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By A. Cecil Hampshire
United States................................................................................................................................. 601
Plane Refueled From Sub—U. S. Plans Earth’s First Artificial Satellite in ’57—AKD: A Ship to Deliver and Launch Lighters in the Arctic—Atka Men Study Winter Pole Stay
Ark Royal Commissioned February 22, 1955—Air Potential of the Soviets
Briefs.........................................................................
ROYAL NAVY KEEPS SEA CHARTS UP-TO-DATE
By A. Cecil Hampshire
Recently a small, white-hulled warship returned to Britain from a 20,000-mile voyage. Welcomed by tall, greying Vice-Admiral Sir Archibald Day, Hydrographer of the Royal Navy, she is H.M.S. Vidal, newest addition to Britain’s survey fleet. Himself a surveyor, Admiral Day is the man who planned the evacuation routes for the little ships at Dunkirk in 1940.
The 2,150-ton Vidal, commanded by Captain K. St. B. Collins, R.N., had spent the last eight months surveying parts of the Caribbean Sea and West Indian waters, some areas of which have not been charted since 1840. One discovery she made is that for over a century the world’s charts have shown
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the Cayman Islands nearly a mile out of their true position.
* * *
A specialist in nautical and travel matters, Mr. Hampshire served in Britain’s Royal Navy and participated in the North African and Salerno landings. He is a veteran journalist having served as one-time assistant editor of the Royal Navy’s Dittybnx.
Despite her specialist job, the Vidal, like every United Kingdom warship, is ready for all emergencies. When Hurricane “Hazel” devastated western Haiti last October, the Vidal hastened to the stricken island with supplies and medical aid. From a wrecked orphanage in an isolated district her sailors dug out fifty small children and took them to safety.
While the ship refits before returning to the West Indies, the results of her work will be sifted by civil hydrographic officers at the Chart Branch in Cricklewood, London, for incorporation in new charts being prepared of West Indian waters.
Charting the seas is a task that lacks finality. Around Britain alone, the Thames estuary requires constant surveying due to changing channels, and the movements of the swirling Goodwin Sands require frequent checking. Today vast areas of the world’s coastal waters, originally charted by old time surveyors, are overdue for re-survey by modern methods. Many undersea perils lurk undetected along the ocean highways. Near Zanzibar a group of rock pinnacles thrusting pointed fangs almost to the surface was recently discovered by one of the Royal Navy’s survey ships. For years, fast passenger liners have swept by within feet of this hidden menace which their navigational warning aids failed to disclose.
* * *
Besides the Vidal, Britain’s survey fleet comprises six other vessels, all named after famous surveyors and explorers. These are the Shackleton, Scott, Cook, Dalrymple, Dam- pier, and Owen. The Vidal herself bears the name of Vice-Admiral Alexander Vidal, noted 19th century surveyor.
Their only armament a brace of saluting guns, the ships carry the latest hydrographic equipment, including advanced echo-sounding gear which provides continuous and automatic trace of the sea bed. In spacious chart rooms equipped with tracing and drawing tables, calculators and computers, the surveyors transfer the results of their daily work to “fair sheets” from which new charts will be compiled. The newer Vidal also boasts a large process camera and a lithographic printing press to enable charts to be produced on board.
Charts are to the mariner what road maps are to the motorist, with water depths and safe channels the prime requirement. First accurately fixing her position in the area to be charted, the surveying ship takes continuous lines of soundings together with samples of the sea bed. Motor boats fitted with echo-sounders compete the work in shallow waters. The data obtained is first recorded on “sounding boards,” transferred to a tracing, and subsequently to the “fair sheet.”
* * *
Often surveyors cannot land to set up their base lines, but must use well defined objects from off shore. One surveyor in the Red Sea worked from a prominent white mark he noted on the coast. But at the end of the day his calculations failed to make sense. Carefully re-checking his base mark, he found it was a white goat tethered to a long rope.
Sometimes the aims of the surveyors are misunderstood. Before World War II officers from a survey ship working ashore in the Canton delta were pestered by an inquisitive Chinese they took for an idle onlooker. Invited to make himself scarce, the man finally departed. When the vessel later returned to harbor, screaming headlines in the local newspaper were proclaiming, “Invasion Imminent—British Battleship Secretly Surveying Our Coasts!” The quizzer was an enterprising reporter.
As “fair sheets” are received at Cricklewood from survey ships working at home and overseas, expert cartographers prepare new and amended charts. These are sent for engraving and printing to the Production and Supplies Department at Taunton in the English county of Somerset. Equipped with top-quality photolithographic plant, this establishment turns out more than a million new charts annually, together with sailing directions, light lists, notices to mariners, tide tables, air charts and radio signals. In addition, the Hydrographic Department transmits over a thousand radio navigational warnings to shipping every year.
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Close liaison is maintained with the hydrographic services of other Commonwealth countries and other nations, especially the United States, Holland, and Norway. More than thirty countries send copies of their charts and amendments to Cricklewood, which preserves in its archives over half a million historic hydrographic documents dating back to the 17th century.
Since their inception, British Admiralty charts have used English place names irrespective of locality. By arrangment with the International Hydrographic Bureau at Monaco, of which 37 countries are members, local language place names will in future be substituted for the Anglicized version.
But by the wish of individual nations some of these will remain. For, while Crete will appear as the Greek “Krili,” the Beagle Channel in Chilean waters near Cape Horn, named after the survey ship in which Darwin made his famous voyage, will become merely the “Canale Beagle.” Thus continue to be commemorated the early pioneers and their ships whose work has contributed to the unrivaled reputation of the British Admiralty chart.
