Abstract
LEAVING Cranwell at 4.15 a.m. on Thursday, July 7, four Vickers Wellesley aircraft, fitted with 'Bristol' Pegasus engines and Rotol constant-speed airscrews, flew non-stop for 32 hours. They arrived at Ismailia, Egypt, next day at 12.10 p.m., having 'covered a distance of 4,300 miles at an average ground-speed of 135 m.p.h. This achievement, which was part of the development work of the Long-Range Unit of the Royal Air Force, is the longest non-stop formation flight ever accomplished. A flight of this nature is an extreme test of the absolute reliability of the engines. The Pegasus engines employed were the medium-supercharged type, specially developed for economy of fuel consumption. They have to be capable of running continuously on very weak mixtures, which increases the flame temperatures in the cylinders, so that the pistons, valves, plugs, etc., are subjected to abnormally high thermal stresses. The average height during the flight was about 10,000 feet, which sets up a difficult combination of high engine gas temperatures and low air density on one hand, and operation at very low power in a cold atmosphere on the other. It is a tribute to the design, manufacture, and maintenance of these engines that they stood up to the exacting conditions of this flight, giving a continuous performance of more than a thousand horse-power for little more than a thousand pounds weight.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Record Non-Stop Formation Flight. Nature 142, 146 (1938). https://doi.org/10.1038/142146c0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/142146c0