FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1940
1940 - 2216.PDF
AUGUST 8, 1940 gazetted all promotions on the due date; but it is telt, quite reasonably, that the recommendation of a CO. is necessary, as the officer in question may not be suit- able for promotion, and the Air Ministry would not always know the facts, The present system is not working too well. Cases have come to our knowledge of officers whose promotion has been delayed for no reason except carelessness or inefficiency in the H.Q. offices of either Station or Group. Matters may be complicated if an officer is transferred from one Group to another, or if a certain adjutant gets transferred. Such things may be a reason for muddle and delay, but they are not an excuse. Promotion is a very important matter to an officer, and more particu- larly to a V.R. officer, who may be married and have left a well-paid post to join the Service. The cases of which we have heard are sufficiently numerous to justify us in calling on the Air Ministry to take up this matter with energy, and to insist that any carelessness in dealing with promotions by the staffs of Groups or subordinate units should be treated with some severity. Expensive Aluminium ,; .D AILY paper reports state that Mr. Richard Arcl> bold has been approached by the Ministry oi Aircraft Production in connection with the sale of his flying boat Guba for the purpose of flying 3j-ton cargoes of aluminium across the Atlantic twice a week. Guba is a Consolidated Model 28, with empty weight, 14,2401b.; disposable load, 12,8401b. ; and a total loaded weight of 27,0801b. It would need a crew of four, and would consume approximately 78 gallons per hour at an airspeed of 164 m.p.h. (imperial gallons and land miles). To fly non-stop- between Botwood and Foynes it would have to take aboard about 1,100 gallons of petrol, weighing 8,2501b. A cargo of only i| tons of aluminium could be carried, which is vastly different from the 3^ tons spoken about. If such a proposal is seriously contemplated it can only mean one of two things, either that we are very short of aluminium and so have to resort to a tremen- dously expensive way of transporting a minute amount per week, or that the Ministry of Aircraft Production is out at all costs to impress the lay public (and per- haps lay Members of Parliament) with the effective manner in which it is doing its work. The Ministry's work probably. is effective—we have seen nothing so far to suggest otherwise—but surely such a step as this is not necessary? If Guba is for sale, it could be put to much better use either as a military boat on long-range patrol work, or as a civil boat, if it was desired to fly the Indian Ocean route between Mombasa and Australia (as was suggested in Flight of June 27, on page 562). This was the actual boat with which the survey flight was made. As the war has made us very short of long- range civil boats, this seems a magnificent opportunity to acquire one, for its still-air range with no reserve at a cruising power of 65 per cent, is about 3,100 miles. THE KING WITH THE FLEET AIR ARM : His Majesty inspecting air crews at a south coast naval port recently. The machine in the background is a Pegasus-engined Blackburn Shark.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