(Editor’s Note: See the following Proceedings references for fleet survey ship items: page 869, August, '953; page 1366, December, 1953; page 336, March, '954; and page 575, May, 1954.)
UNITED STATES Plane Refueled From Sub
By Harry C. Kenney
Christian Science Monitor, March 8, 1955.—A new and important element of American mobile military striking power has just been announced following naval exercises in the Caribbean.
The Navy has been testing with favorable ' results the refueling of a seaplane in the open sea from a moving submarine.
The Commander Submarine Force Atlantic Fleet has concluded a two-week operation
which involved a twin-engine P-5M Martin Marlin patrol seaplane from a Navy squadron and the submarine oiler Guavina.
This action has brought to light the emphasis which top Navy officials are placing in what it calls “a new concept of ‘mobile sea bases.’ ” It also follows recent official statements which indicate the sea will play / an even greater role in United States military j offense and defense.
For instance, Admiral Robert B. Carney, Chief of Naval Operations, recently declared that “an elusive force of submarine- supported seaplanes” is one of the ways this country can retain “freedom of action” in striking back against an aggressor from “many directions.”
Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Air, James H. Smith, Jr., has pointed out the increased mobility which submarine refueling will give the Navy’s new 600-mile-an- hour pet flying boat the XP-6M-1 Martin SeaMaster,* due to be flight tested this spring at Baltimore.
Mr. Smith said:
“You could have a concept of small task forces which, rather than relying on land as a base, rely on the sea as a base, and the Navy is in that business. We have developed, of course, flying boats for a number of years.
“At the moment, we have a project of a major jet flying boat which has the capability of operating somewhat in that fashion
* See page 348, Proceedings, March 1955.
as an extremely mobile force which could really be set down almost any place in the world where you have a reasonable amount of water. It can be supported favorably by a submarine tanker, therefore, it has a tremendous amount of mobility, unpredictability, and invulnerability because of the rapid rate at which it moves. ...”
Secretary of the Navy Charles S. Thomas recently went into greater detail on the important role which the jet seaplane, together with the element of plane-submarine refueling, will play in the future Navy tactics:
“The introduction of jet power to seaplanes, and eventually nuclear power, unfolds an unlimited realm for naval aviation.
The seaplane can now be built to any size, its speed and altitude performance can be made to equal its land-plane counterpart. It can carry heavy loads over long distances. It can be designed for refueling at sea.
“And if you want to romance its possibilities, look at a world map and imagine the numberless bases from where a seaplane can operate. The oceans and seas of the world will be its bases. These ‘waterfields’ will cost nothing, they will require little maintenance, and their use will pose no problems of sovereignty. Using 70 per cent of the earth’s surface, which is water, and carrying destructive loads, elusive seaplanes can be an additional deterrent to an aggressor.”
U. S. Plans Earth’s First Artificial Satellite in ’57
By Stewart Alsop
New York Herald-Tribune, March 9, 1955.—About two years from now—provided all goes according to plan—the United States should be about ready to launch into space the world’s first artificial earth satellite. The satellite which is now being planned will be very different from the elaborate space ships usually envisioned. It is likely to be hardly larger than a softball and it will probably weigh well under a hundred pounds. This small object will be hurled into space by means of a. two or three staged rocket, reaching an “escape velocity” of just under eight miles a second in its final stage.
Thereafter, the tiny satellite will circle the earth, at an altitude of 250 miles or more, like a ball at the end of a string, completing each circle in less than two hours. After some weeks, it will probably drift earthward as a result of slight atmospheric drag, and eventually it will disintegrate when it hits the denser atmosphere below.
Telemetering and other devices which can be built into such a tiny man-made moon can tell technicians on the earth below much about the great unknowns of space. Thus it will have very great scientific value. But, it should be understood, it will have no military application at all -it could not be used to kill anybody, or even to spy on anybody.
The Reasons
It is for precisely this reason that no serious effort to get a satellite into space has heretofore been made, even though seven or eight years ago the technicians of the Air Force’s Rand Project ruled that a satellite was technically feasible. Opponents of the satellite project have hitherto argued successfully that first priority must be given to weapons with real military value—above all to the decisive weapon, the inter-continental ballistic missile, or I.B.M.
There are two main reasons why it has now nevertheless been decided to make a serious effort to achieve a satellite. In the first place, as the missile art has matured, it has become clear that a satellite is a way- station on the road to the I.B.M., and can be achieved without any great diversion of funds or man power from the decisive weapon.
One might suppose that the problem of creating a 5,000-mile-range ballistic missile would be far easier than the problem of creating an artificial heavenly body. Actually, the satellite—or such a crude, preliminary satellite as that described above— is much easier.
The two worst headaches for the intercontinental missile designer—how to guide the missile accurately to its target half a world away, and how to prevent its disintegrating like a comet when it re-enters the atmosphere—do not exist for the designer of a satellite. The problem of design is also very much simplified because a small satellite
like that described above weighs far less than the bulky hydrogen warhead of an intercontinental missile.
* * *
In recent months the Soviet press has keen filled with boasts about future Soviet triumphs in space. Prof. Nesmeyanov, president of the august Soviet Academy of Sciences, passed the word: “Science has reached a point where it is realistic for us to speak of . . . creating an artificial satellite of the earth.” Nesmeyanov’s words have
been echoed by numerous confident predictions by other Soviet scientists.
