FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1951
1951 - 2228.PDF
g November 1951 585 FROM ALL QUARTERS The Controller of Guided Weapons THE Ministry of Supply announces that Mr. S. S. C. Mitchell,G.B.j O.B.E., M.I.Mech.E., has been appointed Controller ofGuided Weapons and Electronics, in succession to Air Chief Marshal Sir Alec Coryton, whose release from that post, in orderto join the Bristol Aeroplane Co., we recorded last week. Mr. Mitchell, who is 49 years of age, will be in charge of all workconnected with British guided-weapon research, development and production. He will also assume responsibility for the direction ofthe Ministry of Supply's work on electronics research, develop- ment and production. In this latter field he will have, like theMinistry's other Controllers, the assistance of a Director-General —in this instance Mr. N. C. Robertson, whose appointment wereported last week. Mr. Mitchell, who was born in India of Scottish parents, spentthree years (1912-15) at the Edinburgh Academy, later studying at Osborne and Dartmouth. From 1918 to 1931 he served in theRoyal Navy, specializing in gunnery, and then joined the Naval Ordnance Inspection Department at Woolwich, and after" fouryears went to the Armament Design Establishment as second-in- command of the gun section. In 1938, Mr. Mitchell became Deputy Inspector of NavalOrdnance at Portsmouth and twelve months later took charge of Admiralty ordnance contracts in Switzerland. In 1940 he wasappointed Chief Inspector, Naval Ordnance, and from 1941-44 was Inspector of Naval Ordnance in New York. He returned to the Armament Design Establishment (now underthe Ministry of Supply) as superintendent of the gun section in 1944, and in October, 1945 became the head of that establishmentas Chief Engineer Armament Design, a position he held until his present appointment. B.O.A.C.'s Route Plans IT is now thought likely that B.O.A.C.'s Comets may work theNew York to Bermuda service towards the end of next year. Scheduled time for the journey will be about i£ hours, or half thetime taken at present. Later, the aircraft will also be introduced on the run between New York and Nassau. As Sir Miles Thomashas said, these valuable routes will indeed provide "a dollar showcase for the Comet". B.O.A.C., incidentally, has indicated its intention of offering onthe North Atlantic routes a tourist-rate single fare at substantially below £100, as compared with the £141 now charged by alltransatlantic operators. A fleet of five Constellations, now being modified to "high-density" seating requirements, will make avail-able an extra 400 seats weekly on the routes between London, New York and Montreal. The Stout Films YSfHEN Mr. E. G. Stout gave his lecture on flying-boat designTT at the Anglo-American Conference at Brighton, the two films which he had intended to show with the lecture could not be given as they had been impounded, for some obscure reason, by the Customs. Ultimately released, however, they were shown before the Royal Aeronautical Society on Thursday of last week and extremely interesting they were. In the original lecture—a digest of which appeared in our October 26th issue—Mr. Stout gave a frank and «clear-cut ex- position of two factors which bid fair to make a great impact on flying-boat design (and have, indeed, already made that impact so far as Convair are concerned) plus a third which, even more important, is not confined to flying-boat application. These Jhree innovations—the use of high length/beam ratios and of "spray-dams" in flying boats, and the exploration of dynamic characteristics by the use of free-body dynamically-similar- models—were all shown to advantage in the two films, both of which, incidentally, were in colour. The sound-track commentary, perhaps, both in vein and emphasis, tended, for a British audience, to dull the brilliance of the films' content. There were desultory hand-claps at the end, but nothing like enthusiastic applause. We find this puzzling, tor the films illustrated an advance in techniques which construc- tors in this country would do well to study—and emulate. We cannot believe that the audience were so thought-provoked by wha; they had seen as to be rendered incapable of expressing toeir appreciation. Dr Ballantyne, the R.Ae.S. secretary, said afterwards that the nuns are to be available for loan to the Society's branches: per-l Ps they will be better received there. Mr. N. E. Rowe New Appointment for Mr. N. E. RoweA FTER five years as Controller of Research and Special • Development with British European Airways, Mr. N. E. Rowe, C.B.E., B.Sc, A.C.G.I., F.R.Ae.S., Whit.Ex., is to leave the Corporation at the end of the year in order to join Blackburn and General Aircraft, Ltd., as technical director. Norbert Edward Rowe — known to his very many friends as "Nero"—was born in 1898, and won a Royal Scholarship to the City and Guilds Engineering College, finally graduating in Engineering at the University of London in 1923. In the following year he joined the R.A.E. and then, in 1926, went to Martles- ham Heath. From 1929 to 1934 he was R.T.O. at Vickers, and then in 1938 returned to Martlesham as chief technical officer. In 1939 Mr. Rowe was ap- pointed Assistant Director of Technical Development, and two years later became Director in the Ministry of Aircraft Pro- duction, finally to be appointed Director-General in 1945. The following year he joined British European Airways as Controller of Research and Long-Term Developments. During his appoint- ment with B.E.A. he has been responsible, among other things, for operational research and development with helicopters and, as a result of this work, B.E.A. is now basing its forward planning on the helicopter as the main air link in Great Britain. The technical work begun by Mr. Rowe will be carried on under the directorship of Mr. B. S. Shenstone, chief engineer of B.E.A., but arrangements have been made with Blackburn and General Aircraft for Mr. Rowe to be made available to B.E.A. as a consultant on helicopter services. Reference is made to other Blackburn and General Aircraft appointments on page 586. Airwork Acquire B.O.A.C. Hermes A RRANGEMENTS have now been completed for the award to •**• Airwork, Ltd., of the biggest trooping contract ever to be granted to a non-scheduled operator. It involves the transport of Service personnel between the United Kingdom and the Middle East, and is worth over £1,250,000. Between the U.K. and Egypt alone some 8,000 or 9,000 passengers will be carried annually. To meet these commitments, Airwork, Ltd., has made arrange- ments to purchase from B.O.A.C. at least four pressurized Handley Page Hermes IVs (this is the announcement we foreshadowed last week). They are machines of which the Corporation has not yet taken delivery, and which it will not now require, in view of the forthcoming introduction of the Comet on South African routes. Sycamore 10 and 11 OFFICIALLY designated Sycamore H.C.10 (signifying heli-copter, communications, Mk 10), the version of the Bristol Type 171 helicopter employed in the recent Army Exercise Sur- prise Packet is primarily an ambulance machine. Extensive modi- fications have been made to enable it to accommodate two G.S. stretchers, one above the other, athwartships. For this purpose, two large Perspex blisters, readily detachable when the Sycamore is used for ordinary communications flying, are added to the fuse- lage sides. The normal sliding doors, which would be rendered inoperative by the blisters, are replaced by jettisonable hinged doors. The engine bulkhead carries a housing for bottles of plasma and a plug socket for electrically heated blankets. A medical attendant sits beside the pilot and his chair is arranged to swivel to enable him to attend to casualties. The Sycamore H.C.n has been developed primarily for air observation and general communications work and accommodates the pilot and four passengers. A standard R.A.F. radio set (TR.1934) and an A.26, as used in jeeps and A.F.V.s, are installed, and there is a rope-ladder for taking personnel on board when operating over rough or sloping ground which precludes a landing. On the bottom of the fuselage are several strong-points for carry- ing loads up to 1,6001b. i
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
