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Aviation History
1946
1946 - 2189.PDF
OCTOBER 31ST, 1946 FLIGHT 48r fr (-^""th CIVIL AVIATION NEWS VICKERS' AFRICAN TOURA DEMONSTRATION* and sales tourof very considerable extent and importance is now being made byVickers-Armstrongs with a Viking. The aircraft, which is carrying, amongstothers, Lt. Gen. Sir Ronald Weeks, the Deputy-chairman of Vickers, and Maj.H. R. Kilner, Deputy-chairman ol Vickers-Armstrongs, was due to leaveNortholt last Monday. Some general facts about this tourwere given in Flight of October 17th, ^,nd the itinerary, which will involve theying of a distance of some twenty "ousand miles, was outlined. The focusof the trip will be Johannesburg, where two visits will be made, during thesecond of which the party will remain for several days and the aircraft will beshown to South African Airways., Various other important visits and de-monstrations will be made for the bene- fit of different local airline operators. On the outward journeyto Johannesburg, for instance, demonstrations will be given at Cairo to Egyptian Airways and Misr-Airwork. After leav-ing Johannesburg, where the aircraft will be serviced, it will be flown to Lourenco Marques, to be shown to D.E.T.A. Air-ways, and on a round tour including Nairobi, where it .will be shown to East African Airways, and Salisbury, where it willbe shown to Central African Airways. On the final return journey from Johannesburg, Wing Cdr. Boyd, the demonstra-tion pilot on the trip, will take the Viking to Baghdad in order to interest Iraqi Airways, and will then return via Algiers,where Air France in North Africa will have a chance of seeing the machine. Central African Airways, incidentally, havealready ordered three Vikings—which, with other orders from the Argentine, Denmark and India, makes a total of more thanforty sales to purchasers abroad, in addition to the 112 air- craft which have been ordered by the Ministry of Supply for TRANS-TARMAC :position of private Passengers leaving a B.O.A.C. Constellation at Heathrow. The cars on the tarmac suggests preferential treatment for some V.I.P.s. B.E.A.C.s. Some twenty-five have so far been delivered.Needless to say, Sir Ronald Weeks will, during the trip, have the opportunity of renewing business contacts for the mainVickers organization and its subsidiary companies, but from the aviation point of view the tour may be even more usefullyproductive. A journey of this length and through such vary- ing climatic conditions should provide an immense amount ofuseful information for the technicians with the party. So, apart from the maintenance crew, a flight, observer will be carried. SDOVES FOR THE ARGENTINE AN initial order for twenty D.H. Doves has recently beenplaced by the Argentine Government for use on tributary services feeding those which will be operated in due course by Vickers Vikings. This order brings the total number of Doves which have so far been sold to the very satisfactory figure of 255- Civil Spitfire First Private'Oivner Conversion of a Military Type ON July 24th an old Spitfire 11 A, P-8727, was flown toMarshalls of CamDridge by its new owner, Mr. M. L. Bramson. A little over two months later a civil-registeredSpitfire, G-AHZI, was flown on test after overhaul and modification. This civil Spitfire is likely to be of historical interest notonly because it is the first of the type to be owned by a private individual, but also because it may enable all and sundry tolearn whether it is possible to operate a somewhat over-powered fighter with reasonable economy and utility. The actualconversions involved the removal of the armour plating from the cockpit and of the gun installations from the wings. Thelatter modification made available a very fair degree of luggage space—though whether the owner will enjoy the job of undoingthe fasteners and removing the panels each time remains to be The Spitfire IIA as it appeared after its civil conversion. seen. However, further luggage space is available in thefuselage. It was necessary to fit additional ballast weights in the rearof the fuselage in order to compensate for the weight of the equipment removed forward of the e.g., but apart from theredecoration of the cockpit and the removal of gun buttons and so forth, the only other modification involved the lagging ofthose hydraulic and fuel pipe-lines forward of the fireproof bulkhead with fire-resisting material. Meanwhile, Marshallshad worked on the airframe generally and the Merlin had been given a major overhaul.Mr. Bramson has been flying for a considerable number of years and was also, until recalled to more earnest business, inthe A.T.A. during the early part of the war. So he should be quite happy as far as the flying of the Spitfire is concerned.Though this aircraft has been bought largely to provide personal "fun" forhim. it will be used quite seriously for business journeys. He proposes tooperate the Merlin at about 1,900 to 2,000 r.p.m. at a boost of about zero.At these figures the cruising speed will, in its somewhat cleaned-up form, be aKttle over 200 m.p.h., and the consump- tion about 30 gallons an hour. Thenormal tankage capacity is BG gallons, which will give an endurance of i\ hours—or a range of about 500 miles. For last cruising he will push the revolutionsup to 2,200 and the boost to plus 4, thus producing about 250 m.p.h. In due course, Mr. Bramson hopes tofit an auxiliary fuel tank in order to increase the useful range, and is obtain-ing the necessary VHF crystals so that he will have radio assistance.
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