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Aviation History
1948
1948 - 1930.PDF
596 FLIGHT NOVEMBER I8TH, 1948 Civil Aviation News A the time and labour of rectification and will consequently earn more bonus. Provision is made by rate-fixers for unforeseen and unusual contingencies so as to save the operator sustain- ing financial loss through no fault of his own. The hourly basic rate paid by B.E.A. is 2s 7d per hour and the basic times for various operations are calculated to allow men erf average ability to earn 15 per cent more than previously. It is interesting to note that when the strike first com- menced the only people who turned up for duty in the C. of A. hangar were the representatives of the panel and the shop stewards with whom it had been agreed that the bonus scheme should operate. B.E.A. claim that during the time when the plans were being formulated many workers' representatives had urged the Corporation to expedite the introduction of the .scheme since it was expected to prove popular with those concerned. Moreover, B.E.A. are convinced, if the scheme is given a proper trial, that it will, in fact, prove to be of benefit to both the Corporation and its employees. CAPTAIN ALCOCK ON SPRINGBOK ROUTE FTER having spent the last 12 months instructing at the BO.AC. base at Hythe, Captain E. S. J. Alcock returned to operations on November 12th when he left Southampton in command of a Short Solent flying boat on the Springbok route to Johannesburg. Captain cock is well-known in outh Africa as he was for a time based at Dur- during the war re he commanded .O.A.C. flying boats on the Horseshoe route from South Africa to India through Egypt. Thought to be the most senior pilot in the British Com- monwealth, Captain Alcock has logged 21,000 hours' flying, during which he has covered a distance exceeding 3,500,000 miles. I Capt. E. S. J. Alcock. B.E.A. VIKING ACCIDENT REPORT N an accident to a B.E.A. Viking, the official report on which was published recently, which occurred on the northern slope of Irish Law Mountain, near Largs, Ayrshire, on April 21st, the crew of four and nine of the sixteen passen- gers were slightly injured. Following an uneventful flight from Northolt the pilot was making a ground controlled approach to Renfrew airfield and had passed over the airfield, carried out a procedure turn and lowered his undercarriage, when he became aware that the outer marker beacon had not been heard. Upon enquiring from Renfrew Control he was informed that this beacon was functioning satisfactorily, and it was during a climbing turn calculated to bring the aircraft back into the beam that the aircraft struck the mountain at a shallow angle, just before re-entering the beam. The passengers and crew escaped though the aircraft caught fire and was sub- sequently burnt out. In consequence of the damage to the air- : craft beam approach receiver it was impossible to locate any pre-crash defect but nevertheless, in view of the fact that the " captain and the first officer were unable to hear the outer marker beacon signal (which was known to have been func- tioning) when flying steadily in the beam, it is considered that a failure probably occurred in the marker receiver installation. In the conclusions of the Chief Inspector's report it is observed that the Viking was airworthy at the time of the take-off; the time interval Detween passing over the inner marker beacon .and the commencement of the procedure turn was too long and that the Captain had not appreciated the strength of the wind. In the opinion of the Chief Inspector the accident was due to an error of judgment by the Captain, the failure to receive the outer marker beacon signal having been a contri- 3 butory factor. RADAR STORM DETECTION \H IN our review (July 1st, 1948) of activities at the National 'Physical Laboratory, mention was made * of the system whereby storm areas can now be located with a high degree of accuracy up to a range of 1,500 miles, by the use of special radar apparatus. Developed by the N.P.L. for the Meteoro- logical Office, the apparatus has been given the name ol " Sferics," and is made by the Plessey Co., Ltd., Ilford, Essex. In addition to the control station at Dunstable, which is, of course, also the central forecasting station and communica- tion centre of the Meteorological Office, there are three other observation stations, respectively at Camborne, Leuchars and Irvinestown, N.I. Each observation station is equipped with cathode-ray direction-finding equipment and an aerial system comprising four multi-turn loops, two of which have a N-S axis, and the other two'an E-W axis. The receivers operate on a frequency of about 12.5 kc/sec, equivalent to a wave- length of 24,600 metres, this being the frequency at which maximum energy is radiated by lightning discharges. Further- ; more, so low a frequency is free from interference by com- 4 mercial W/T stations. 3 Observations are made simultaneously from the four stations" twelve times daily, between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m., and the results plotted at Dunstable. The information is then broad-; cast over the teleprinter network and by W/T, and enables , pilots of aircraft, particularly those flying over comparatively • short routes to the Continent, to avoid storm areas. The information is also of great importance to the synoptic meteorologist in the analysis of daily weather charts. ICAO STAFF APPOINTMENTSM ORE than 3,000 replies have been received by ICAO in • response to their advertisement of 60 staff vacancies. The replies have come from citizens of 42 nations. The largest number of applications comes from the United Kingdom, whose candidates numbered 957; 939 applications were-'. received from the United States and 427 and 213 from France | and Canada respectively. On the average each applicant is' interested in about three positions. A list of vacancies, which includes administrative, technical, economic and legal posi- NORTHOLT STOPPAGE : Some of the B.E.A. fleet grounded at Nonholt by the strike of ground engineers referred to in the accompany- ing pages. All efforts by the Corporation and union officials to persuade the engineers to resume work hove so far proved unavailing. The strike originated when 143 ground engineers refused to work under the incentive bonus scheme recently introduced in B.E.A. Ces- sation of flying is costing B.E.A., and therefore the British public, some £13,000 a day. 20
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