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Aviation History
1948
1948 - 2023.PDF
DECEMBER 2ND, 1948 649 ""V-:- ;. The night-shift loading York landing wheels into a Dakota ready for delivery on the morrow. "Plaiofare "Service Activity at Transport Command Central Servicing Unit in ;*U Keeping the Berlin Air Lift at Full Serviceability f WHEN something spectacular is displayed before thewondering public eye, that eye too oftenregisters the facile panoply and little else. But in this grossly material world, spectacle is rarely self- sufficient ; behind the polish of the finished performance lies an enormous amount of sometimes wracking labour. It is so in the instance of the Berlin Air Lift—officially desig- nated Operation Plainfare. In the present connection we are, of course, regarding only the E.A.F. section of the operation, but in general terms the same evaluation must hold good both for the American and the Civil British sections. The Yorks, Dakotas and Hastings shuttle back and forth along the corridors between Wunsdorf and Gatow doing a job of aviation transport never before even remotely matched in tonnage shifted against time, and to such a close-cut schedule. But were it not for closely correlated maintenance support, this majestic aerial cara- vanning would have to slow down considerably if not halt altogether. In April, 1946, the airfield at Honington, Suffolk, was handed back to the Royal Air Force after having served as a U.S. Eighth Army Air Force station during the greater part of the war. It was at once established as the Central Servicing Unit of Transport Command. Since the inception of the Berlin Air Lift, five months ago, the normal working of Honington has been considerably speeded up and, although the central servicing facilities for Transport Command aircraft in the United Kingdom are still carried on, the Command aircraft being used for Plainfare now have first call on Honington's resources. Nominally, Honington services Merlin T. 24/2 power plants for Yorks, main and tail wheel and tyre assemblies for Yorks, Hastings and Dakotas, radio and radar equip- ment for Dakotas, and instruments and electrical gear for York and Hastings. Some scale is given to this activityby figures, viz: from May, 1946, to date, the unit has handled 1,672 power plants, 8,281 wheels of all types,30,620 instruments, and 239,885 sparking plugs. At the present time the handling rate is of the order of 125 powerplants, 600 wheels, 1,000 instruments and 15,000 sparking plugs per month. In other terms, this constitutes between400 and 500 tons a month and a flight mileage of about 100,000 per month. Replacement Transport Command aircraft operating the Air Lift are serviced at their own bases, and unserviceable items in the categories already mentioned are returned to Honing- ton. As these come in from the B.A.F.O. stations in Germany and Transport Command stations in England, they are immediately 'replaced by serviceable items from stock at Honington. To ensure that this return and delivery service is operated at maximum efficiency and with least delay, a flight of six Dakota freighters, known as the "Plumber Flight," is employed. The flight is based at Honington. In the event of an emergency—a damaged wheel or a power plant failure—occurring to a Plainfare aircraft at some place other than its normal base, the replacement item is flown from Honington direct to the grounded aircraft and the defective unit brought back to Honingtou for reconditioning. If. a signal requesting an item is received from Germany in the morning, the replacement usually reaches the grounded aircraft the same afternoon. Likewise, a signal received at Honington in the evening will ensure delivery the following morning. Just how clean-cut the organization is may be gathered from the fact that within 20 minutes
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