Flight Lieutenant Edgar Hastings Cambridge - the Royal Flying Corps

[ZackNZ]

Can anyone cast any light on the ‘inventions’ referred to in the following newspaper article?

“Flight Lieutenant Edgar Hastings Cambridge, of the Royal Flying Corps, son of the late Mr A B Cambridge, the well known portrait painter, of Christchurch, and of Mrs Cambridge, now of Stanley Bay, Auckland, is the officer who, in conjunction with another flight officer, invented a system of speed control for a fighting type of British aeroplane now used throughout his Majesty’s Air Service. He, with his brother Allan, also invented the Cambridge gas producer, and has made other notable additions to scientific apparatus. Lieutenant Cambridge has been on service for the whole duration of the war, having joined the Australian Army in August 1914, in the technical branch. He was with the Royal Engineers in the landing at Gallipoli. Lieutenant Cambridge was severely wounded by a bomb in 1915, and was invalided Home, where, on recovery, he applied himself to the air service, where his inventive genius found scope. He is at present test pilot at a flying depot in India.”

Source: The Press October 23, 1917 page7

Many thanks

Zacknz

[ZackNZ]

Nothing??

[Bob H]

I could only find an Austrian patent for their gas producer.

Patent

Nothing for the speed controller.

Regards

Bob

[Adrian Roberts]

This is only a guess, but several times on this forum we have discussed the problems of throttles on rotary engines. Basically, the throttles were highly sensitive to petrol/air mixture. If you altered the throttle, you had to adjust the mixture immediately, which was not easy. Therefore, speed control was much more difficult than with other engines.

Various attempts were made to produce different carburettors giving more user-friendly throttles - possibly the Cambridge brothers were involved in this.

[ZackNZ]

Many thanks Adrian and Bob for your advice. I appreciate your efforts.

Regards

Zack