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Aviation History
1949
1949 - 0718.PDF
APRIL 28TH, 1949 FLIGHT 477 Some Thoughts on Air Transport mewl and puke on board a train or boat than aboard an airliner cruising along at 300 m.p.h. in the stratosphere.) Service, of course, starts long before the passenger boards the airliner and, it is hoped, lasts long after he has finished his trip—if only in his recollection, so that he will return and rebook on the line that served him so well last time. Whereas standards are usually high on board the aircraft, where service is easier to give because you have your passen- ger under your eye all the time, they are not always so good at town offices or on the .airports before and after the flight. There are various reasons for this, but I think most operators will agree with me ^hat it is harder to instil the right spirit of service into ground staff than into flying staff. Of course, it can be done, and those whose life study it has been to promote a high standard of all-round service have successfully enforced a very high standard indeed amongst their ground staffs who have contact with air .travellers. J^ I was somewhat disconcerted to hear a rumour, therefore, that the Ministry, of Civil Aviation (whom God preserve— in its proper function) proposed to take over certain aspects of passenger handling on the ground from such companies as cannot protest in these matters. I have no doubt that this is but the wildest of rumours on account of its manifest absurdity. Yet perhaps we ought to feel a thrill of encour- ^agernent . . . after all, look at the warm welcome, the Similes, the eager leaping forward to serve that you get in the lobby of any Ministry, and then tell me the M.C.A. is not eminently qualified to render service to the public which travels by air. But let us awaken from nightmares and consider one or ^glwo other aspects of the air travel business. '? Mostly I have dealt with long-distance travel, but there -%are also other aspects. Not so very long ago, travelling '•%io Amsterdam on a Convair, I was interested to note that Jieven two swift-moving, deft-handed air hostesses could SScarcely get a meal served to all the passengers in the short journey-time taken by a 300 m.p.h. aircraft. Certainly one " of the girls was still handing out the postprandial cigarette to the passengers when the "No Smoking—Fasten Seat Belts" notice was illuminated. This means, of course, that the average business man can reach the nearer capitals of Europe faster and more comfortably (and with less fuss, dirt and noise) than he can reach his London office in the morning from many of the suburbs in which business people live. He can spend most of the day doing business with his foreign opposite number, and can return in the evening with good food under his waistcoat and fat contracts in his wallet, and he can catch his usual train home to that suburb; unless he mentions it, his wife will not realize that he fled the country in the morning but decided to return to her in the evening—by the usual train. Business people having branches abroad certainly do take advantage of the short-haul facilities now provided, and in some cases the authorities at airports have put aside special boardrooms, complete with blotting paper, pencils, doodling pads and a chairman's ornate gavel for the use of inter- national business men wishing to hold board meetings with the dignity and decorum suitable to such occasions. These facilities, I feel, are not yet fully appreciated, not made full use of by the business man to whom time is actually money, but things are improving all the time. Now the warmer weather is coming you will see the hardened short-haul business passenger crossing the tarmac to go to Paris, Amsterdam or Brussels with no more baggage than a copy of The Times under his arm, and with neither hat nor overcoat. He has, of course, his passport, but I look forward with confidence to the day when this time- wasting formality will be dispensed with in a Europe made conscious of the absurdity of such documents when journeys between capitals are a matter of minutes rather than of hours. That is one of the many things air transport is doing slowly, even painfully slowly perhaps, but none the less surely, for Europe and the world. *It is showing up, for the absurdities they are. the artificial barriers erected against free intercourse of peoples. The fact that oertain nations have closed their doors very firmly against international air transport only goes to show that these backward govern- ments realize ajjfl fear the gradual breakdown of frontiers with which civil aviation has had a very great deal to do. BLIMP A LA MODE AS a unit of its permanent patrol force, the U.S. Navy hasordered the world's largest non-rigid airship. A contract for the "N" ship, as the new "blimp" is known, has been awarded to the Goodyear Aircraft Corporation. Indicative of size is the 825,000 cu ft helium capacity—100,000 cu ft greater than that of the wartime "M" ship. The length is 324ft, width 71ft, height 92ft, and empty weight about 34,000 1b. A single car, 87ft long, is used in preference to the old articulated car. The envelope is of three-ply fortisan-rayon fabric, coated with synthetic rubber. ';•'" One of the most radical changes is the enclosure of the two ^engines (Wright C7-BA1S, giving 800 h.p. for take-off) within the car. The 18ft reversible and controllable-pitch airscrews are mounted on nacelles suspended on single outriggers, and the gearing is so designed that one or both can be run at the 'choice of the pilot. Another innovation is the nosewheel undercarriage, the two main wheels being retractable into the airscrew nacelles, and the nosewheel into the "bilge" of the car. Constructed on a two-deck plan, the car is so arranged that the quarters for the operating crew and relief crew are entirely separate. A full crew will consist of fourteen officers and men. Eight bunks are provided, and a galley and mess, complete with electric range and electric refrigerator, are located on the uppei deck. I •••:•'• • • •'••"'•• ''''^^^^SV^^R V^Bs . An artist's impression of the new Goodyear "N" airship. TEST INSTRUMENTATION N connection with the article on "Test Instrumentation"which appeared on April 7th, it should be placed on record that a great deal of research and development work in thisfield has been carried out by D. Napier and Son, Ltd. This is particularly the case in regard to the use of polarized lightfor instrument-panel photography,. and a monograph on the subject, by Mr. W. Harvey, F.R.P.S., of Napiers, has beenpublished by the Kodak Research Laboratories .•• TERENCE HORSLEY ""PHE gliding movement suffered a grievous loss at Great X Hucklow last Sunday, when an Olympia flown by Terence Horsley crashed shortly after a winch launch, killing the pilot. Witnesses are reported to have seen damage occur to the air- craft as it left the ground, as a result of which, it is presumed, structural failure followed. As well as being a sailplane expert, Mr. Horsley was a power pilot of long experience, and served in the Fleet Air Arm during the war. A newspaper editor by profession, he had done a considerable amount of writing and broadcasting (the latter as recently as last week) on the sport of gliding, and his book. Soaring Flight, may well rank as a classic in this field; its main theme is meteorology in relation to gliding, a subject in which the author was deeply interested. He had made a special study of the phenomenon of the " standing wave." Mr. Horsley, who was 45 years of age, leaves a widow and three children.
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