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Aviation History
1948
1948 - 1919.PDF
Editorial Director Editor Assistant Editor - and G. GEOFFREY SMITH, M.B.E. C. M. POULSEN MAURICE A. SMITH, D.F.C. (W/NG CDS., RA.F.V.R.) AIRCRAFT ENGINEER Art Editor - - JOHN YOXAU FIRST AERONAUTICAL WEEKLY ZV THE WORLD .• FOUNDED mo9 Editorial, Advertising and Publishing Offices: DORSET HOUSE, STAMFORD STREET, LONDON, S E.I Telegrams : Flightpres, Sedist, London. Telephone ; Waferloo 3333 (62 lines.) COVENTRY : 8 - 10. CORPORATION ST. Telegrams : Autocar, Coventry. Telephone : Coventry 5210. BIRMINGHAM, 2: KING EDWARD HOUSE, NEW STREET. Telegrams : Autopress, Birmingham. Telephone : Midland 7191 (7 lines). MANCHESTER, 3 : 260, DEANSGATR. Telegrams . Iliffe, Manchester Telephone: Blackfriars 4412(3 lines; Deantgate 3595 (2 lines! GLASGOW, C.2 26B, RtNFIELD ST. Telegroms . Hiffe, Glasgow. Telephone . Central 4857 SUBSCRIPTION RATES : Home and Abroad : Twelve months, £3 Is. Od. BY AIR: To any country in Europe (except Poland). Twelve months, £5 Is. Od. Six months, £2 Six months, £1 10;. 6d. 10s. 6d. To Ciriada and U.S.A. Six months, SIS No. 2082. Vol. LIV November 18th, 1948 Thursdays, One Shilling Outlook Boosting Air TransportB RITISH commercial aviation has had so many set- backs, financial and technical, that it is a pleasant change to be able to record a progressive step which, through technical improvement, will have a con- siderable effect on financial results. The Avro Tudor 4 has been granted a full certificate of airworthiness at a new maximum all-up weight of 82,ooolb instead of the previous 8o,ooolb. That may not appear at first sight to be a very significant percent- age increase, but so narrow is the margin in civil aviation between profit and loss that in this case it means that the British South American Airways Corporation will be able to carry the full complement of 32 passengers plus a certain amount of freight instead of the 25 pas- sengers to which it was previously limited on the East- West flight via Keflavik and Gander. It will be recollected that after the disappearance of Star Tiger last January on a flight from the Azores to Bermuda, the Tudor 4 was grounded. Later the Min- istry of Civil Aviation decreed that the type might be used as a freighter, and a few weeks after that, permis- sion was given for it to be used again for carrying pas- sengers, but not on the Azores-Bermudr. route until trials of consumption and range had been made. B.S.A.A. then began to operate the northern route via Iceland and Newfoundland, but with the reduced passenger load of 25 on the westbound flights. In the meantime the firms concerned have not been idle, and performance trials were made at Boscombe Down, the official testing establishment, in the presence of observers from the Corporation and the Air Registra- tion Board. Thus there should be no further argument about the capabilities of the Tudor 4, and to make abso- lutely sure that all circumstances were taken into account, further trials were made in tropical conditions at Nassau, at the new all-up weight of 82,0001b. 1 0 So far, B.S.A.A. will continue to operate the northern route westwards, but it does not appear too much to hope that in time the southern route may be reopened. The extra power for take-off and climb, amounting to some 35 h.p. per engine, is due to an increase in boost of an actual ij pounds, the Merlin engine once again com- ing to the rescue with that little bit of extra which has characterized its history all through. Crystal-Gazing one thinks how relatively simple everything would now be if the gas turbine had not been thought of, but there never has been an easy way in aviation, and woebetide any country or in- dividual who thinks to the contrary!" So said A. Cdre. Banks yesterday in his lecture to the Royal United Services Institution. The lecture was entitled '' The Gas Turbine and its Place in Service Aviation,'' and the sentence quoted was hot a denouncement of Sir Frank Whittle but an expression of sympathy with the air staffs of the world, whose task of forward planning, always a difficult one because the next war is never quite like the previous one, has been rendered even more diffi- cult by the fact that the characteristics of the new type of power plant have altered the parameters which con- trol the shape of future aircraft. A. Cdre. Banks outlined to his audience the different classes of gas turbine ; the turbo-jet, the turbo-prop and the <lucted-fan, which is really a variant of the turbo- jet. He then examined the virtues and drawbacks of the classes, and of different types, coming to the conclu- sion that turbo-jet and turbo-prop forms will both be used. On the question of centrifugal or axial com- pressors, he expressed the view that the latter will be used for the very highest performance on account of its smaller diameter, and where fuel economy is of para- mount importance because of its possibility of higher
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