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Aviation History
1945
1945 - 0387.PDF
FEBRUARY 22ND, 1945 FLIGHT nde< H.R.H. the Duke of Qloucester's Personal York : Name Link with Captain Cook's Ship T) A. V. Roe, Ltd., has fallen the privilege ofsupplying a personal aircraft to H.R.H. the Dukeof Gloucester for use in his appointment as Governor-General of Australia. No one can conceivably be in doubt as to the value of an aircraft for facilitating the Governor-General's travels about the huge tracts of the Commonwealth; and it is a sign of the times that His Royal Highness should have chosen an aircraft. But a few years ago it would have been a special train. Captain James Cook first hoisted the Union Jack on Australian soil, so taking possession of the continent in the name of the crown, in the year 1770. His ship was a small 370-ton, 22-gun vessel, originally built as a collier, and named Endeavour. In the light of this great precedent it is indeed an apt choice that the Governor- General's aircraft should have been christened with the same name. With the exception of its interior layout and one or two refinements, Endeavour is a normal standard York and, structurally, differs in no way from the ordinary aircraft as fully described in the August 17th, 1944, issue of Flight. Externally, the immediately • noticeable difference is that Endeavour is uncamouflaged and instead presents a gleam- ing, highly polished natural surface on which the Service roundels are blazoned with all the splendour of heraldry. This note is further empha- sised by the golden and crim- son device of a Governor- General which is carried on a One of the removable tables on thestarboard side. The single leg clips into the seat runners andon the other end hooks fit over a rail running the length of thecabin wall. field of royal blue on each side of the pilots' cockpit. A refinement which is also external and which will follow on subsequent Yorks is that elevators and ailerons are metal-covered instead of the fabric-covered type which has so far been used. However, the central tail fin on Endeavour is a fabric-covered unit in con- formity with normal York practice. The natural polished finish of the aircraft has even been extended to the airscrew blades and spinners, but a disadvantage of such a finish is that at close quarters and in a certain light undue emphasis is given to inequalities in the skin
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