Simulators that took off
QUESTION Who invented the flight simulator? A flight simulator replicates the reallife conditions and situations that pilots will face in the cockpit.
the pilots of the first powered planes learnt by progressing through a graded sequence of exercises on real aircraft.
they started by taxiing along the ground in a non-flying, under-powered vehicle known as a Breese Penguin to practise using the rudder, progressing to short hops using elevator control, followed by longer hops and then flight.
in 1904, the Antoinette company in france began making light petrol engines and within five years was building aircraft to its own design.
flight was controlled by hand-wheels on each side of the cockpit. this was not intuitive and after a number of accidents, the company invited chief engineer leon levavasseur to produce a simulator for novices to learn how to fly the planes.
levavasseur’s first device in 1910 was made from two halves of a barrel connected by a flexible joint.
the instructor would manually change the position of the half-barrel forming the stand-in cockpit and the student used the controls to correct pitch and roll, and line up a reference bar with the horizon. the simulator was known as the tonneau Antoinette — Antoinette’s barrel.
Other companies produced similar devices. British biplane designer Captain haydn A. Sanders devised the Sanders teacher: an aircraft body facing into the wind and mounted on a universal joint to transmit rotation through slightly misaligned shafts.
in 1911, the Wright Brothers created the Kiwi Bird. it was simply a type B aircraft without a tail or motor, mounted on a trestle and with just one degree of lateral movement.
the italian gabardini Captive Monoplane trainer appeared in the 1919 edition of Jane’s Aircraft.
Eventually, devices advanced to a point where instructors were able to simulate difficult wind and weather conditions. the most famous and perhaps the first true simulator was invented by Edward link in 1929. the link trainer was an enclosed cockpit assembled on a shock-absorbing strut.
the link D2 trainer, developed in 1937, was based on the Douglas DC-2 passenger aircraft. it was fitted with movable ailerons (which allow the plane to bank), rudder and elevators.
the cockpit had instruments including a compass, altimeter, rate of climb indicator, airspeed indicator, turn and bank indicator and radio compass.
this was the first truly immersive training system and was used to teach pilots around the world until the 1960s.
Richard Dale, Matlock, Derbys.
QUESTION What are the largest tributaries in Britain and in the world?
STREAMS and rivers that feed a larger river are called tributaries. the 155-mile river Wye is Britain’s fourth longest river and one of its most beautiful. it discharges into the Severn Estuary, so can be considered a tributary.
the 96-mile Warwickshire Avon joins the Severn at tewkesbury and is Britain’s 13th longest river.
the irtysh river that flows through China, Kazakhstan and russia is the world’s longest tributary. it starts in the Altai mountains and after 2,640 miles joins the Ob river.
the 2,300-mile Ob is shorter than the irtysh, though it is a much greater river in terms of volume. the Ob-irtysh river system is the seventh longest in the world. in itself, the irtysh is the world’s 14th longest river.
Mrs D. Ryan, Nottingham.
QUESTION Where do we get the saying ‘call a spade a spade’?
TO CALL a spade a spade is to speak honestly and directly about a topic, in particular subjects that others may avoid owing to their sensitivity or embarrassing nature.
the origin of the expression is the greek phrase to call a fig a fig and a trough a trough.
Some attribute it to the playwrights Aristophanes or Menander. the historian Plutarch used it in his Apophthegmata Laconica, a collection of old saying by the Spartans. it’s possible the original
expression was vulgar and the figs and troughs were double entendres.
it was the 16th-century humanist and classical scholar Desiderius Erasmus who, in translating the phrase from greek to latin, dramatically changed it to call a spade a spade.
he translated the greek skaphe as spade, though it more accurately means anything hollowed out. Whether this was a mistranslation or creative interpretation is not known.
Spade stuck because of Erasmus’s considerable influence in European intellectual circles.
the phrase was introduced to English in the 16th century in Nicolas Udall’s translation of Erasmus’s apophthegms or aphorisms: ‘Philippus answered that the Macedonians wer feloes of no fyne witte in their termes but altogether grosse, clubbyshe and rusticall, as they whiche had not the witte to calle a spade by any other name then a spade.’
the term has been used extensively in literature. Jonathan Swift featured it in Polite Conversation: Dialogue iii and Charles Dickens in hard times.
in his novel the Picture Of Dorian gray, Oscar Wilde decries realism in literature thorough lord henry Wotton’s words: ‘it is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things.
‘the man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one. it is the only thing he is fit for.’
he used the phrase to comic effect in the importance Of Being Earnest. Cecily declares, ‘When i see a spade, i call it a spade,’ to which gwendolen responds: ‘i am glad to say that i have never seen a spade.’
Dan Mills, Cannock, Staffs.
■ IS THERE a question to which you want to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question here? Write to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Scottish Daily Mail, 20 Waterloo Street, Glasgow G2 6DB; or email charles.legge@dailymail.co.uk. A selection is published, but we’re unable to enter into individual correspondence.