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Aviation History
1951
1951 - 1087.PDF
The self-contained office, as built into each of the aircraft docks, can be seen facing the nose of this DC-6 undergoing overhaul at Bromma. (Above) This time-saving mobile engine platform has merely to be connected to the controls and pressure lines of the test-house. (Below) The Swedish Director of Civil Aviation leaves by helicopter to inspect the approaches to Bromma. Control-desk of the engine test-house at the Bromma maintenance base. presidents (economics, finance, traffic, sales, operations, andexternal affairs) and five advisory bureaux (public relations, legal, secretariat, buildings, and insurance). It should be noted particularly that S.A.S. has even dispensedwith separate technical and operations controllers, both aspects now being under the control of the vice-president operations, anarrangement which is undoubtedly desirable. The vice-president operations, incidentally, is Mr. K. Hagerup-Svendsen, a formermember of the Free Norwegian Air Force j he later proved an interesting travelling companion on my night flight to Oslo. A visit to the statistical department at the new H.Q. showedsomething of the way in which S.A.S. is growing. Revenue passenger-kilometres flown last year were 21 per cent higher thanthe previous year and, with a total revenue load-factor of 55.8 per cent, the total of revenue ton-kilometres performed was 30 percent better than in 1949. Bromma Airport, the base of the new S.A.S. Swedish Regionor Division (formerly A.B.A.) was built in 1936. It has four runways, the approaches to which are not all good. The maximumcapacity of the airport is about 12 aircraft on simultaneous dis- patch and 15 on the tarmac j ideally, therefore, Stockholm requiresa further intercontinental airport which lends itself more easily to expansion than does Bromma. The airfield is at present equippedwith an M/F. range, radio beacons and I.L.S. I learned during a chat with the Swedish Minister of Civil Aviation that the airlineis most anxious to install G.C.A. as soon as possible, but that the money for this project is rather hard to find at the moment. WhileI was at Bromma the Minister departed in a Bell helicopter to get first-hand knowledge of the approach problems on one of therunways. The Swedish maintenance base, comprising three large hangars(one of them is the second largest in Europe and houses ten DC-6s and two DC-3S) is devoted to the overhaul and repair ofDC-6s and a small number of A.B.A.'s DC-3S. While not as new as the base at Kastrup, it still gave the impression of being everybit as efficient. One outstanding feature was the locally designed type of mobile engine platforms which are being used (see theadjacent photograph); these platforms eventually form part of the test-bed itself and obviously save many man-hours. A C.A.A.-approved Link Training School is also in operation in which pilots can actually be checked out for Atlantic schedules without trainingin the United States. The flight to my next port of call, Fornebu (Oslo) was made ina Saab Scandia. It seemed a pleasant little aircraft from the passenger's viewpoint, and it is also very popular with the pilots,who appreciate its excellent single-engine performance and first- class cockpit layout. The unmodified exhaust system, which atnight can prove rather disconcerting to the uninitiated passenger by belching voluminous flames, needs some attention. I under-stand, also, that a tailplane modification has to be made before the maximum speed can be pushed up above its present temporarylimit of 2OO m.p.h. The 24-seat version is very comfortable, but the 32-seater is definitely a little crowded; the type is also un-pressurized. The company hopes to be able to certify the Scandia for 1,000 hr between overhauls after i£ years of operation and,although the production schedule is uncertain at the moment, I think S.A.S. would like to add to its present fleet of six. At Fornebu I became aware of the fact that, while still an integraland fully co-operating part of S.A.S., the Norwegian Division (formerly D.N.L.) has retained its individuality to a greater extentthan have the other two partners. This is no doubt due to the fact that Norway, with its enormous, straggling coastline, andrelatively tiny population (3,000,000 only) has its own peculiar operating problems. Hying over routes such as that from Osloto Tromso (1,500 km and the longest route in Europe) for example, requires something of the pioneering spirit. Who, then, could be better equipped to lead Norwegianoperations than Major-General Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen? It was he who, as a lieutenant, acted as pilot to Amundsen on the greatArctic flight of 1925, when Amundsen and Ellsworth crossed the polar regions in two Dornier Wai flying-boats with Rolls-Royce ;le engines. General Riiser-Larsen, who has also held the rank
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