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Aviation History
1950
1950 - 0980.PDF
628 FLIGHT, 18 May 1950 CORRESPONDENCE The Editor of "Flight" does not hold himself responsible for the views expressed by correspondents in these columns. The names and addresses of the writers, not necessarily for publication, must in all cases accompany letters. Marine "Payload" I HARDLY feel it possible to let pass unchallenged MajorGould's statement ("Speed, Load and Diesels," Corre- spondence, April 27th) that " the Queen Elizabeth's chief cargois not a mere handful of passengers (2,200), but freight occupy- ing some 60,500 cu ft of space," and that " during the war shecarried . . . large quantities of war materials." Admittedly, she has space for baggage, mails and high-class freight, butsurely the amount provided is relatively small when compared with that available in the true passenger-cargo liner. Thefollowing is a brief comparison of the main features of the Queen Elizabeth with those of the Dominion Monarch, one ofthe best examples of the passenger-cargo liner, now trading between the U.K. and Australasia. Queen Elizabeth Dominion Monarch Gross tonnage 83,673 .. 26,463Deadweight •. ,. 15.640 •• 16,860 Speed (knots) 28^ .. 20Passengers 2,260 . 507 Cubic capacity of holds (bales) 212,105 .. 658,960 R. H. Thornton, in the authoritative British Shipping, pub- lished in 1939, clearly outlines the difference between the Atlantic "mammoth" passenger liner and the smaller pas- senger-cargo liner in the following passage: "... if it were aot for the contribution to the costs of the voyage made by the cargo's freight, they (the passengers) would never travel as comfortably as they do for the price they pay. For what do the great Atlantic ferry-boats charge their first-class pas- sengers per day? About /io. And how much do the fine passenger liners carrying cargo as well? About £2 10s." A final authoritative opinion is provided by Peter Duff in his recently published book British Ships and Shipping, in which he states categorically that the '' Queens'' are in the class of ship "designed primarily for the carriage of passengers at high speeds on regular schedules." London, E.C.3. W. L. S. HARRISON, Secretary, * Officers' (Merchant Navy) Federation, Ltd. Strip-tearing YOUR correspondent "Stripling" (May nth) wonders if"tearing off a strip" had its origin in a threat to haveoffenders on " a narrow strip of carpet." Surely it is much more likely that it refers to unceremonious removal of a stripe, though how it lost the " e " is not so apparent. I well remember being threatened with this fate as far back as early 1940. While we are on the subject of slang it would, I think, be equally interesting to debate the origin of '' putting up a black." Has it, one wonders, anything to do with black marks? Liverpool. : ".. ' V- '. H. C. Nice Distinction I WAS very interested in your article on the Royal ObserverCorps in Flight of April 20th, 1950, in which the many problems facing the Corps to-day have been very well set out. Permit me, however, to correct one important point. It is stated in the early part of the article that the primary duty i;f the Corps is the spotting of aircraft. This is not so; the primary duty is the tracking of aircraft, which is a very different matter. Aircraft spotting was carried out during the last war on an extensive scale by roof spotters, whose duty it was to warn workers in industrial premises when hostile aircraft were approaching. It is the duty of the Royal Observer Corps to present a continuous picture of aircraft movements overland, and this process of track reproduction involves a good knowledge of a number of subjects, of which aircraft recognition (or "spotting") is only one. It should be remembered that in the tracking of any individual aircraft, about 25 per cent of the observers involved never see the aircraft. Bucks. F. W. FREE (Leading Observer 17 /F2.) High-altitude Interception AFTER reading the very interesting article, '' High AltitudeInterception " by Mr. G. Mclntosh in Flight of May 4th, and as a student of guided-missile design and rocket propulsion, I strongly support the