The pilot is obliged to rely on instruments when flying blind. These instruments have to give him the information he would gather from watching the horizon if visibility were good. They have to tell him when the machine is flying level, when climbing, when diving or gliding, when it is banked, and when turning. Instruments for blind flying differ in the ways in which they convey their indications, and also in the principles on which they operate. These instruments are all described in this chapter.
The need for some system by which the nationality of an aircraft could readily be determined by observers on the ground and in the air first became apparent soon after the outbreak of the war of 1914-18. This chapter describes the systems in use and includes a full list of aircraft registration markings in current use at the beginning of 1938.
A difficult branch of aviation that requires specialized knowledge. Aerial mountaineering for survey purposes includes photography, mapping and flights to determine the best routes for air transport to follow. The earliest flights across mountain ranges were all by their nature survey flights. Much of this work has meant laborious accomplishment far from the haunts of men. Therefore, while record-breaking flights and pilots became household words, few of the mountaineering air pioneers were equally known.
A well-supported event which, in 1909, helped to establish the future of aviation. Air meetings and air displays are common enough today, but they began in the far-off days of 1909, on the Plain of Bethany, in the Champagne district of France, when thousands of eager spectators flocked to see the first great display of flying. The significance of the Rheims Air Meeting seems unimportant now, yet Rheims was the cradle of competitive aviation.
A network of services covering Europe and extending across central Africa. Civil aviation in Belgium is controlled by SABENA. This company operates all Belgium’s public air services as well as private charter services for the transport of passengers, mail and freight. This chapter describes all the air routes operated by SABENA.
Aircraft can always fly with a bigger load that that with which they can take off. The extra power needed can be supplied by a ship-mounted power-driven catapult, which accelerates the take-off so that by the time the aircraft reaches the end of the catapult runway it has already attained flying speed and is thus able to support its weight unaided. The introduction of the catapult dates back to the pioneer days of Langley and the Wright brothers, who used primitive forms of catapults to launch into flight aircraft whose engines were not powerful enough for the take-off. This chapter is concluded in part 16.
