the French and the Italians—both nations with a genius for naval design—made a light cruiser of the destroyer, and why are all the principal naval powers making a glorified destroyer of the cruiser?
In our view the chief explanation for this development must be sought in the growth of the torpedo. At the beginning of the present century the effective range of the torpedo was 1,200 yards; today it is
12,0 yards, and there is reason to believe that experiments have been successfully carried out up to 19,000 yards. The destroyer of thirty years ago had to approach very close to her objective if she was to stand a good chance of getting home her weapon. The River class of that period were vessels of 550 tons and twenty-five knots, and the general verdict in the service was that they were too big! Whether, in spite of the wonderful precision of the modern torpedo and of the optical instruments now in use, very long-range torpedo attack would prove worth while in action is much to be doubted. The latest pattern in the British Navy takes about twenty minutes in reaching its journey’s end. It can be relied upon to arrive exactly where it is expected to arrive; but can its target be expected to conform to the same method of calculation? In twenty minutes a warship may very appreciably increase or decrease her speed or alter her course. At Jutland the contending fleets found very little difficulty in evading the destroyer attacks, which were not delivered from anything like such distances as we are discussing.
It may well be that dubiety as to the value of torpedo attack in fleet actions has largely influenced the tendency to adapt the destroyer to other functions. She no longer remains what-Kipling called the “chooser of the slain.” She continues to fulfil her original role, but she is certainly not limited to that role. During the great war our destroyers used their guns very much more than their torpedo tubes. In peace-time “police work” they frequently use their guns, never their torpedo tubes. Thus the tendency is for them to become gunnery ships fitted to fire torpedoes instead of torpedo craft able to fire guns. Thus we come to a logical explanation as to why the modern cruiser actually carries more torpedo tubes than the modern destroyer. Had it been practicable to give the submarine the necessary submerged speed she would have replaced the destroyer for the delivery of torpedo attack in a fleet action.