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Aviation History
1947
1947 - 0277.PDF
-*»"'' Tfce Khyber Pans•he Khtiber fans m . \_ - . , . The Story of a Liaison Flight from the Empire Air NawgatwiL School : Part I—The Halifax and Its Special Equipment : Some Navigational Items for the Future ^ By H. A. TAYLOR OF all the units in the Royal Air Force, the Empire voted to the work of plotting the fixes obtained by theAir Navigation School of Shawbury probably pro- use, say, of Consol transmissions, vides its personnel with the most exceptional oppor- Needless to say, there are dozens of people at Shawburytunity for getting around. A glance, for instance, at the whose duties never take them beyond the camp boundaries, list of flights made by the now retired Lancaster Aries I— but there is something of a chance for almost any member duly tabulated in Flight of January 30th—will give some of the maintenance staff that he might be chosen to fly general idea of the globe-trotting proclivities of this unit. on one of the many trips. Such a job is certainly no For, although the primary function of the E.A.N.S. is that sinecure, since, after sitting in the bowels of an aircraft for of training staff navigators and navigation instructors, it eight hours or so, the crew are called upon to attend to the also has a test and development section through which new daily inspection and to the refuelling, and may even find navigational techniques and instruments pass for detailed themselves with the strenuous job of replacing parts, more reports. or less against the clock, so that the starting time for the The provision of such reports involve the E.A.N.S. air- next stage may not be delayed. But those who are lucky 1 1 -t -JJ;*;^,I lrmcr. Hi stance flvine: ic all enough to go on such trips will feel that they are doing lsion 01 5ULII ICJI^U **...„-.- — crews in a deal of additional long-distance flying w all parts of the world, apart from the routine flying in- Ived in normal training. ^ the E.A.N.S. might fall, in' one month, the work of rigorously testing some new kind of astro-position-line- plotting sphere; while in another month an aircraft might, in the course of various duties, be making long - period single - heading nights for the purpose ofchecking the accuracy of pressure-pattern flying ; dur-ing yet another month, some scores of hours might be de- A I the invitation of the Air Ministry "Flight's"representative has recently spent a month flying with aR.A.F. Navigation Liaison Mission in India. The Mission left the Empire Air Navigation School at Shawbury during January, and after a fast outward trip the remaining time was spent on visits to various R.I.A.F. and R.A.F. Squadrons and Stations in India. From the E.A.N.S. point of view the primary object of the tour was to lecture on and demonstrate the latest navigational systems and items of equipment which are now being used in the Service, or are in course of development. From Flight's side, of course, the tour provided a quite unusual opportunity for the study not only of Service conditions in India and of modern navigational aids, but also of the problems which are met in airline and charter operation in India and the Middle East. enough to go on such trips will feel that they are doinga real and worth-while job of work—which is all that isneeded as an incentive to pro- vide the Air Force with themanpower it still needs. But that is by the way. Instructional Liaison Certainly, and in spite ofthe fact that I had been stationed at Shawbury along-side the School at the main- tenance unit during sixmonths of the war, I had no very clear idea of its ex-tremely wide " terms of reference" until, during a
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