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Aviation History
1948
1948 - 1152.PDF
FLIGHT JULY 29TH, 1948 has lost no time in announcing his scheme for improving the efficiency of B.O.A.C. We suggest that he and his colleagues should now be left alone to get on with the work, and that they should not, as he put it, "have to look over their shoulders" every few minutes. Let us await results, and let the Corporation be judged on them. It has probably learnt its lesson and will show more reasonableness over the Canadairs than it did over the Tudors. As for the Government's decision to buy DC-4M-4 air- craft, the sane view is,, we think, that conditions had become such that this was the best compromise. Like all compromises, it can readily be criticized, but taking into account all the intricacies involved, it is probably a case of making the best of a bad job. But acceptance of that fact must be accompanied by a determination never again to permit such incredible muddle as the Tudor story to happen again. The summary of the Courtney Report which we pub- lish this week reveals a state of affairs which, fortunately, is without precedent in British aviation. After the treatment they have received, it is a wonder that every- one at Avros is not in an institution by now. No firm could be expected to produce good results in a reasonable time under such conditions. Lord Knollys put it very simply in the House of Lords when he said : " I am con- vinced that even now we shall not get one type of aircraft at the time we want them unless the present method is radically changed. There is no chance of getting ' win- ners' under the present methods." Not only is there an urgent need to revise the present system of ordering civil aircraft. As Viscount Samuel pointed out in the same debate, the time has come when we should have a fundamental enquiry into the right form of ministerial and commercial organization of civil avia- tion. The aim, as he put it, "should be to simplify the present complicated and clogging machinery, and to liberate the native energies of the people." If the British aircraft constructor is provided with a set-up by which he can deal directly with the operator, and can get quick decisions which will be respected and not changed every few weeks, he will produce the right aircraft at the right time. CONTENTS Outlook - - - - - B.O.A.C. Plans and Reorganization Here and There - - - - - - - Civil Aviation News - Fighter Flying Boat - - - - Of Noble Descent - - - - The Sponson "Tribian " - Harwell First Jet Transport - U.S. Jets Across Civil Aviation Policy The Tudor Story Correspondence - Service Aviation - 113 115 118 120 123 130 131 132 134 135 13.6 137 138 139 Large Power Plants LAST week we commented on letters that had appearedin The Daily Telegraph on the subject of largepiston engines. The writers were Sir Roy Fedden and Mr. W. R. Verdon Smith. We have now received from Sir Roy a letter which we publish in this issue. That letter deserves the most careful study. Sir Roy's anxiety is that the new large turboprop power units may not be ready in time for the SR45 and the Brabazon, and in his letter to The Daily Telegraph he advocated that an effort should be made to develop a piston engine in the 4,000-5,000 h.p. class. Our view, as expressed last week, was that it is how too late to begin on the development of such an engine. We still fear that is the case, and in the letter which we publish this week Sir Roy states that to develop a prime mover of 3,000-5,000 h.p., driving an airscrew, is no sinecure, no matter what the type. The words which we have italicized we take to include the large piston engine, and if that is so, Sir Roy himself appears to sup- port our contention. If we are mistaken in our opinion as to the time it would take to develop such a powerful piston engine and its associated airscrew, then the main point of our disagreement with Sir Roy disappears. ANNIVERSARY FLIGHT: Making its first public appearance, the Vickers Nene-Viking twin-jet experimental transport last Sunday, July 25th, completed out and return /lights from London Airport to Villacoublay, Paris, in record times. In this manner was the 39th anniversary of Bleriot's historic Channel crossing commemorated by another aviation milestone, for the Viking is the first all-jet commercial aircraft to fly over this or any other recognized air route. (See also page 134.)
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