view that the best defence against any future bombers or any such other weapons is the guided missile. I would here, however, like to state that in my opinion the most effective defence would be achieved by an "automatic tracking and attacking system." Although such a system will be quite complicated, I am sure that the various advantages offered by it would be worth considering. K. S. SIHJLA. Brawdy, . ...' g Pembrokeshire. Soviet Air Routes /"^ONTRARY to your suggestion that Russian air-transport ^-/ facilities are '' normally well-guarded secrets ''—to quote the statement on page 562 (Civil Aviation News), May 4th, may I point out concise and detailed tables of Aeroflot's numerous internal schedules are published in the current issue of The A.B.C. World Airways Guide? This information is, in fact, so detailed that it occupies almost six pages of the guide book, and not only quotes fares, baggage allowances, excess charges and freight rates, but the different types of aircraft on each route, e.g., L1-2, IL-12, IL-18 and Yak-16. Even the distance stages for every schedule are shown in kilometres. Glasgow. AIRLINE HISTORIAN In Brief A reader has "a number of copies of Flight from July 1st, 1943, to December 30th, 1943, inclusive," for disposal to any- one willing to pay for posting the parcel from Southampton. If those interested will reply promptly c/o the Editor (but not enclosing money), we will select whom we consider the most deserving recipient, since it may well be that aeronautical societies or schools are desirous of completing their files, and they should have preference. The chosen applicant will then be put in touch with the reader; we regret that other letters cannot be acknowledged ...... GOODYEAR TROPHY RACE ENTRIES "f T7OLVERHAMPTON Aero Club announces that 22 entries * * have been received for the Goodyear Trophy Race, which, as mentioned on p. 623, is being held on June 18th, the day after the King's Cup Race. Racing numbers, entrants, pilots (in brackets, where not also entrants) and aircraft are listed below. Gaps in the numbers are explained by the fact that some of the aircraft will be racing under their King's Cup numbers. 1, A. L. Cole (Comper Swift); 2, B. J. Doyle (W. Alan) (D.H.82A); 3, E. A. Wild (Autocrat); 4, W. H. "Moss (Mosscraft II); 5, W. H. Moss (Mosscraft); 6, D. McCaskill (Auster Mk. V); 7,Derby Aero Club (P. Woodward) (Hawk Trainer III); 8, Derby Aero Club (J. Findlay) (Monarch M.17); 9, R. R. Paine (HawkTrainer Til); 10, F. P. Webster (L. W. Hamp) (Messenger IVa); ii, E. L. Curtis (Wicko); 12, M. Marron (S. H. Seed) (Cadet 643);14, T. S. Murphy (A. P. Cryer) (Messenger IV); 15, W. lamison (Proctor III); 16, E. A. Doran (D. Lowry) (Skyjeep C.H.3); 17,L. E. Mason (Hawk Trainer III); 18, D. F. Ogilvy (Miles Falcon); 24, D. C. Jemmett (Hawk Trainer III); 27, F. Dunkerley (Gemini);35, J. Rush (Falcon VI); 36, J. N. Somers (Gemini); 37, C. G. Alington (Sparrowhawk). .... AIRLINE ECONOMICS FOR THE LISTENER '"THE radio is not to be compared with the lecture-hall as a -*- medium for putting-over a technical dissertation, if only because the broadcaster cannot illustrate his arguments by the magic of the lantern; Mr. Peter Masefield, therefore, is to be congratulated on the lucidity of his "Turbine Aircraft Economics" talk to B.B.C. Third Programme listeners on April 28th. B.E.A.'s Chief Executive showed how the turbine-powered airliner must be "matched to the job" jf it was to pay its way. Taking three cases, of short, medium and medium-long hauls, he demonstrated that in the first, especially for high- density traffic, the piston-engined aircraft held the economic advantage, with the turboprop as a fair runner-up; in the second, the piston engine still led, but by a much narrower margin from the turboprop; and in the third, while the turbo- jet still remained at a disadvantage—though a much smaller one—in operating cost, the greater distance would enable its speed to be exploited to the full; traffic would flock to it, it would operate at ever-increasing load factors, and eventually it would drive airscrew types off the route.
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