I he intelligence experts have learned from sad experience, notably with both the atomic and the hydrogen bombs, that this sort of Soviet chest-thumping must be taken very seriously indeed. The prospect of permitting the Soviets to get the first artificial satellite tnto space seemed more intolerable the more the problem was considered.
* * *
The Russians would gain enormous prestige in the scientific world, as well as registering a huge propaganda victory, if they were the first to break the bonds of gravity. Put that is by no means all. Even assuming that the first Soviet satellite missile lacked a Practical military application, it would represent a great first step into an unknowable future.
Dr. Walter Dornberger, creator of the German V-2, which is the ancestor of all missiles, has said that the first nation to take this step will “lead mankind into the future.” Phis may be an exaggeration. But the time may and almost certainly will come when future versions of a satellite will have great military value for reconnaissance, for missile guidance, and for other purposes yet unguessed at.
’ * * *
Thus the decision to make a serious effort to get the first crude satellite into space is not the harebrained fantasy it may seem at first blush. It is plain common sense, in these days when our technological lead over the Soviets represents all the security we have left.
AKD: A Ship to Deliver and Launch Lighters in the Arctic
MSTS Magazine, March, 1955.—A proposed new ship—a cargo ship (dock)—is taking shape on the designer’s drawing board. When it is constructed, msts will send her into Arctic areas in company with cargo ships, where she will flood her dock and launch LCUs and/or other power-driven lighterage to offload the cargo ships and serve the shore base.
The cargo ship (dock), will look like the Navy’s amphibious force workhorse of World War II vintage, the LSD (landing ship, dock). Basically, the designed purpose of both ships are the same—to transport, launch, and retrieve small craft. But the
proposed msts version (the ice-strengthened AKD) was conceived primarily to offer substantial support to military ocean transportation in hard-to-reach areas.
Arctic supply operations are an annual task. Every spring, as the ice floes begin breaking up and sea lanes are clearing between the warmer latitudes and the distant northern bases (such as the Air Force base at Thule, Greenland), msts Lant is staging a vast cargo movement. During the limited summer sailing season that follows, enough supplies are fed into these bases to keep them for the year ’round. In summers past a fleet of ships paraded north in Operation Bluejay, Operations sunac and sunec, Operation Pine Tree, and many others.
At most of the northern destinations, supplies must be unloaded from cargo ships into lighters some distance from the shoreline. The lighters must than transport the supplies to piers or over the beach to the bases. To do this means a bulky job of taking small craft along with the cargo. msts has always received the assistance of fleet-operated LSDs for this part of the operation, but often at great inconvenience.
As a direct result of experience in the Artie, it has been determined that the vessels needed most are those with special ice- strengthened hulls combined with a means of delivering lighterage equipment and landing craft.
Thus, the msts shipbuilding program provides for a prototype ice-strengthened cargo ship (dock), based on the LSD, for the point-
to-point transportation of lighters for cargo operations in Arctic areas. The shipbuilding program includes, in all, four new ship types for which a $50 million appropriation has been acquired:
a roll-on, roll-off vehicle carrier (MSTS Magazine, December 1954, page 12) an ice-strengthened cargo ship an ice-strengthened tanker, and an ice-strengthened cargo ship (dock). The function of an LSD in launching its small craft is similar to bringing two piers and a spacious dock along on a cargo operation. The LSD is a floating dock—much like a hull sawed in half, partially submerged, with small boats cruising in and out of the flooded area between the wing walls of the mother ship. To launch its craft, the LSD ballasts down, floods the dock area and opens her tailgate.
What are the qualifications of an Arctic- operating ship? What will the AKD be required to do? Such a ship must be capable of coping with Arctic ice. The hull must be strengthened to protect it from free-flowing ice obstructions and to enable the ship to force its way through sheet ice.
Also, such a ship necessarily must be capable of combating extreme cold temperatures. Adequate insulation is necessary to protect the inner areas from arctic blasts. A heating plant powerful enough to warm up working, living, storage, and auxiliary machinery spaces is required. Special gear
must be fitted to withstand the cold and function properly in the Arctic.
In addition, the designed ship must be able to carry sufficient lighterage equipment mto the area to conduct an over-the-beach operation, to furnish portable docking facilities, with launching and service features.
With this in mind, designers put their heads together and wrote up specifications for a cargo ship (dock) that they think will do the job. At present, the AKD is still in the commercial designer’s shop, but already mto the basic idea have been poured special abilities from the Bureau of Ships, the Maritime Administration, commercial ship designers, and msts. It is expected that the ship will be ready for bidding by construction companies in approximately a month.
Generally, the msts prototype AKD will compare with the LSD-28 class, but modified so as to best accomplish its primary mission. It will not be quite as big and will have a foreshortened superstructure. Topside fixtures will be limited; there will be no guns or armor. A portion of the superdeck will be used as a helicopter platform.
The AKD will be 450 feet long. Her draft will not exceed 19 feet. She will sport a sustained sea speed of 15 knots, with a cruising radius of 10,000 miles. Propulsion will come from steam turbine engines through twin screws.
Ice strengthening will consist of an ice belt girdling the hull. The ice belt hull plating will be made of steel having good strength properties at low temperatures, extending from 3 feet above the deep load line to 3 feet below the light load line, supported by additional reinforcing frames inside the hull. The bow will be specially reinforced with an additional thickness of plating and extra frames. Her steel jacket will protect her well, though she will not be expected to withstand the pressure of pack ice.
A double bottom will offer protection against damage by grounding. Inside, at least one compartment subdivision will be provided to give protection against damage from ice and grounding. Stability will be adequate, and roll will be normal for a ship of this type.
