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Aviation History
1950
1950 - 2182.PDF
FLIGHT, 21 December 1950 CIVIL AVIATION N Q.E.A. IN 1949 '"THE annual report of Qantas Empire Airways for operations•*• up to December 31st, 1949, has been submitted to the Australian Minister for Civil Aviation. It reveals. that, aftertaxes had been deducted, the company made an operating profit of £233,837. Capital was increased during the year by£1,100,000 to a total of £3,623,000; the extra funds were used to purchase five new DC-4s and to provide additional buildingsin New Guinea. The principal operating statistics show that total route mileageincreased during the year to 23,465; operating revenue rose by 20 per cent, passenger mileage by 25 per cent and mail and cargoton-mileage by 70 per cent. The total of 127,000,000 passenger miles was flown without a fatality. One point of which Qantas is particularly proud is that, despitedevaluation and heavy increases in operating costs, fares were held at 1948 levels. As reported in Flight of November 9th,these rates have since had to be increased by about 10 per cent; but are still among the lowest in the world. THE CHARTER MARKET A CCORDING to brokers' reports, shortage of suitable aircraft•f*- is again hampering negotiations on the charter market. Rapid increases in available freight have in many cases forcedcharterers to make arrangements for surface transport. The shortage is said to be caused mainly by the contracts which arenow being undertaken on behalf of the Air Ministry and the Corporations. Although, in the main, the recent Government contracts haveinvolved the use of heavy aircraft, a certain number of DC-3s are also being used by the Corporations. Those still availableon the charter market have large commitments for Christmas tourist traffic, for which fixtures were settled some time ago. Halifaxes are reported to have been in great demand for themovement of large, bulky cargoes, but as there is now only one company in Britain still operating this type of machine, freightrates on some routes have risen by as much as 30 per cent. Charterers are apparently not willing to pay such charges, and ethe brokers consider it probable that, soon after Christmas (when "Some of the Corporation sub-contracts expire) operators of largeaircraft will revert to normal quotations. Recent business has included an arrangement for threeB.O.A.C. Stratocruisers to carry 70 passengers to Cairo and for four Argonauts to fly to Singapore. These machines are allto carry wives and families of Servicemen. Two Yorks were chartered from London to Japan with parties of passengers anda number of DC-3s have flown from London to Persia and Iraq, carrying passengers and oilfield equipment. SILVER CITY ACTIVITIES '"FHE highly popular cross-Channel car ferry operated by the-*- Bristol freighters of Silver City Airways carried 40 per cent more traffic this year than in 1949. Between early April andthe end of November some 3,950 cars and 900 motor cycles (the latter, in many cases, with sidecars) were lifted. The numberof schedules flown represented an increase of 30 per cent on the previous year's traffic, and during the peak period in August,frequency on the Lympne to Le Touqet route was stepped up to 24 services a day. Under the winter rates, which were introduced on Septem-ber 19th, cars up to 14ft in length are now carried for a single fare of £19 instead of £27, while the reduction for larger vehiclesis from £32 to £25. Besides operating the cross-Channel car ferry, Silver CityFreighters have been in great demand for general charter work. Fitted with 44 seats, they are proving popular for the carriageof ships' crews to and from foreign ports. COOLER CABINS FOR B.O.A.C. ALL of B.O.A.C.'s Hermes, Argonauts, Stratocruisers andConstellations are now wearing the new Speedbird livery, whose distinctive colour scheme of white, blue and silver isdesigned to serve a useful as well as a decorative purpose. The upper halves of all fuselages are painted white—the result of aseries of experiments which the Corporation has conducted in the past year to investigate ways of reducing cabin temperatureswhile aircraft are on the ground at airports in hot climates. The heat-reflection theory as applied to aircraft was first pro- PALM COURT : Airliner interior of the days before the dado was deader than the dodo. Every seat a real basket. Alley for a very thin steward. Curtains for the passengers. . . . This was way back in 1920, when the Bristol Aeroplane Company had already foreseen that post-war air travellers would no longer be content with mere roofed-in cockpits. The 14-seoter Bristol Pullman (four 400 h.p. Liberty engines) established a new standard in airliner comfort. pounded by Dr. Ray Martinelli, of the University of California,who pointed out that the advantage of a white-painted surface over polished aluminium lay in its superior ability to reflect theshort wave-lengths predominant in solar radiation in the tem- perature range under consideration. Laboratory experimentswere not particularly successful, as it was found to be extremely difficult to reproduce artificial heat-ray spectra identical withthose of sunlight. A series of practical tests were therefore undertaken, from the results of which it was found that, in directsunlight and with little or no wind, the temperature under a white-painted aluminium sheet is from 10 to 15 deg F less thanthat under an otherwise similar sheet of polished aluminium. At London Airport B.O.A.C. exposed two Argonauts side byside in the sun—one with the conventional polished upper fuselage and the other with this surface painted white. Bothwere subjected to the sun's rays at the same time of day and for a similar period; cabin doors were closed. The sky wascloudless, wind 15kt and outside air temperature 70.5 deg F. From the results obtained—they are reproduced in the graphbelow—it was evident that the greatest cooling effect was achieved if white-painted aircraft were parked in such a position thatthey headed directly into or away from the sun, thus preventing it from penetrating directly into the cabins and permitting verylittle radiant heat to fall on any surface not painted white. B.O.A.C. considers that a reduction in cabin temperature offrom 12 to 15 deg F is obtainable under these conditions in the tropics, while even in the more temperate conditions at LondonAirport differences of 12 deg were twice achieved on one day. When the aircraft were parked in haphazard fashion withoutregard to the sun's direction, it was found that the differences were much less pronounced, although they still existed. Unpainted, facing S.S.E. ' Painted, facing W.N.W. 11.30, then S.S.E.:— Front Cabin — — — — - Rear Cabin •..•••-••••• Graphic results of the B.O.A.C. cooling experi- ments with two Argonauts, one white-roofed and the other polished. Readings were taken in the park- ing positions sf>ec/fied in the key above. boi9 am K>am. »am, NOON 1p« TIME OF DAY
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