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Aviation History
1949
1949 - 1965.PDF
FLIGHT, 8 December 1949 •731 PERON'S PRIDE: Probably thelargest and most modern air terminus in the world, the new" Ministro Pistarini " airport at Buenos Aires is one and a halftime as big as London Airport. Covering an area of 19 squaremiles, it has three runways, one of which is 3,060 yards inlength, and is capable of accom- modating aircraft up to 150 tonsin weight. The airport was de- signed and built entirely byArgentinian technicians and is one of the major projects inGeneral Peron's five-year plan. CIVIL AVIATION NEWS .SLO.A.C. AT IDLEWILD : HE last B.O.A.C. aircraft to fly from New York's LaGuardia airport took off on December 1st, and the Cor- poration's employees then left for the new international ter-minus at Idlewild, 13 miles away. The runways at La Guardia (which has been B.O.A.C.'s New York base since July, 1946) arenot considered to be long enough for the new aircraft with which the Corporation is being progressively equipped, and althoughrelatively little construction work on airport buildings at Idle- wild has been completed, all B.O.A.C. flights will in futureterminate there. Passengers wishing to connect with U.S. international services, which are operated mainly from LaGuardia, must now make a road journey of about 45 minutes. In this connection there is topical interest in the recentannouncement of new American passenger-transport helicopters, notably the ten-passenger Sikorsky S-55 and the 12-passengerproject of the Bell Aircraft Corporation; both are designed specifically for transport between outlying airports and metro-politan areas. AUSTRALIAN SAFETY AN analysis of civil aircraft accidents recently published bythe Department of Civil Aviation reveals that during 1948 Australian aircraft flew 3,919,700 miles on international routeswithout a single accident. Regular domestic airlines made 135.7X3 flights over 35,717,364 miles. Of 48 occurrences onthese flights only 15 fell within the category of an accident as denned by I.C.A.O Of these, two were fatal, involvinga loss of some 15 lives. Domestic and international services together carried 1,381,398 passengers over a total of660,682,500 passenger miles for an overall passenger fatality- rate of 1.53 per ioe,ooo,ooo passenger-miles. The report indicates that 32 per cent of all accidentsoccurred on landing; of this number, two were due to air- craft being struck by birds during the hold-off period. Thecause of 66 per cent of the remaining accidents was attributed to pilot error and the fact that taxying accidents accounted for26 per cent of all airline mishaps was regarded as being far from satisfactory, especially as almost half of this numberwere due to carelessness. , ...-. .,,.'..,-„ ..-*,-•-... -;-,..-..•. PRESTWICK'S PROBLEMS -Vv'-fr:-:;^-' THE Right Hon. Thomas Johnston, P.C., principal speakerat the dinner held at Prestwick on Tuesday of last weekin celebration of nine years of transatlantic air services to the airport, affirmed that, the automobile and aircraft industrieswere passing Scotland by. He had recently turned up a letter from G/C. D. F. Mclntyre presenting, on behalf of ScottishAviation, Ltd., two "remarkable proposals." The first was that Scottish Aviation should convert itself into a public-utilitycorporation, with (said the speaker) all the limitations in respect of dividend which would be entailed, and all theinherent considerations in regard to public service which such a corporation involved. To this proposal Mr. Johnston hadpromptly directed the attention of the Government and it was strongly backed by every living Secretary and ex-Secretary ofState, Liberal, Conservative and Labour. The second proposal—made in the interests of Scotland—wasthat Scottish Aviation should be authorized to proceed with converting Liberator bombers for use as civil transports, thecompany offering assistance in jigging and tooling to existing shipbuilding and engineering works in Scotland, which wouldmanufacture the fuselage and other components prior to assembly at Prestwick.: Mr, Johnston described the fate of these two proposals; thefirst—the conversion to a public-utility corporation—was said to be within the competence of the company itself. Thesecond had been ignored by successive Air Ministers. Not- withstanding these disappointments, however, arrivals atPrestwick this year were 7,000 more than in the previous year. Mr. A. T. Lennox-Boyd, M.P., former Parliamentary Secre-tary to the Ministry of Aircraft Production, paid warm tribute to Scottish Aviation, Ltd. He recalled how the ownership ofPrestwick airfield had passed into other hands without any purchase price, and what effect this move had had on theemployment position. If, through the vagaries of the elec- torate, said Mr. Lennox-Boyd, political authority shouldchange hands, he personally would like to see an ever- increasing association of individual enterprise with the conductof aviation. Mr. Lennox-Boyd added that he would like this country towatch what had been happening in the U.S.A., where there was an impartial body giving the right to apply foi the operationof any route. If a company could show adequate financial solidarity it was entitled to do so. THE CHARTER VIEW AN indication of the seriousness of the restrictions which havebeen imposed on British charter companies by the impli- cations of the Civil Aviation Act, 1946, is given by a resolutionpassed by the directors of Westminster Airways, Ltd., at a meeting recently called to announce the termination of thecompany's activities. Part of the resolution states : " : . . in view of the restrictive provisions of the Civil Aviation Act,1946, and other restrictions on the activities of independent air charter companies, Westminster Airways, Ltd., havedecided to cease flying operations and the company is now being wound up. Their subsidiary company, WestminsterAirways Servicing, Ltd., which has taken over the servicing and maintenance side of the business, will continue to operateat Blackbushe under the same management and is in a posi- tion to undertake repair and overhaul work on all types ofaircraft." This news lends point to the forthright plea for freedomfrom the restrictions which nationalization has imposed on British aviation, through the medium of such legislature, con-tained in the report of the British Air Charter Association for 1949. Stressing the importance of the part which charter com-
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