To combat the Arctic freezing winds and temperatures in the lowest octaves, the
AKD will be outfitted with a series of chillkilling features. Between weather boundaries above the light load line (the part of the ship in contact with the outside) and protected inner areas, there will be a 3-inch layer of the best modern fibrous glass insulation. The protected areas include such spaces as living, berthing, messing, and operating quarters, storerooms where ship’s piping would be endangered by freezing, food storage spaces, enclosed crane operator’s platforms, ballast control and gage room, snaking winch compartment and docking master’s shelter. A hard surface board will be installed on the plane surfaces and on webs and face plates of beams and stiffeners. These protected spaces will be covered with magnesite.
When the outside air drops down below freezing, the ambient temperature for living and working spaces in the ship will be 70° F. Other spaces (stores, equipment, piping, etc.) will be kept at 40°. All water pipes will run through heated spaces.
The ship’s heating plant will be a complicated but able system throughout. In certain areas, however, individual unit heaters will be necessary: in the enclosed crane operator’s platforms, lookout stations, enginerooms, boilerrooms, auxiliary machinery and pump rooms, ballast control and gage room, snaking winch compartment, docking master’s shelter and ice lookout station. The fuel oil tanks will have heating coils and a stripping system.
The captain will be able to stand in his warm, completely enclosed navigation bridge and survey the icy waters through tinted thermal-insulating glass. From the enclosure he will command 360 degrees of horizontal visibility through windows at least 24 inches wide. The superstructure will be made as compact as possible in order to keep icing at a minimum.
The fire main aboard the AKD will be a “dry” system, with fire plugs so designed that the external piping may be drained to prevent freezing. Other cold-combating features will include tailgate mechanism enclosed within the wing wall, with dogging devices protected against icing. Propellers will be fabricated of a material best suited for operation in low temperature water, which will operate satisfactorily under warm conditions, also. Such added features as methods of preventing lifeboats from icing (with aluminum covers) are being studied.
Topside, the ship will be provided with two 35-ton cranes, 1 port and 1 starboard, for handling craft and cargo. Deck machinery will be below decks as much as practicable, and topside components well protected from ice. For de-icing cargo gear, provision will be made for steam hose connections or portable internal combustion heaters.
Berthing aboard the new ship will provide for 17 officers, 6 CPOs, 38 men, and 42 transient landing craft personnel, all in accordance with commercial and Coast Guard standards. Locker space will be at least 50 per cent above normal to accommodate bulky foul-weather clothing. Clothing drying rooms will take care of more than half the crew at one time. Survival gear aboard will handle 125 per cent of the ship’s complement—approximately 300 pounds per man located in topside areas and readily accessible.
When the AKD departs on an Arctic supply mission she will probably be carrying a load similar to this: 3 LCUs, 14 LVTs, 24 sleds and 4 “sno-cats.” (The sno-cat is a tractor with skis in front and treads behind.) These small craft will be loaded in the dock and on the superdeck over the dock.
The prototype AKD will strengthen United States military transportation on the seas to include a new punch. It is probable that this ship will be the first of many new designs capable of special operations in Arctic waters.
Atka Men Study Winter Pole Stay
By Walter Sullivan
New York Times, March 5,1955.—A group of Americans is planning to try to endure the hardships of a six-month winter night at the South Pole.
The problems involved are great, the more so because no one is certain what conditions to expect. No man has been within 700 miles of the Pole during the winter.
How cold does it really become? Over Little America the upper airdrops lower than 120 degrees below zero, Fahrenheit. On the Polar Plateau, where the elevation is 10,000 feet, the temperature may easily sink lower than 100 degrees below.
Does it become so cold that man cannot breathe the open air? Will mechanisms function? Will metals and plastics become brittle? Will the best polar garments be good enough?
Place of the Stratosphere
It has been postulated that during the winter night the stratosphere, a rarified layer of atmosphere generally five to eight miles up, settles onto the South Polar Plateau.
Is this air with its greater ozone content damaging to health?
Last but not least, how can such a station be set up?
These are some of the questions that have been discussed by observers from various civil government agencies and military services with this expedition. The Atka is now homeward-bound after a season’s survey for bases on the edge of Antartica that will support United States and international research on the continent in the next few years. The research is to be at a climax in the International Geophysical Year 1957-58.
* * *
When they return to Washington, some of this expedition’s observers will presumably join in the planning of the Polar station. Because of the unknown conditions to be expected at the South Pole, this task can be compared to that of drafting plans for a space platform.
A task of the International Geophysical Year, in the projects for which thirty-six nations have already joined, is to learn more about the space through which the earth is flying. The South Polar station is to be one among many observatories for that program.
* * *
It may be. necessary to establish and support the South Pole station entirely by air. The Atka has found places on the coast where bases could be established, especially at Kainen Bay, east of Ross Sea, in the Pacific Sector, and at newly-found Atka Bay, east of Weddell Sea, in the Atlantic Sector.
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To prepare for the United States’ part of that program, a 6,500-ton Navy icebreaker named the Atka has Just completed a survey that has probed the way for another expedition next year. When they return to “ ashington, some of the Atka’s observers—servicemen and civilians—will join in the planning of next year’s larger survey. Because of the unknown conditions that dominate the South Pole, the job is comparable to the drafting of plans for a space platform.
