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Aviation History
1950
1950 - 0045.PDF
FLIGHT, 5 January 1950 SERVICE AV Royal Air Force and Naval Aviation News and Announcements A Unique Honour AS announced briefly in these columnson December 22nd, R.A.F. Station Bridgnorth is to receive the freedom of the borough of Bridgnorth, Salop. This honour—which is without precedent in the annals of the R.A.F.—is also shared by Technical Training Command, to which the Station belongs. Cockpit Uniformity FUTURE aircraft for the R.A.F.—those now in the development stage —are to have cockpit control knobs of standard shape, according to the function they perform. The main result of this policy of standardization will be to pro- vide pilots with instant identification of controls, by feel alone if necessary. Flap control knobs, for example, will be uniform-sized spheres with small cylindrical projections on each side, a three-quarter-inch cube will characterize supercharger controls, and mixture con- trol levers will have a disc with three small pyramids on the rim. Emergency controls, such as those for ejector seats or fire extinguishers, will be made more conspicuous by diagonal black and yellow stripes. Details of standardization were settled after a series of tests conducted by the R.A.F. Institute of Aviation Medicine. Similar observations were made some time ago in America—by the psychologi- FOR NIGHT WORK : First air-to-air picture of the de Havilland 113, two-seat night fighter version of the Vampire. It will be seen that fin area has been increased, to compensate for the longer nose, which houses radar equipment. cal branch of the Aero Medical Labora- tory at Wright Field—and described in Flight of August r4th, 1947. The article illustrated eight basic shapes, picked from a selection of 22 different knobs, among which there was no con- fusion when identified by touch alone. R.A.F. Appointments THE Air Ministry announces thatA.V-M. C. W. Weedon, C.B., C.B.E., has been appointed Director- General of Engineering at the Air Min- istry. A.V-M. Weedon, who is 48, was commissioned from Cranwell in 1920. HANDING OVER : On the first day of the New Year, Marshal of the R.A.F. Lord Tedder retired from his appointment as Chief of the Air Staff, which he has held for the past three years. He is shown with his successor, Air Chief Marshal Sir John Slessor (left) at a recent ceremony in London. t He has been Senior Air Staff Officer atH.Q. Technical Training Command since October, 1948, and was frrmerly A.O.C.,No. 41 Group, Maintenance Command, going there in July, 1946, on his returnfrom the Far East, where he was Chief Maintenance Officer at II.Q. Air Com-mand, South-East Asia, from March, 1944. Before going to the Far East hewas at the Ministry of Aircraft Produc- tion for three and a half years. A.V-M. R. D. Jones, C.B., A.KC,has been appointed to Technical Train- ing Command as A.O.C., No. 24 Group. Since October, 1948, he has bet 11S.A.S.O. at H.Q., Reserve Command, and is now returning to the Group whichhe formerly commanded from March, 1947. Previously he was head of theplanning staff which was set up at the Air Ministry early in 1946, to plan thepresent technical services organization of the R.A.F. He was with the British AirCommission in Washington from 1941 to 1943, and was afterwards Deputy Con-troller of Research and Development at the Ministry of Aircraft Production fornearly three years. A.V-M. Jones is succeeded at Reservi:Command by A. Cdre. (act. A.V-M.) G. S. Hodson, C.B., C.B.E., A.F.C.,who has commanded No. 205 Group, in the Middle East, since January, 1947.He was formerly Air Officer in Charge of Administration at H.Q., Coastal Com-mand, going there early in 1946 after having been a base commander inBomber Command and formerly Air Officer in Charge of Training at BomberCommand H.Q. A.V-M. Hodson, who is 50, entered the R.F.C. in 1917. A second new appointment to Tech-nical Training Command is that of A.V-M. L. G. Harvey, C.B., who be-comes Senior Air Staff Officer. A.V-M. Harvey has commanded No. 24 Groupsince January, 1948, and formerly com- manded No. 47 Group, Transport Com-mand, from October, 1946, after having been Chief Maintenance Officer, and later
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