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Aviation History
1947
1947 - 0746.PDF
43V' FLIGHT MAY 13TH, 1947 times, and when better maintenance facilities and more men become available, they should be very rare indeed. Similarly with navigation on long routes. When proper equipment has been installed on the routes and in the aircraft there should be no excuse for an aircraft to be unwittingly off its course, and thus the risk from high ground should not arise. At the present time that risk does exist because of the inadequacy of equip- ment on many routes. So far as the travelling public is concerned, statistics have no effect whatever. The appalling death rate on our roads makes no impression. The daily papers must bear a large portion of the responsibility for any falling- off in air passenger bookings. So many of them splash every air accident across their pages in huge type, and even when, as was recently the case, an official report is issued on some crash that took place months ago, a few of them present the findings of the report as if the accident happened the previous day. So long as that sort of presentation persists, all the statistics in the world will not impress the travelling public with the safety of flying. The announcement by I.A.T.A. that 42 out of 60 airlines had no fatal accidents during 1946 (a good record, but one which must become even better) leaves no impression. A single accident prominently displayed does. Incidentally, the I.A.T.A. report that several airlines have unblemished records for from six to 17 years appears to bear out our con- tention that route conditions have much to do with the safety or otherwise of operation. Wait and SeeW E had hoped that the next time the Tudors were mentioned it would be to say that they had commenced operation on one or other of our air lines. • The whole conception of interim types, or at least the timetable at first associated with them, has changed in the last year or two, as also has the idea of running a national airline without loss or subsidy. Re- cently the position has boiled down almost to the bare CONTENTS Outlook Portsmouth Air Display - Ercoupe in the Air - Naval Aircraft - Development of the Goblin Engine Here and There Attacker - ..... Civil Aviation --.--. Correspondence - .... Service Aviation - - - - - 433 435 437 438 442 444 446 451 455 - 456 need of keeping our air routes open with British aifip craft regardless of cost (excluding dollars) or efficiency.' However, A.V-M. Bennett, speaking on behalf of B.S.A.A., has now tried to kill the idea that the Tudor, is an interim type, and he has described it as a civil*- transport designed on the most modern lines and superior in overall qualities to any other type now flying. • Many," improvements are known to have been made since the. depressing report on the performance of the B.O.A.C. Tudor I on an African provingflight, and the Tudor IVs for B.S.A.A. may well turn out to have some very different characteristics. The Air Vice-Marshal is a good judge of aircraft and a very hard man to please. His state^- ment must cause critics to pause for a moment and ask' themselves whether it is not just possible that Tudot, shortcomings have been exaggerated. We hope whole- heartedly that A.V-M. Bennett is right, for a British" aircraft deserving of such high praise, flying on our air" routes this year, would do much to re-establish British - prestige. The final verdict can only be given when a considerable accumulation of operational experiences becomes available. ; In the interests of British aviation the Tudor position^ should be cleared up. There is a controversy because: so many parties have already made conflicting state- ments, and not the least to "blame is the Ministry of - Supply., f " Flight " pko*ofrr«»*PROTOTYPE IN PERSPECTIVE : From his perch in the Vickers-Supermarine hangar at Chilbolton, FHght's cameraman sees ., the first prototype of the Attacker jet fighter prepared for its latest series of flight trials, now under way-, * J *"•--«—will soon fly and a third is well advanced. The Attacker is the subject of a special illustrated description s cameraman seesA second Attacker
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