Here is Antarctica:* a continent some 6,000,000 square mnes in area, nearly as big as Europe and Australia combined. It is terra incognita—most of it has never been seen by human eye. It is a land utterly foreign to most men’s experience. It is inhospitable, unpredictable, ? region of unknown dangers. Now that Mount Everest has been climbed, the conquest of Antarctica is the last °f the great human exploits to be achieved.
Because Antarctica is such a challenge, men will go on daring its hazards until they learn what they need t° know. Two-score nations are planning now to conduct coordinated terrestrial and meteorological studies *h a program designated International Geophysical Year 1957-58.
There techniques developed in the Arctic would be used to harden the snow-ice surface for truck highways and airfields.
But can an airstrip be prepared at the Bole? The Army is developing snow-camp action equipment that can be air-dropped as can many of the supplies for the polar station.
The work of the Polar station will be to observe such phenomena as cosmic rays, the Aurora or Southern Lights and a similar manifestation called air glow. It will send balloons aloft to record the weather up to twenty miles, set off charges to determine the thickness of the ice cap, measure the force of gravity and send out radio impulses to Probe the atmosphere.
The Pole is a key position in all these stu-
* See page 349, Proceedings, March, 1954.
dies. Special instruments capable of working at extreme low temperature will be developed for the project. To cite one example, weather men say no liquid-in-glass thermometers are made, capable of readings under 90 degrees below zero.
FOREIGN
Ark Royal Commissioned February 22, 1955
By Lieutenant Commander Nowell Hall, D.S.C., R.N.V.R.
The Ark Royal, Britain’s newest aircraft carrier, was commissioned by the Royal Navy on February 22. Three days later she left for her final trials at sea.
The Ark Royal has a standard displacement of 36,800 tons and a full load reported to be 46,000 tons. When her front line aircraft are embarked she will carry altogether about 2,200 officers and men, a huge complement for one ship. This is the peacetime figure: in wartime the total would be larger.
Although the Ark Royal and her sister ship, the Eagle, are easily the biggest carriers ever built for the Royal Navy, it is not the sheer size of the vessel that is noteworthy. She is, in fact, the most-up-to-date carrier afloat, foreshadowing the shape and equipment of fleet “capital ships” in the foreseeable fqture.
Laid down over eleven years ago, her completion was delayed so that the very latest ideas could be incorporated in her design. Consequently, the Ark Royal will be the first carrier in commission to have all the important postwar developments for this type of warship. She will be the first in any of the world’s active fleets to have three outstanding British post-war inventions, all of which will profoundly affect the pattern of war at sea. These three innovations are being adopted for use in carriers of the United States Navy—the huge carriers America is now building are to be equipped with them—and by the navies of the Commonwealth. Undoubtedly the latest carriers of all the major NATO maritime powers will have them in due course.
Among the Ark Royal’s new features are:
(1) Two steam catapults.'] They are pow-
t See page 1113, Proceedings, October, 1954.
ered by steam from the ship’s engines, the pressure available being limited only by other operational requirements, and, in certain conditions, by the full capacity of the boilers. The catapults are so powerful that they can put into the air with ease the heaviest naval jet and turboprop aircraft likely to be in service for a long time. Unless a new and revolutionary form of flight, is applied to naval aircraft—such as the vertical take-off, which, of course, will require little if any lateral propulsive power at this juncture—it may be that the steam catapult will be required as long as the carrier herself has a place in modern fleets.
The Ark Royal has been modified to incorporate the invention. Work was begun on this costly warship long before the necessity was visualized for carriers to use aircraft of supersonic speeds. The steam catapult can launch aircraft even when the ship is stationary, and sometimes when she is steaming downwind. No longer will it usually be necessary for a carrier to leave the fleet or for the whole or part of the fleet to change course, to enable her to steam into the wind to operate her aircraft. Hitherto the movements of the fleet in good flying weather have depended largely on those of the carriers.
(2) The angled deck. Appropriately, this idea, involving a re-arrangement of the flight deck lay-out, was partly that of Captain D.R.F. Cambell, D.S.C., R.N., the Ark Royal’s Commanding Officer. The carrier has a modified angled deck of 5 degrees, instead of the full 8J degrees. The principle is simple: by approaching astern at a few degrees to starboard of the ship’s fore- and aft-line, instead of from dead astern as formerly, the pilot of the aircraft about to land finds his task enormously simplified. Previously he ran the risk of overshooting the arrester wires and barrier and crashing into other aircraft in the forward deck park, perhaps causing serious damage, injury or even loss of life. Now, with his view unobstructed, he can if necessary fly straight off the port side of the carrier to make another attempt, thus obviating clearance of the deck park for it to take off again—if, indeed, it can do so. Apart from much reducing risks of accident, the angled deck arrangement makes possible a great increase in operational flying efficiency. The Ark Royal needs only six arrester wires, whereas the Eagle, which has not yet acquired the angled deck (although she is in dockyard hands, in process of doing so) has 14.
(3) The “mirror sight.[1]” Enabling highspeed aircraft to land with greater ease, this also speeds up operations, and is therefore complementary to the catapult and the angled deck. The Ark Royal will have two of these, disposed on the port and starboard sides. The principle of the invention is well known.
The latest aircraft approach at such high speeds that no opportunity occurs for normal human contact to be established between the pilot and “batsmen,” the landing signals officer on deck who formerly, by raising or lowering a bat in each hand, was able to indicate to the incoming pilot whether he was, or was not, in a suitable position to land.
The services of the “batsman” can now be dispensed with: to ensure a safe landing the pilot has to keep in alignment three spots of light, one of which is reflected in a curved mirror. If he does so, the aircraft makes a perfect touchdown.
