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Aviation History
1936
1936 - 0452.PDF
FEBRUARY 20, 1936. FLIGHT. *95 An architect's drawing of the impressive new airport building. WORTHY of the GAY CITY Some Details of the Rebuilding of Le Bourget Airport, Now Beginning Quicker Road Access to Paris SOME details are now available regarding the extensive improvements which are now about to be made at Le Bourget. In brief, the present landing area is to be virtually doubled, and an extremely large and imposing new building is to be erected to house the administrative and passenger services. Since the inception of Le Bourget as an airport in 1921 practically the whole of the easterly side has been occupied by the passenger buildings and the hangars of the various com panies, while the other side of the field has been occupied by the military hangars. Civil Flying Only Under the new arrangement the whole of the airport will be devoted to civil flying. The military aircraft will be gradually withdrawn, and such of their hangars as are found useful for commercial purposes will be retained, while the others will be demolished. The pursuit squadron of the 34th Aviation Regiment has already left, and others will follow from time to time. It is proposed to increase the area from the present figure w 500 acres to one of approximately 1,000 acres. A large section of vacant land amounting to 400 acres fronting the northerly boundary will shortly be acquired, and the brook Blown as La Moree, which now forms the boundary, will be covered over. The surface of the ground, which is rather low at this point, will be raised to the level of the rest of the field; lt is estimated that a million cubic yards of earth will be required for the work. ft is also proposed to acquire an additional 100 acres at the south-westerly end of the airport, and for this purpose the Dugny road will be "pushed" farther to the south. With the acquisition of these two parcels of land the new field will give a maximum run of 3,460 yards. These extensions are being carried out under the supervision of M. jean Cor, chief civil engineer to the Air Ministry. The strikingly designed three-storey airport building (already illustrated in Flight, but reproduced again on this page) will be erected on the easterly side of the aerodrome, occupying the site of the small structure in which the res taurant and customs building are at present situated. Designed by M. Labro, a well-known architect; the new station building will be constructed almost entirely of rein forced concrete, and will be of extremely spacious design, the rooms on each floor having a minimum height of 10 ft. The ground floor will be divided into two parts; the section on the right, entering from the tarmac, will contain the various book ing offices, waiting rooms, etc., while that on the left will house the customs, baggage, goods and similar departments. A restaurant, a large hall, and the airport management offices will occupy the second floor, while the third floor will be given over to air line offices and the airport traffic control services. The frontage facing the airport is set back in the form ol terraces so that each floor has its balcony, while a control tower surmounts a projection of the frontage midway along the building. Conslructional work is now starting, and is expected to take fourteen months to complete Present means of access to the airport will be greatly im proved, and in this connection considerable road alteration is being undertaken, part of the scheme embodying the con struction of an autostrade, or high-speed motor road giving extremely quick access to and from Paris. NEON FLASHES FROM U VOLTS A LARGE number of aerodromes in the U.S.A. use an econ mir-ol „„_i~.l_l_ J__ • _ ••__ ].__• • _ -I !• .1 flash niieal portable device for producing a series of neon light es from a ij-volf. dry battery. It is known as the Burgess s being har of Barwell, Leicester. «sher and i handled in this country by The Burgess Products Co., *k .' nergy from the battery is supplied intermittently to pnmary or input side of a specially constructed trans- Interruption of the primary circuit is accomplished forme "1 the -ame manner as in a door bell. A special Burgess "Micro-Switch" is claimed to give a quick break and assure a clean, sharp flash. From the secondary or output side of the transformer, surges of high voltage—actually amounting to several thousand volts—are delivered to a neon tube. For aerodrome use hail-proof glass protects the neon tubing in the head of the marker cone. Head fittings are of cast aluminium, and battery replacement is readily accomplished by removing the head. The cone is 31 in. wide, 33 in. high, and weighs 69 lb.
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