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Aviation History
1946
1946 - 2133.PDF
OCTOBER 24TH, 1946. FLIGHT 451 Lancastrian and Hythe services. Each of these types was a The plln is necessarily flexible in order to allow revision shouldwar develoDment—the former from a rjnira«+«r On,l th» i,t.» aircraft design change rapidly. Botany Bay is ideal for the development—th from, a Lancaste and e latterfrom the Sunderland boat. Both types were giving good service, but neither was economic or competitive. For the past year Q.E.A. had made a close study of thetypes to be used for the second stage of operations. Investiga- tions revealed that the Lockheed Constellation was the mostsuitable type available in the early future. Not only was it a suitable all-round aircraft for economic operations, but itsabsolute maximum range would also enable the Singapore- Sydney run to be flown non-stop in case of any nationalemergency. The use of the Constellation would permit a sub- stantial reduction in passenger fares and freight rates, andwould enable operations to be placed on a commercial basis. BUSINESS UNLIMITED ^E VEN in the years before the war it was generally con-sidered that Jersey Airways, as they were then, came much nearer to being a fully paying proposition than any otherBritish airline. Since Channel Islands Airways resumed operations after the war the amount of traffic handled has beenconsiderably greater even than it was, and there is little doubt that, on the nationalized principle of profit paying for loss,the C.I.A. section of B.E.A.C.'s future internal network will have the job of financially carrying the rest of the servicesfor quite some time to come. * During the first nine months of 1946, for instance, ChannelIslands Airways carried 60,056 passengers, 668,364 lb of freight and 388,955 lb of mail. As a matter of comparison—thoughmany factors make this comparison somewhat valueless—13,102 passengers were carried during the second half of last year.Except to the statistically-minded, such figures tend to con- vey very little, and it might be more convincing to give thefacts and figures covering a single week of operations—that ending on October 7th. During that week 297 services werescheduled and operated, carrying 1,985 passengers and a mail and freight load of 32,181 lb. D.H.89S, alias Rapides orDominies, have, of course, been doing the bulk of the work, and during this particular week the 89s put in 237 hours, andthe chartered Bristol Wayfarer some 36 hours. This Wayfarer, incidentally, must have been filled almostto capacity on every trip—judging from its figures for the first three months of operation. It carried 6,711 passengers onits 242 trips—which gives an average passenger-loading figure of 27.7 for every run. In the same period the freight and mailcarried by the Wayfarer totalled 54,694 lb—which suggests that the aircraft not only had nearly all its seats filled every time,but was also carrying a maximum payload. Even with the considerable overheads suffered by every airline operator,figures such as these give one hope that the taxpayer will not for ever need to pay so handsomely for the advantages of airtravel—which are still available only to the few. SYDNETS FUTURE AIRPORTS THE Australian Civil Aviation Department has announceddetails of the plan for the development of the Kingsford- development of a flying-boat landing area, and by adjoiningthe Kingsford-Smith Airport a combined land and water base can be achieved. The alighting area will have channels parajlelto the landing runways, and will be sheltered by a breakwater. The take-off runs will be over two miles long, and it is under-stood that four miles could be secured in the open waters ot the Bay. In addition to a number of slipways there will be adry dock for those flying-boats which are too large to slip, and ramps will be provided by which amphibian aircraft may reachthe runways of the land airport. AH flying-boat traffic will be controlled from the land-plane terminal. Provision is made tor hangars and workshops to cover twomillion square feet, with an additional million square feet if required. Enormous parking space for cars is available, and aspecial freight terminal is planned in the North-West corner of the building area. All the necessary facilities are provided inthe main building, and adjacent to the terminal building there is to be a special landing area fot helicopters, which mightbe used as air taxis. It is also anticipated that a sorting mail room will be pro-vided where air mail can be sorted for immediate distribution by helicopter from the airport. Naturally, the latest aids tonavigation and communication will be installed, and the latest refuelling methods will be employed. An interesting featurewill be Kingsford-Smith's aircraft, the Southern Cross, which is to be on view for all to see. A grass airfield will be included in the airport area for theuse of small transport aircraft. This will provide a landing run of 1,000 yards in all directions. The plan was designedby the Chief Airport Engineer of the Department of Civil Avia- tion, Dr K N. E. Bradneld, son of Dr. Bradfield, whodesigned the Sydney Harbour Bridge. MORE AIRFIELDS IN THE U.S.i/ HPHE United States Congress have recently passed the Federal-*• Airport Act granting five hundred million dollars towards the construction of landing-fields in America. Constructionwill extend over the r.ext seven years, and in the same way that the American Federal and State Governments shared inthe costs of road-building, so the Airport Bill pledges Federal funds to defray 50 per cent of the expenditure in creating overthree thousand airfields. In addition to the plans for building new airfields, the law provides for improvements to landing-fields already in existence. The C.A.A. have submitted a plan to Congress in which theairfields are divided by size into two classes. Class I, of which 1,800 will be built, will have one or more landingstrips 600 to 900 yards long and 100 yards wide, and Class II will each have one or more landing strips 900 to 1,200yards long and 150 yards wide. Each development is expected to cost about one milliondollars, of which approximately half will be met by the states and municipalities. Seventy-five per cent of the money willbe apportioned according to specifications to be drawn up by Smith Airport, Mascot, near Sydney. It is intended that this the C.A.A.. and distributed on a basis dependent upon area airport shall be Australia's main terminal for all internationaland internal air traffic, and includes a flying-boat base in Botany Bay. The plan is to take effect \ in three stages. Stage I is designed tomeet requirements for the next ten years and provides for four runways measur-ing approximately 2,600 yards, 2,000 yards, 1,860 yards, and 1,600 yards. Therunways will be linked to a terminal building by a network of taxi-ways forwhich purpose it is hoped to use the existing runways. There,is to be no re-clamation of Botany Bay at this stage, bat Cook's River is to be diverted,shortened, and made to enter Botany Bay south of its existing entrance. In Stage II the East-West 1 uway is tobe extended to 3,300 yards by filling in the shallow end ot Botany Bay. It isconsidered that, if necessary, this could be extended even further. Parallel to thisthe first of the duplicate runways is to be added. In poor visibility it is esti-mated that the parallel runways would enable the airport to handle the normalamount of traffic. Stage III will become necessary whenairport traffic reaches 500 movements a day, and this provides for each runwayto be duplicated, making a total of eight. and population. The remaining twenty-five per cent will bespent by the Federal Government in special airport construc- FUTURE AUSTRALIAN TERMINAL : This picture shows how Sydney's airport will look when completed. The main terminal building can be seen to the left of the centre of the airfield, and the flying boat base on the far side.
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