There are other innovations. The Admiralty, giving new details which indicate the size of this great ship, says she has about 1,300 compartments, 750 miles of electric cable (weighing 110 tons); about 1,000 electrical connections, over 1,000 motors of all sizes, 600 to serve the ventilation system. Being rather like a small, self-contained, floating town, the Ark Royal has her own complex telephone system. No other British aircraft carrier has a deck edge elevator, which again makes for high speed handling of aircraft. This elevator gives access to the upper hanger and is one of three. The other two are located along the center line of the flight deck.
Both the Eagle (she joined the British Fleet in March, 1952) and the Ark Royal can steam at .well over 30 knots and are fine sea ships, as has been evident from the Eagle’s performance in the bad weather attending several NATO exercises held in recent years.
Air Potential of the Soviets
Forces Aeriennes Franqaises, December, 1954.—The air potential of the Soviet Bloc rests mainly on the effort put out since the end of the war. By maintaining productive capacity of the aeronautical industry at a high level, and improving, sometimes through foreign improvements, the quality of materials in service, the Russians have constantly increased the potential existing in 1946. The contribution of the satellites to this task is not unimportant: it is chiefly economic.
The air forces of the East, while quite numerous, are still oriented mainly toward tactical missions (support of land forces and aerial defense). The USSR has not succeeded >n creating a balanced aviation.
As late as 1936, the Soviet Command was guided by the theories of Douhet, and pushed bombing aviation. However, the Spanish Civil War taught them the importance of aviation in infantry combat. During the last war, the Soviets had lost faith in the importance of strategic air forces.
Moreover, during the hostilities, the large- scale production of sometimes outmoded types corresponded to the immediate needs. Combat suitability was often rated as secondary: simplicity of manufacture was stressed. The performance of Soviet planes was definitely below that of German or Allied planes. But the Russians brought out an increasing number of planes for ground support, and they received from the West the needed planes for bombing and transport.
At the end of the war, the Russians had no experience with radar, jet-planes, rockets, and radio-guided bombs. After the war, as the gap between East and West widened, a great technical effort became necessary.
1 his pre-supposed years of research and intensive work, which was actually facilitated by the voluntary or involuntary contributions of conquered Germany, as well as of the United States and Great Britain.
Germany’s contribution was the most important. She paid for her defeat. The Soviet occupation zone was pillaged; plants, research departments, specialists on aeronautics were transferred to the USSR. The booty was considerable in all domains: air forms, motors, equipment, engines, radio and radar materials. In all of these branches, German engineers collaborated closely with Soviet technicians.
America’s contribution was involuntary. In 1945, three American crews had to make forced landings of their B-29’s in Siberia. The USSR refused to give up these superfortresses with their equipment, which was the most modern of the time. More recently, by a ruse worthy of the best cloak and dagger novel, the Russians forced down an American F-84 patrol in Prague, and thus acquired one of the most recent types of bomb sight used by the United States.
As for Great Britain, it will be recalled that in 1946 and 1947 she agreed to the sale of fifty Rolls Royce Nene and Derwent centrifugal compressor turbo-jets to the USSR. At the same time, a group of Russian specialists was studying at Rolls Royce in England the manufacture of parts, their assembly, and the conduct of tests of the turbo-jets.
If it has seemed necessary to recall these well-known facts here, it is because the foreign contribution, however old it may have been, remains preponderant; it is quite noticeable in the engines (all jet engines in service are derived from British or German types), the armament acquired from the Germans, and the electronic devices. One must not, however, underestimate the original research effort conducted in the USSR by Soviet technicians. The great engineers, such as Mikoyan, Yakovlev, Lavochkin, Tupolev, and Ilyushin, have made important contributions of their own.
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What are the principal types of planes now in use by Soviet aviation or that may come into use in the near future? The Soviets have fighters, particularly day fighters, of about the same quality as their allied counterparts: Mig-15, La-17, Mig-17, La-15, and tomorrow perhaps Mig-19, Yak-25, Mig-21.
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For the last three years, the Russians have had in service the best light bomber in the world. This is the 11-28 or Tu-10.
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The standard unit for strategic bombing is the medium bomber Tu-4 a copy of the American superfortess. Three types, the Ef-150, the Type 31, and the Tug-75, which were frequently discussed in American periodicals last winter, are, according to other sources, chiefly for experimental use. None has gone into production.
Two new bombers were presented at the May Day air show in Moscow last year (1954). The first was a twin-engined jet, swept-back wings, rather large; the second a four-engined unit, also swept back and still larger. Both have engines at the wing insertion. Nothing is known of these units, but their simultaneous presentation indicates the Russian interest in jet bombers.
Transport types of Soviet planes are well known; the Li-2 is a Russian version of the Dakota which became popular during the war; the 11-12 twin-engined 17-ton plane and the Yak-16 light twin-engined 7-ton plane are two units which have been in service since 1947-1948.
The Russians have, in addition, an assault transport plane, the Cher-4, three- engined, very sturdy, and equipped for transporting light tanks. There is no four- engined transport plane in service in the Russian air forces.
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It is clear, therefore that if the USSR has tactical planes comparable in quality to those of the western powers (which is still not apparent in their all-weather fighters), it does not appear that they are able to muster heavy bombers and transport planes up to the American standard.
Russian technicians are doubtless trying to fill the serious gap in their bombing and transport aviation, but their known achievements indicate a lack of assurance in this field. The two jet bombers presented last May are a radical departure from those produced heretofore. It is the first time Soviet designers have developed planes with engines more or less built into the wings; on the Ef-150 the jets are below the plane and at a considerable salience.
