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Aviation History
1947
1947 - 2110.PDF
66o FLIGHT DECEMBER IITH, 1947 The final assembly lines at Treforest. Wasps are in the foreground and a parallel line of CYMRU YN DANCOS Y FFORDD "Wales shows the Way"—With a Little Help from B.O.A.C. THE title of this article is cribbed from incentiveplacards exhibited in the shops at B.O.A.C.'s repairbase, Treforest, Glamorgan. Nine miles from Cardiff, up the Taff Valley, is the Treforest Trading Estate —a "junior Slough"—enclosed by the bold, upthrusting profiles of granite hills. Here, seem- ingly far removed from the world of airports and physical flight, are repaired the air-cooled radial engines and hydro- matic airscrews used by the Corporation. Welsh men and women are contri- buting their part— and a very valuable part it is—to main- taining the efficiency of Britain's overseas air lines. Operation- ally, B.O.A.C. is divided into three main divisions which are, respectively, (i) Atlantic, barrels with atomised aluminium. sponsibility for the services between Britain and America, and for which the headquarters are in New York, and the maintenance base at Dorval; (ii) Africa and Middle East, with responsibility for all services in that area, and (iii) Eastern, governing all operations in India and the Far East. As an adjunct to these three divisions, the repair division forms a fourth arm, the function of which is to execute major repair work for the other three. The repair division was actually formed in October, 1946, by combining the Corporation's Propeller and Engine Repair Auxiliary (P.E.R.A.), the Airframe and Component Overhaul Base at Croydon, and the Engineering Experimental Factory (then at Bristol, now at Brentford but in process of integra- tion with Croydon). The Treforest base was established by B.O.A.C. in May, 1940, and since that time has achieved the impressive total of 12,000 engines overhauled. It is at present turning out about 130 overhauled engines and approximately 70 airscrews per month. A cardinal feature of Treforest acti- vity has been—and to a certain extent still is—the salvaging of unharmed parts from damaged engines, more than 3,700 such power units having been dismantled in the seven-and- a-half years of the repair base's history. Since the dissolu- tion of P.E.R.A. at the end of September, 1946, Treforest has been operating as a purely commercial entity. All executively concerned with the base, particularly Mr. J. H. Robson, manager of the repair division, W/C. V. Rees, his assistant, Mr. C. E. McGibbon, administrative manager, and Mr. G. A. Hummerstone, works manager at Treforest, Ns very proud of the fact that, without financial aid y subsidy in any shape whatever, they have succeeded, as the books show for the first six months of independent work, in breaking a little bit better than economically even.
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