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Aviation History
1951
1951 - 0870.PDF
and AIRCRAFT ENGINEER First Aeronautical Weekly in the World Founded 1909 No. 2207. Vol. LIX. FRIDAY, II MAY 1951 EDITORIAL DIRECTOR G. GEOFFREY SMITH, M.B.E. EDITOR MAURICE A. SMITH, D.F.C. ASSISTANT ED/TOR H. F. KING, M.B.E. TECHNICAL EDITOR C. B. BAILEY-WATSON, B.A. ART EDITOR JOHN YOXALL Editorial, Advertising and Publishing Offices: DORSET HOUSE. STAMFORD STREET, LONDON, S.E.I. Telegrams, Flightpres, S«dist, London. Telephone, Waterloo 3333 (60 tints). Branch Offices: ;::r;T COVENTRY /..*",v 8-10, Corporation Street. " ' : Telegrams, Autocar, Coventry. Telephone, Coventry 5210. BIRMINGHAM, 2 King Edward House, New Street. Telegrams, Autopress, Birmingham. Telephone, Midland 719\ (7 lines). MANCHESTER, 3 260, Deansgate. Telegrams, Iliffe, Manchester. Telephone, Blackfriars 4412 (3 lines). Deansgate 3595 (2 lines), GLASGOW, C.2 26b, Renfield Street. Telegrams, Iliffe, Glasgow. Telephone, Central 4857. SUBSCRIPTION RATES Home and Overseas; Twelve months O 3s. Od. U.S.A. and Canada, $10.00 BY AIR: To Canada and U.S.A., six months, $16. IN THIS ISSUE: The Garden Party - - 544 The Secret Years - - S50 Britain's Turbine Air- craft . . .553 Designs of a Decade - S59 Jet Progress Abroad - 566 ur Contribution - 568 Th<f Passenger Thinks Aloud . . . 573 ^Turbine Decade T 7.40 p.m. next Tuesday, May 15th, exactly ten years will have passed since that \ prince of good fellows, the late P. E. G. Sayer, lifted the Gloster E.28/39 mono- plane from the runway at Cranwell on its maiden flight—the first by a British jet aircraft. To Jerry Sayer, therefore, the honour for making flying history and to W. G. Carter, who watched anxiously on that evening, the credit for designing the historic little machine. But, above all, tribute to Sir Frank Whittle, who also watched, and saw the first fruit of his early struggles—a practical turbojet—thrust the E.28 into the air after a run of 500-600 yards. John Grierson, chronicler of and participant in the pioneer experiments of those days, has related that it was too late in the evening to make any special arrangements for celebrating, so all hands repaired to the sergeants' mess for an impromptu party. But when, in London on May 31st next, at a banquet of worthy proportions, the famous and privileged assemble in honour of the E.28's achievement, there will be no greater rejoicing than on that summer evening a decade ago. Certain it is that there will be abundant satisfaction at Britain's accomplishments in the years between. Many of the guests will remember that the first twin-jet Gloster Meteors played their part in countering the scourge of the flying bombs, and in this regard someone may hark back to a jet "first" which is seldom given recognition—that is, the first victory of a jet fighter over an enemy aircraft (for the flying bomb was truly a pilotless aircraft). The date was August 4th, 1944, when a certain F/O. Dean, with his guns jammed solid, nudged a V.i with the wing of his Welland-powered Meteor south of Tonbridge and sent it down. Other "firsts" crowd to the mind. The Trent-Meteor—the first aircraft to fly with airscrew-driving gas turbines; the Vickers-Armstrongs Viscount, first civil transport with turboprop power; the de Havilland Comet, first pure-jet transport; the Boulton Paul Balliol, first turboprop trainer; the de Havilland Sea Vampire and Fairey G.R.17, respectively the first turbojet and turboprop machines to operate from the deck of an aircraft carrier; the special Ghost-Vampire, first aircraft to break the world's altitude record using gas turbine power; the English Electric Canberra, first—and still the only— jet aircraft to fly the Atlantic non-stop; the Saunders-Roe S.R./Ai, first jet flying boat; and so on to a very impressive total. Aid for America Deep satisfaction is felt that the achievements of British gas-turbine engineers should, have profited not only ourselves but our good friends the Americans. Since the days when General "Hap" Arnold ordered a Liberator to Britain to ferry the WiX unit back to the U.S.A. there has been valuable collaboration and ever-sharpening competition. In recording that Pratt and Whitney are turning out Rolls-Royce Nenes and Tays by the hundred, and that Curtiss have been authorized to build Armstrong Siddeley and Bristol units of very advanced design, we are conscious that powerful and promising turbo jets and turboprops of domestic design are already on the test-beds in America. We relish the competition confronting us, not only from America but from countries of the Old World—France and Sweden in particular. Only last week it became known that a new Swedish turbojet is being installed in a Lancaster for development flying. That so much of the effort exerted in the early years of turbine power for aircraft should have been directed to military ends is deplorable; but the pleasing fact remains (and here we would applaud the prescience of the Brabazon Committee and the Ministry of Supply) that the Comet, Viscount, Apollo and Hermes V have set a new pace for the airlines of the world. That a British jet aircraft was the first to fly we have never asserted; but we do pride ourselves that, in the development of practical gas turbine power plants and in their application to many classes of aircraft, we took the lead early and we give notice that we propose to retain it.
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