The fact that the air forces in the USSR today are equipped almost entirely with light units suitable for tactical missions is therefore only a result of technical shortcomings rather than, as is generally stated, the result of a systematic policy aiming at subordinating military aviation to the land forces.
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It is difficult to estimate accurately the annual productive capacity of the Soviet aeronautical industry. Before the German aggression, production in 1941 was up to
1.0 planes per month, but this was soon cut by one-half. In July, 1945, the Russians put out 3,580 planes, which would mean an annual capacity of 43,000 planes. But circumstances were extremely favorable: industrial mobilization was total, and Canada and the United States were furnishing 70% of the aluminum.
Aluminum is still the essential element for the aeronautical industry, since it is the base of its light alloys. However, this metal is comparatively rare in the USSR. The Russians have been trying to increase production since the war, and have raised the annual output from 60,000 tons in 1943 to
90.0 tons in 1946, and 160,000 tons in 1951 (American production in 1950 was
650.0 tons). An additional 100,000 tons were imported in that year from Hungary, a country rich in bauxite. These figures indicate that aircraft production could not exceed 14,000 planes, half of which could be jet fighters. However, the fifth five-year plan calls for production of 500,000 tons of aluminum (including Hungarian imports) in 1955, the last year of the plan. This could mean an expansion of aircraft production.
Important as is the effort of the USSR, the contribution of the satellites cannot be ignored. None of them is in a position to build modern planes of original design, but by virtue of their geography, their economic and industrial potential, the countries of Central Europe contribute to the air potential of the Soviet Union. The satellite countries have raw materials which are sometimes in short supply in the USSR. Bauxite from Hungary has been mentioned. There are also Rumanian oil, Polish coal, and uranium from Czechoslovakia.
Some of these countries possess a heritage of technical and even scientific traditions which are valuable to the Soviets. Eastern Germany, for instance, furnishes radar equipment, optical instruments, and special rocket fuels; Poland has petroleum refineries ^■nd plantsf or synthetic rubber and plastics; ln Czechoslovakia there is a veritable armament industry, as well as manufactures of optical and electronic materials.
Nearly all of the satellite countries of Central Europe (excepting Bulgaria and Albania) have an aeronautical industry. The plants, some of which were destroyed during the war, have been rebuilt, but production is generally limited to light trainers, touring planes and gliders of original design. Only the Czech industry is able to build combat planes on the Soviet model; at the beginning of 1952, the Letov firm undertook to produce Mig-15’s in quantity, at a reported rate of 10-15 planes per month. Assault planes 11-10 are likewise in production >n Czechoslovakia.
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Air forces of the satellite countries have the same character and are usually equipped with the same materials as the Soviet forces. Aside from the forces of Red China, they operate only tactical planes, fighters, assault and reconnaissance, very rarely light bombers.
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The air forces of Red China, as a result of the war in Korea, have been treated with particular favor. The frequent interventions of Mig-15’s in the neighborhood of the Yalu and in North Korea are proof of this. Thus the Chinese have been able to acquire a valuable experience in the use of modern materials, including jet fighters, in actual warfare.
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The Soviet bloc thus has large but poorly balanced air forces equipped with modern materials and supported by an industry whose productive capacity is at a high level.
The will of the rulers of the USSR is clearly orien ted today toward the re-enforcing of its air potential. Air forces and tactical air forces remain the essential factor of Soviet military strength. However, the lessons of the allied aerial campaign in Germany, the results obtained in the domain of atomic weapons, both in the USSR and in the United States, have forced the Soviet rulers for some years to put out a great effort toward improving the system of air defense and creating a strategic aviation.
The Russians, still outwardly faithful to certain military concepts of the past, recognize implicitly the revolution that has taken place in weapons, and are gradually changing these concepts.
BRIEFS
New Test Chamber Brings 25 Mile Altitude to Earth
Aviation Week, March 7, 1955.—For high- altitude environmental tests of new equipment, a special chamber in which conditions up to 130,000 ft. may be duplicated has recently been delivered to the Aeronautical Division, Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Corp.
The equipment has 24 cu. ft. of work area and relative humidity can be controlled from 5% or less within a range of 160F to 200F. Temperatures as high as 500F may be reproduced, and changes may be made at the rate of 10 deg. per minute, the manufacturer states.
Submerging Base
Mechanical Engineer, March, 1955.—The U. S. Army Corps of Engineers has built a new arctic base deliberately designed to sink slowly beneath the surface of the Greenland polar icecap. The base was requested by the Department of Air Force in relation to its arctic-defense responsibilities in the latter part of 1952. The base is located some miles closer to the North Pole than Thule.
The polar cap, estimated to be 10,000 ft. deep in places, will not support standard buildings since it is too soft and churns in a packing action which tends to pull structures down to its depths.
Army engineers, therefore, employed the submarine pressure-hull principle and built the buildings of metal culverts 18 ft. in diam. and of varying lengths. The tubes are hooked together at the ends and with interconnecting passageways.
Like a ship, the over-all structure is balanced to go down into the snow on an even keel at the rate of several feet a year.
It is the first time in history that a permanent structure has been built successfully on the icecap.
Personnel move in and out when necessary through submarinelike escape hatches which can be lengthened as the structure decends.
The insides of the culverts are squared into long rooms with braces to support the weight of the structure and to withstand the pressure of snow and ice on the sides and on top as the sections move lower into the icecap.
The tubes are carefully insulated against cold as low as minus 72 F. Heating plants maintain inside temperatures at plus 72 F.
