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Aviation History
1946
1946 - 0141.PDF
and AIRCRAFT ENGINEER Editorial Director G. GEOFFREY SMITH. M.B.E. Editor - -CM. POULSEN Assistant Editor - MAURICE A. SMITH, D.F.C (WING CDfi., R.A.F.V.R.) An Editor - - JOHN YOXALL FIRST AERONAUTICAL WEEKLY IM THE WORLD .• FOUNDED 1909 Editorial, Advertising and Publishing Offices: DORSET HOUSE, STAMFORD STREET, LONDON, S.E.1 Telegram! : Truditur, Sedist, London. COVENTRY : 8-10, CORPORATION ST. Telegrams : Autocar, Coventry. Telephone : Coventry S 2 10. BIRMINGHAM, 2: GUILDHALL BUILDINGS, NAVIGATION ST. Telegrams : Autopress, Birmingham. Telephone: Midland 2971 (5 lines). Telephone : Waterloo 3333 (3S line*). MANCHESTER, 3 GLASGOW, C.2 : 260, DEANSGATE. 26B, RENFIELD ST. Telegrams: Iliffe. Manchester. Telegrams: Iliffe, Glasgow! Telephone: Blackfriars 4411. Telephone: Central 48S7. SUBSCRIPTION RATES : Home and Abroad : Year, £3 I 0. Registered at the G.P.O. as a Newspaper. months, i\ 10 6. No. 1935. Vol. XL1X. January 24, 1946 "We Outlook Thursdays, One Shilling. Things Are MovingR ECENT events hzLye done a good deal towards putting Great Britain back on the aeronautical map. The uncertainties caused by changes in Government civil aviation policy are sorting them- selves out slowly. The debate on the Winster White Paper, which begins in the House to-day, should help further to elucidate the position. The Government is committed, irrevocably it would seem, to nationalisation of air transport, but within that framework a good deal of latitude may be found to exist. In the meantime, we ought to be thankful that every- thing has not come to a standstill in the manner that was once expected. Two really magnificent flights have served as an augury of what may be expected when this country finally gets started in" earnest. Air Vice-Marshal Bennett and his companions have visited Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo and Buenos Aires, calling at Lisbon, Bathurst and Natal on their way in the Lancastrian Star Light. The significance lies not merely in the series of "proving" flights, of which this was the first, but also in the fact that British South American Airways have bc<n permitted to make them. From this it may be fisumed that the Government has found some way of "ringing this firm, founded by shipping interests, into the proposed set-up of corporations. The actual posi- tion will probably be made a little clearer during to-day's debate. Of a very different nature, but equally valuable from the point of showing the flag, was the record-breaking flight by Air Commodore D'Aeth and his crew in the Lancaster Aries, in which, with one stop at Cairo, they covered the distance between Thorney Island and Cape Town in 32 hours 21 minutes' lapsed time, or seven hours 4 minutes better than the record set up by Alex. Henshaw on a Percival Mew Gull in 1939. That a converted four-engined bomber with a crew of nine should be able to improve so considerably upon a record established in a single-seat racing monoplane is an indication of the progress made in the last seven years, and from the fact that both these flights were made in Avro machines one is justified in expecting great things from the Tudors, designed specifically for com- mercial flying. Of the third recent flight, which may have been com- pleted by the time this issue reaches our readers, it is more difficult to be enthusiastic. We are all in favour of delivering aircraft by air as a normal procedure. There is something rather undignified in shipping them, crated, by the slowest of all forms of transport, and a good deal of time is wasted thereby. But to deliver a single-engined aircraft by air across nearly 2,000 miles of South Atlantic does not appeal to us as good business. That was all very well in the days when it was necessary to demonstrate to the world that "British aircraft could make such non-stop flights, and even then we always regarded it as a foolhardy business to trust to a single- engine installation, no matter how reliable the engine itself might be. Nowadays there is no need to take avoidable risks in order to provide a proof which has already been amply established. For overland routes on which there is a good chance of making a forced landing, it is a very different matter. w General Critchley's ResignationT HE announcement that General Critchley has resigned his appointment as Director-General of B.O.A.C. will not have come as much of a sur- prise to the British aviation world. It was almost a foregone conclusion that this would happen sooner or later. Time after time-pjEessure has" been brought to bear in Parliament and elsewhere, and in view of his known belief that a single organisation should ruji all British overseas air lines it was to be expected that, with the declared Government policy of two or more
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