The Bumper Book of Questions and Answers [antikvár]

The year 1903 is not such a long time ago. Many people are alive now who were living then. But the changes that have occurred in these last 83 years are very great indeed. One of the biggest changes has been in the speed of aircraft. On these pages are shown some of the outstanding aircraft that were the fastest in the world in their time. Strangely, the story ends in 1969 — but more of that later. The beginning of it all was the biplane designed by the Wright brothers in America. It was capable of the then impressive speed of 48 km/h. After the Wrights' initial triumph, much of the development of the aeroplane took place in Europe, particularly in France. This development was speeded up by World War I in which the aeroplane was used as a weapon for the first time. After the war, Jacques Schneider, a French Engineer, started the sporting event 'The Schneider Trophy Races' for the speed and seaworthiness of sea planes. This event was mostly responsible for shaping the future of aircraft design. The event was for sea planes, and was won for the third time in succession by Britain in 1931, thus entitling Britain to retain the Trophy for all time. The machine that won the 1931 race, the Supermarine S.6B, went on to set a new worid speed record of 668 km/h. But other countries were not out of the race for greater speed. Developed on similar lines to the S.5B, an Italian aircraft — the Macchi M.67 — raised the record to 708 km/h in 1934. The Supermarine S.6 was designed by R. J. Mitchell. He used his experience to good effect when he ultimately designed the Spitfire, which was so well streamlined and efficient that, despite its wing span of 11 metres and a large powerful Rolls-Royce engine in front, its drag, or air resistance, was equivalent to that of a steel plate only 45 cm in diameter. The next significant development of the aeroplane came with jet propulsion, which raised the speeds of aircraft by over 200 km/h. A jet aircraft — the de Havilland D. H. 108 — broke the 'sound barrier' (that is, it went faster than the speed of sound, 1,225 km/h) in 1948. But over the years jets got faster and faster. The 'official' world airspeed record of 3,529.56 km/h is held by a jet, the American Lockheed company's SR-71A 'Blackbird' (see below, right). This record was set back in 1976 and has not been bettered since. Is Man slowing down in the race to go faster? Not exactly. For a start, rockets do not qualify for the official airspeed record and all faster aircraft have been rocket-powered. In fact, the rocket-powered Bell XS-1 broke the sound barrier before the de Havilland D.H. 108, in October 1947. While developing their space programme during the 1960s, the Americans produced an experimental rocket aircraft, the X15. This achieved a speed of 7,297 km/h in 1967. But this sort of speed is of little value in normal day-to-day or even military aircraft — which is why aeroplane speeds have not increased since the SR-71A. How pointless these great speeds are is shown by what happened when the SR-71 (an earlier version of the SR-71 A) broke the record for the quickest Atlantic crossing in September 1974, travelling at an average speed of 2,924 km/h. The cross-Atlantic flight, New York to London, took just 1 hour 56 minutes — but the plane was travelling so fast it could not land. It had to overshoot not only the runway but Britain! It had travelled all the way to Amsterdam before it was going slow enough to turn round and come back to land. So much greater speeds for aeroplanes are of no value. The X15 was developed for another reason — so that rockets could be made fast enough to break away from the Earth's gravity and travel out into space. It is in space that Man has reached his greatest speed. On the way back from orbiting the Moon in 1969, Apollo 10 reached 39,897 km/h. To the Moon is the farthest and fastest that Man has gone. But if Man voyages to distant planets, or even stars, even greater speeds will be needed so that he can travel across the vast distances. Yet Man can't keep going faster and faster. Unlike the sound barrier, the f-'light' barrier cannot be beaten. The , speed of light — 299,792,500,000 km/s : — is the ultimate, the fastest possible, speed in the Universe. When — and if ^ — Man reaches it, he will have to be content. The story of going faster will have reached its end. m ll^ The two insets in our main picture show two British warplanes that were the las-test in their time. The S.E.5.A. (left) was one of several fighters developed to win the air battles over the trenches during World War I. It was tough, easy to handle and, for the time, very fast. The Spitfire (above, right) will be remembered for Its part In winning the Battle of Britain In World War II.