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Aviation History
1951
1951 - 1201.PDF
746 FLIGHT, 22 June 1951 CIVIL AVIATION NEWS B.E.A. ACHIEVES TARGET IN spite of poor winter traffic, British European Airways hasachieved its revenue target of £9 million, and when the actual figures of the Corporation's 1950-51 accounts are published they will show that the deficit has been reduced from the previous year's £1,360,000 to approximately £980,000. An even smaller deficit had been hoped for, but increased petrol duty and devalua- tion has raised costs by some £700,000. These figures are quoted by Lord Douglas of Kirtleside, B.E.A.'s chairman, in a message to the staff. Mr. Peter Masefield, the chief executive, commenting in the current B.E.A. Magazine on the delay in delivery of the Ambassadors and Pionairs, says that although the reasons are clear they were no less aggravating. On June 1st B.E.A. was six Pionairs short of the required minimum to operate the increased summer schedules, and some 22 out of the 809 weekly services were affected. (Details of these cuts were given in Flight for June 8th.) Teething troubles with the Ambassadors—Eliza- bethans in B.E.A. nomenclature—has set back the completion of the 250 hours of test flying with the production model which are necessary before a C. of A. can be granted. Up to May 28th 150 hours out of the 250 hours had been completed, and the diffi- culty now will be to find, before autumn, adequate conditions in which to complete the de-icing trials necessary before introducing the aircraft on the Corporation's winter schedules. Mr. Masefield says there is no hope of introducing the Eliza- bethans into scheduled service before mid-October, which means missing the summer traffic and consequent forfeiture of revenue. He adds, however, that when the Elizabethans are eventually in service the Corporation will have a very fine and economical aircraft of great passenger-attraction. Commenting on the chartering of Constellations and Argonauts from B.O.A.C. to cover the night services from London to Nice this month, Mr. Masefield says that at the cheap night fare of £25 return a 90 per cent load-factor in both directions will be necessary to pay for the charter. These four-engined aircraft are, of course, being operated by their own crews, and this will do something to ease the crew-shortage which, apart from aircraft scarcity, is one of the factors contributing to present difficulties. Although, says the chief executive, B.E.A. has taken on over 100 first and second officers since September, it is still short of a VERTICAL ARRIVALS: This intimate view of Northolt was taken from a B.E.A. Westland helicopter; the circle seen on the apron alighting-area. Since the inception of the service ftSp to Birmingham via Northolt the "tarmac batsmer^have had to add some new movements to their repertoire. ^r "Flight" photograph dozen crews to meet the stepped-up summer schedules—this in spite of energetic recruiting and training and of the fact that the hying staff now consists of 471 captains, and first and second officers, compared with 379 a year ago. During the next two years, at least, the Corporation is also likely to be short of radio officers. These remarks, incidentally, also serve to underline the com- ments of Allen Gale (p. 745) on the same subject. CORPORATION TRAFFIC THE volume of traffic carried by United Kingdom airlinesduring February, 1951 (statistics of which were published by the M.C.A. last week), showed a very substantial advance over that for the corresponding month in 1950, increases in passengers, mail and freight being 22.1, 9.9 and 38.5 per cent respectively. The Airways Corporations and their associates flew over 58 million passenger-miles, carrying 61,348 passengers, of whom 45,474 were flown on international routes. B.O.A.C. carried 3,803 passengers on its North Atlantic services—an increase of over 64 per cent compared with February, 1950—and the total number of 16,918 passengers carried in the month was an increase of nearly 40 per cent. B.E.A. raised their freight figures from 563.5 tons in February,J 95°5 to 773-1 tons i11 February this year, and carried a total of 43,668 passengers during the month. YAW RECOVERY ISSUED by the M.C.A., Information Circular No. 70/1951 dealswith structural loads imposed during yawing manoeuvres. Explain- ing that civil aircraft are designed to withstand the loads imposed during all reasonable manoeuvres and at all permitted flying speeds, the Circular adds, however, that there is an assumption that full rudder will be used only within a certain speed range, the upper limit of which is called the manoeuvre speed and is approximately 1.6 times the fiaps-up stalling speed. Above this speed, applica- tion of full rudder, or violent use of rudder, particularly when recovering from a large angle of yaw, might over-stress the structure sufficiently to cause failure. The Circular warns pilots of this fact, and suggests that initial action to recover from large angles of yaw attained unintentionally should be gradually to centralize the rudder, and follow this by the gentle application of opposite rudder until recovery is complete. I.C.A.O. COUNCIL REPORT informative review of the development of international ivil aviation during last year is included in the 1950 report :ndered by the Council of I.C.A.O. to the Fifth Assembly, which Jbpened in Montreal on June 5 th. It/Is stated that the upward trend in world air-transport activity which had been noted the previous year continued during 950. International and domestic scheduled airlines throughout the world (excluding Russia and China) carried slightly over 30 million passengers, or approximately 14 per cent more than in 1949. More than 100,000 pilgrims from all parts of the world were transported by air to Rome for the Holy Year celebrations, and the number would probably have been substantially higher but for the deterioration of the international situation at the height of the pilgrimage. Scheduled and non-scheduled airlines carried more than 14,000 persons to Jeddah for the pilgrimage to Mecca. Some 60,000 immigrants to Israel from other parts of the Middle East were transported by air, and an agreement had been con- cluded by which about 5,000 immigrants were to fly to Australia from the Netherlands during 1951. Several important "domestic" points were raised by early speakers at the Assembly. Dr. Enrique Loaeza (Mexico) pleaded that the time had come when the structure of the divisions dealing with air-navigation matters should be reviewed; by combining some of the divisions, he maintained, the overall purpose could be fulfilled and considerable economies achieved at the same time. Mr. J. E. Keel (United Kingdom) said that, while the vital need for rapid and efficient air communications between the free nations justified resolute support for I.C.A.O.'s work, it was essential that member-states should get full value for the effort and money they expended. This in turn meant that the organiza- tion must carry on its business "with the highest degree of realism, efficiency and economy." M. Haguenau (France) said that the organization had attained greater success in its practical work in the navigation field than in general air-transport matters, for the reason that it was easier to achieve international unity in the former. He thought that funds and personnel should be re-assigned in order that greater attention might be devoted to those subjects in which less progress had been made.
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