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Aviation History
1947
1947 - 0163.PDF
JANUARY 30TH, 1947 FLIGHT His Majesty^s Vikings King's Flight Aircraft to be Used by Royal Family in South Africa WHEN Their Majesties, accompanied by the twoPrincesses, arrive in South Africa about the middleof next month, four Vicker j Vikings of thu King's Flight under the command of A. Cdre, E. H. Fielden,C.V.O., D.F.C., A.F.C., will await them. This assuredly can be taken as marking a very real stepforward in aviation. The lives of our Royal Family are precious and the fact that aircraft are to be used in con-junction with the Royal train and Royal cars must be taken as indicative of the standard of safety which airtransport has reached to-day. By the same token it is also a tribute to Vickers-Armstrongs, Ltd., that Vikingshave been selected to perform this most important duty. : The four King's Flight aircraft to be employed are VikingC Mk Us, and they respectively carry the official desig- nations V,L. 24ft and V.L. 247—the Royal aircraft; V.L.245, the staff machine; and V.L. 248, the maintenance aircraft. " * N Modifications Entailed * Since we intend to devote special attention to the Royalaircraft in a later issue, we feel that the best interest is served by giving in this article a picture of some other,perhaps less colourful but none the less important, aspects of the machines. Structurally the aircraft are, with sundry small ex-ceptions, standard Vikings in which especial interiorfurnishing arrangements have been carried out. In place ofthe light alloy fuel tanks nor- mally fitted to Viking air-craft all four King's Flight machines are equipped withbag-type crash-proof fuel tanks, those forward of themain spar additionally in- corporating self-sealing pro-tection. The usual nacelle fuel tanks have been deleted,although the oil tanks are re- tained in the nacelles, thesetoo, being afforded crash- proof protection. In order that, in the eventof a crash landing the occu- pants of the seats shall beafforded every protection, the rearward facing seatshave been stressed to accorn Rear stateroom looking for-ward, showing wardrobes on bulkhead and seats incor-porating Chair-chuteS.
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