No CrossRef data available.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2016
The ubiquity of aircraft in being and yet to be, whether civil or military, manned or unmanned, makes them liable to exposure to wide extremes of atmospheric conditions. The range of temperature to which they may be subjected may possibly be from +90° to –90°C. (+194° to –130°F.), that of pressure, from one atmosphere to something approximating to one-tenth of this amount, while the water content (aqueous vapour plus water in suspension; for example, in a very dense tropical cloud), can, on occasion, be as high as 2.5 per cent. by weight and, at stratospheric heights, at least as low as 0.001 per cent. Such variations in ambient conditions are not without chemical and physical repercussions. The engineering problems which arise will be examined, therefore, from both these view points, and attention will be drawn to potential dangers and means suggested for their avoidance.