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Aviation History
1938
1938 - 0598.PDF
208 FLIGHT. MARCH 3, 1938. COMMERCIAL AVIATION (CONTINUED) means of Azimuth tables, and the elementary principles of the gyroscope, causes of precession, and operation of the direc- tional gyro. The inclusion of the first is a big step, and covers the possibility of questions involving the Azimuth of the sun at any time of the day. When the Hour Angle of the stars and planets is also included in the syllabus this section will involve finding the Azimuth of stars and planets for the pur- pose of checking compass deviation. The inclusion of the second was to be expected, as the directional gyro is now a compulsory instrument ia certain machines. The syllabus for signalling has been extended to include aural morse, and the international code flags. It seems strange that the iatter should be included in an air navigation syllabus, especially when they are practically obsolete in the Merchant Service. With regard to Meteorology, the most important change concerns Synoptic Meteorology. Candidates are now required "to plot the reports from a number of stations in accordance with current symbolic methods." In plain language, the candidate will have to know the appropriate meteorological codes, and will have to be able to decode synoptic messages and to plot the appropriate symbols on the charts. This will involve a considerable amount of practice, but is more or less straightforward. Far less straightforward is the insertion of simple " fronts" on a chart. This, in my opinion, is going to present great difficulties. It is possible to learn to draw isobars more or less by rule of thumb, but not the insertion of fronts. There do not appear to be any definite rules in frontology, and every " frontologist " has his own (usually obscure) methods. These and other changes will bring the Meteorology syllabus practically up to the ist Class navigators' standard. A new departure is the provision of reference books to enable the candidate to answer questions on Meteorological Organisation. Until International Publication No. 9, at present only pub- lished in French, is translated into English, it is difficult to see what reference books can be supplied. It will be seen from the foregoing notes how sweeping some of the changes in the syllabus are (or can be). Those readers who have already obtained their 2nd Class navigators' licence will probably sigh with relief until they remember the fact that the Air Ministry reserves the right to re-examine a navigator at any time. The changes in the ist Class syllabus are not quite so sweeping. Probably the most important concerns the general regulations for the examination. From April 1 applications will not be considered unless he or she has held a 2nd Class licence for at least six months, and, even if the candidate passes the examination, a licence will not be issued until he has held a 2nd Class licence for not less than one year and has produced proof of having had the requisite air and naviga- tional experience. The "navigational experience" will in- clude the taking of at least nine astronomical observations- two by day and seven by night—and a certificate that the results have been worked out in the air. This latter condition will, I think, prove a difficult obstacle to the average candidate because of the lack of the necessary facilities and the fact that an air sextant costs at least fifty pounds. To my mind the greatest significance in the changes I have discussed (especially those in the 2nd Class syllabus) is not in the changes themselves but in the changes of policy in- volved. These changes are in some cases fundamental. There is now no great difference between the ist and 2nd Class syl- labuses, and I -venture to prophesy that in the near future further changes will bring the 2nd Class S3'llabus up to the present standard of the ist Class, and that the ist Class will be raised to a higher theoretical standard. This will leave a wide gap between the standard for "B" licence examination and for the 2nd Class navigators' examination. It may not be very wide of the mark if I venture to guess that this gap will (to some extent) be closed before very long by the raising of the standard of the " B" licence examination. AlpineI T is understood that the negotiations which have, for the last eighteen months, been in progress between Alp Air Line, Ltd., and the British and Swiss Air Ministries, are now nearing completion, and that the company hope to establish a fast all-British service between London and Geneva as soon as the final details have been settled. Mr. F. W. Jones, formerly managing director of British Continental Airways, has joined the board of the company, which is closely associated with North Eastern Airways. Holland and the PhilippinesT HE negotiations between Holland and America over the concession to K.N.I.L.M. to fly regularly to the Philip- pines have been resumed and show some signs of -being suc- cessful, since Pan-American Airways are anxious that the gap between America and Europe should be closed. A weekly service between Manila and Batavia is to be started this year. Another Scandinavian Service A CCORDING to a Copenhagen correspondent of the Faroese •ti. newspaper Dimmalaetting, there is a possibility, this summer, of a service running three times weekly between Stavanger (Norway), Lerwick (Shetland), Thorshavn (Faroes), and Reykjavik (Iceland). Iceland's tourist traffic and Faroe's mails are the two things principally mentioned in the Faroese paper as likely to benefit. Bloch Supersedes ClipperA ll? FRANCE'S summer time-tables will come into force on March 27, and with them the long-promised change-over from the Wibault Golden Clipper fleet to something faster and more commodious. The ten-seater Clippers, with the i| hours Paris-London schedule were, for a long time, the fastest on the route, but their limited passenger capacity has been a con- stant handicap to Air France. New sixteen-seater Marcel Bloch 220s are to be substituted, without sacrifice of speed— in fact a great improvement, the London-Paris schedule being reduced to 75 minutes. The new machines should be ready in good time for the Easter traffic. Another point about the new time-tables is the running of a Le Touquet service with the Golden Clippers at Easter, Whit- sun, and for the whole of July and August. There will also be an Air France-Swissair pool (Paris-Zurich and Paris- Geneva), which will affect London travellers who go to Switzer- land via Paris, and another pool with C.S.A. for the London- Prague service. Trans-Canadian StartO N Tuesday of this week the first regular flight over the . Winnipeg-Vancouver section of the trans-Canadian air route was due to be made, the Lockheed Electras carrying, for the time being, mail alone. The route is via Ottawa, Toronto, and North Bay. Within a year it is hoped that k the entire scheme will be in operation with a through service ft from Moncton, New Brunswick, to Vancouver. W France's Internal Mail Services THE Air Bleu mail services run by the Ministry of P.T.T.,which were suspended a year ago, will begin operations again this year on the following routes:. Paris-Bordeaux-Mont- de Marsan-Pau, Paris-Toulouse-Perpignan and Paris-Clermoiit- Ferrand-Saint Etienne-Lyon-Grenoble. A daily run between Marseilles and Nice will also be made in connection with the new Paris-Marseilles air mail service. At present, all the runs will be made by day, but the Paris- Pau route is being equipped for night-flying, and an after-dark service as far as Bordeaux will be started this month. All the routes will eventually be lighted. Thames Airport ? SOME time ago we learnt that the idea of using an area inthe Thames Estuary as an Empire ilying boat base was being considered by the Air Ministry and others, but at the time there appeared to be little chance that the project would materialise, particularly as negotiations concerning the Lang- stone Harbour place were still in progress. Now, it seems, there is a reasonable chance that the scheme may, after all, go through. The proposed site is the Lower Hope Reach of the Thames, to the north-east of Tilbury, and the plans include arrangements for a land airport on the ad- jacent Mucking Flats. This land is at present being reclaimed for other purposes, and among the advantages claimed for the entire proposal is that the approaches will lie remarkably clear, and that, if the flying boat and land plane runways are dredged and/or laid out in similar directions, a single series of radio transmitters and so forth could be used for both. The distance from the centre of London is a little more than 25 miles, and there would be no difficulty in arranging a short branch line from the railway track running between Southend, Tilbury and London _ Meanwhile, the plans for the proposed Lullingstoue airport are in obeyance, the Southern Railway feeling, not without reason, that theirs is not the direct responsibility of develo]VillS a scheme of almost purely public utility and value.
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