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Aviation History
1938
1938 - 0371.PDF
FEBRUARY IO, 1938. FLIGHT. NETHERLANDS TERMINAL JUST at present it seems to be a good Continental ruleto prepare on a grand scale for future air develop-ments. Although comparatively little has beenheard of it recently, Amsterdam's airport at Schip- hol has been no exception. During the past year the landing area has been more than doubled and asphalt runways have now been completed in the original area. These will be extended into the new area—which can already be used by lighter machines—during the coming year, so that eventually the paved take-off runs will be more than 1,000 metres in length and the maximum possible run very nearly two kilometres. Ground organisation is the most important accessory to modern air transport development, so it is reasonable to describe first of all the airport layout and its traffic control system. Any inspection of Schiphol, however, would be incomplete without a study of K.L.M.'s opera- tional methods and maintenance shops and, in any case, even Schiphol would cease to have its present importance in world air transport if it were not for K.L.M. with their network of European services and, more important still, their Far Eastern service. For the last two or three years this company's service to India and the East has been the fastest one, and when K.L.M. obtain their new fleet of machines to supersede the D.C.3S which are at present in use on the route other operators will need to look again to their laurels. Much of Schiphol's excellence as an aerodrome is con- cerned with the fact that the area in which it is situated was under water until comparatively recently in history, and the result has been that there are large spaces all round the landing area on which no appreciable obstructions have been erected. Its size, therefore, even before the present extensions were put in hand, was effectively greater than many other aerodromes with longer measured runs. From the blind approach direction, for instance, it is possible to motor in for a very considerable distance at a height which need not exceed fifty metres, and the road which runs past the aerodrome on this boundary has no telegraph wires or other similar obstructions. Incidentally, a medium wave approach system has been in use at Amsterdam since 1934, and only within the last few weeks has it been thought necessary to install Lorenz equipment for use on the same approach line. This new equipment has been put in, not because the original system was in any way unsatisfactory, but because the ultra- short-wave method has been virtually standard- ised for European operations. Many of the machines in the fleet have been or are being modified so that the medium-wave approach indicator already on the dashboard can be used alternatively with ultra-short-wave receivers. The fact that the medium-wave equipment Part of the school equipment for prospective K.L.M.pilots is the now we'1-known Link ground trainer, shown here with the instructor and pupils watchingthe progress of the recording " crab." Improvements at Schiphol : Traffic Control Methods : Training the K.L.M. Pilots : Maintenance in Excelsis By H. A. TAYLOR has been available removed the necessity for a " ZZ " D/F layout, but, in addition to a loop system in the control tower, the direction-finding equipment at Schiphol includes also a long-range Adcock station lying a little more than a kilometre to the south. The transmitting aerials are nearly three kilometres away from the aerodrome in a north-westerly direction. In common with the usual European practice, Schiphol has a bad-weather controlled zone with a radius of twenty-five kilometres and one of the two D/F radio sets is reserved for use in QBI conditions. This equipment works on 932 metres, while the normal long-range equipment operates on 893 metres. ••;> r Dual Control Traffic control methods might be thought to be slightly involved by the fact that the airport is municipally owned and controlled, while the radio services are owned and operated by the Government. The position, however, is no more difficult than in the case of any municipal aerodrome in England with Air Ministry control officers and radio operators and a municipally appointed manager. At any rate, everything appears to work very smoothly between the Government radio and meteorological services, the municipal traffic control officers and '' harbourmaster,'' and the different K.L.M. departments. At the present time' eight fixed floodlights are used for night operations, but it is probable that when the runways have been completed the floodlighting will give place to-, a modernised version of the old flare-path system, with flush lighting in different colours to indicate to the pilot the amount of runway still left ahead of him during a take- off or landing. To me the most interesting points in the K.L.M. organ- isation concern the operational methods and the training of the pilots. To those in this country who are accustomed to the idea of pilots carrying out their own training at very considerable cost up to, and well beyond, the " B " licence standard before any air transport company will consider their application, Holland will appear to be some- thing of a. Utopia. There the Government and K.L.M.
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