Word: dh
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Three years ago a De Havilland DH-110 jet fighter disintegrated and plunged into a crowd, killing 28, but the crowds last week did not seem nervous when almost untested new airplanes flashed a few feet over their heads. Many of the airplanes were supersonic, but much to the crowd's disappointment, they all kept below the speed of sound. Britain's air officialdom has probably decided that the shock waves stirred up by the latest airplanes are too dangerous even for Britain's gluttons-for-punishment public...
...Coanda Effect. Frost, who lives in Toronto with his wife and son, helped to design wartime gliders, later the Vampire jet and DH-108 tailless jet. As chief design engineer for special projects at A.V. Roe Canada. Ltd. (part of Britain's famed Hawker-Siddeley aircraft group), he worked on Canada's first home-built jet fighter, the CF-100. Meanwhile, in a top-secret screened area at Avro's Maiton plant, he designed flying saucers-at least one 40-ft. mockup, with a flattened end and spindly undercarriage. This model, quickly nicknamed he "Praying Mantis...
Four years ago, Test Pilot John Derry became the first Briton to pass the speed of sound and live to tell about it (TIME, Sept. 20, 1948).* Last week, at Britain's annual Farnborough Air Show, Derry was flying a De Havilland DH-110, a twinjet, all-weather fighter. Before 120,000 spectators, including his young wife, Pilot Derry climbed to more than eight miles and dived, jets screaming, straight toward the crowd. Down he flashed at more than 700 m.p.h. When he leveled off, the double thunderclap of his shock waves-palpable as ocean breakers-crashed against...
...Britain's flyers showed their new wares with superb and sometimes reckless showmanship. The Supermarine Swift and the Hawker Hunter, R.A.F. interceptors, flashed past the stands 100 ft. off the ground at an official 715 m.p.h., only a shade below the speed of sound. Pilot Derry in his DH-110, which was later to crash, zoomed to 17,000 ft. in a vertical, barrel-rolling climb. All three planes dived at the field, bombarding the stands with shock waves that sounded like cannon fire...
Comments from U.S. airmen on the Farnborough show were generally critical. Some, conceding that the British are forward-looking in design, refused to admit that the British have anything that the U.S. cannot match. Others pointed out that the British exhibit their designs (e.g., the ill-fated DH-110) long before they have been properly tested. Another criticism : the new British military planes look good in design and in flight test, but they have not yet passed the big test of battle, or even of service in tactical units. And they are not likely to get the big test soon...