The buildings are equipped with sleeping quarters, mess hall, recreation room, kitchen, clinic, communication facilities, and fuel, food, and water for an indefinite period.
New Color Radar Demonstrated by Navy
Army-Navy-Air Force Register, March 5, 1955.—The Navy recently unveiled an experimental color radar set that shows planes and land areas in two colors. According to the National Naval Medical Center News, the set, developed by the Chromatic Television Laboratory, Inc., was built around a tube originally designed for color TV. The set produces two colors on a screen, but scientists said a third could be produced without a great technical difficulty.
Ordinary monochrome radar sets produce only one color on their screens, but the color model shows airplanes as bright orange dots traveling over chartreuse colored land areas.
The color is made possible by using basic principles that govern color television. The set is rigged so that planes at high levels produce an orange color on the screen, while those traveling at low altitudes show up in a green hue.
One scientist said that color radar’s advantage over monochrome has not been fully established, but it does given greater visual aid to the radar operator. The set is capable of depicting friendly and enemy planes in different colors.
No military decision has been made as yet to put the set into production.
Record Titanium Find
Washington Evening Star, February 21,
1955.—The world’s largest deposit of titanium ore has been discovered in southwestern Tanganyika, near Lake Nyasa, to give the West a virtually unlimited source of the metal vital in the manufacture of supersonic aircraft and guided missiles.
A dispatch to New Commonwealth, a London publication specializing in colonial questions, reports that 1,200,000,000 tons of titaniferous magnetite has been located by drilling hundreds of feet.
Titanium is 42 per cent lighter than stainless steel. It is preferred to all other metals in the building of light, high-performance engines and rockets.
Speaking of Big Winds
U. S. Air Services, February, 1955.—The world’s two most powerful motors, built by Westinghouse Electric Corporation, on January 26 were given their official “start up” at the Air Research and Development Command’s Arnold Engineering Development Center, Tullahoma, Tenn.
Built for use in the Air Force’s new transonic and supersonic propulsion wind tunnel there, the 83,000 horsepower motors were set into motion at the rate of 600 revolutions a minute by two starting motors, each
25,0 horsepower. The rating of all four motors will be 216,000 horsepower.
The rotating machine will be almost as long as two football fields.
A shaft through this machine will be capable of driving the world’s largest rotating wind-producing device for testing and evaluating supersonic planes, aircraft engines, and guided missiles. When the wind tunnels are in full operation, man-made gales will race around two separate courses inside a huge pipe nearly wide enough to hold both tubes of New York’s Holland Tunnel.
Each of the 83,000 horsepower motors weighs 225 tons, as much as a railroad locomotive. The four motors will use enough electric power to supply Nashville, Tenn. The wind tunnels will require 100,000 gallons of cooling water a minute, equal to what a city the size of Washington needs.
Despite the weight and speed of the motor and compressor system, it can be brought to a halt in about three minutes by using the wound-rotor motors as brakes. In this fash- ■on, energy is dumped into liquid rheostats— the world’s largest—which are used for secondary control.
British Carrier Pilots Will Get ‘Hearing Aid’
New York Times, March 1, 1955.— British Navy pilots will be guided to safe landings on the decks of carriers by a newly developed “hearing aid,” the Admiralty announced today.
The device supplements the mirror “sight”[2] tor carrier landings announced last year. The sight replaced the man who formerly signaled planes down with his paddles wav- ]ng them off when speed or trajectory were
incorrect.
The mirror sight, however, called for the Pilot to make his own decisions, keeping three lights in line as he let down through the darkness. So intently did he watch the device on the carrier that he could not watch his airspeed gauge.
The new device gives him an electronic tone in his headphones that is varied accord- ■ng to his speed.
Aviation Week, February 21, 1955.— Naval Research Laboratory scientists are proposing to fire a Martin-built Viking research rocket from the deck of the USS Norton Sound in Norwegian waters. Reason: To obtain upper atmosphere data above the northern latitudes. Variations in atmospheric properties over the earth require data points from numerous selected locations.
“Drone” Helicopter Flies Under Remote Control
By Harry C. Kenney
Christian Science Monitor, February 18, 1955.—A “drone” helicopter has been flying under remote control under the watchful and hopeful eye of the United States Navy for over a year.
Designed as a research and development vehicle by Kaman Aircraft Corporation, which is under contract with naval research, the machine can be flown by an operator at a ground-control station.
Actually the project has been under study by Kaman for two years, but during the past year the drone has spent more than 100 hours of remote-control operation. Experiments have included take-offs and landings, backward, sideward, forward, and hovering flight.
The operator at the remote-control station transmits command signals by radio to the controls in the drone. Although this system is somewhat similar to the remote-control of fixed-wing aircraft, the problems are much more complex in a helicopter.
Problems solved and some of the craft’s accomplishments include the helicopter’s ability to rise and descend vertically, stand still in midair, and fly forward, backward, and sideward slowly or fast.
Also and aside from the complexities of developing a workable remote-control system, it was necessary for Kaman engineers to produce a suitable small automatic pilot and miniature gear boxes to be used with the system.
All flights made thus far have been with a safety pilot aboard since this is a one-of-a- kind helicopter and he could take over in case of emergency. All flights to date have been limited to the visual range of the operator at the ground station.
Officials of Kaman said that information on the uses for remote-controlled helicopters is restricted by the Navy. It is conceded, however, that the Navy is highly interested in seeing the project brought to a successful conclusion and that there would be vital uses for such equipment.
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