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Aviation History
1952
1952 - 0083.PDF
and AIRCRAFT ENGINEER First Aeronautical Weekly in the World Founded 1909 No. 2242 Vol. LXI. FRIDAY, 11 JANUARY 1952 EDITOR MAURICE A. SMITH, D.F.C. ASSISTANT EDITOR 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.1. Telegrams, Flightpres, Sedist, London. Telephone, Waterloo 3333 (60 lines). Branch Offices: COVENTRY 8-10, Corporation Street. Telegrams, Autocar, Coventry. Telephone, Coventry 5210. BIRMINGHAM, 2 King Edward House, New Street. Telegrams, Autopress, Birmingham. Telephone, Midland 7191 (7 lines). MANCHESTER, 3 260, Deansgate. Telegrams, lliffe, Manchester. Telephone, Blackfriars 4414 (3 lines). Deansgate 359S (2 lines) GLASGOW, C.2. 26b, Renfield Street. Telegrams, lliffe, Glasgow. Telephone, Central 1265 (2 lines). SUBSCRIPTION RATES Home and Overseas: Twelve months £3 3s.0d. U.S.A. and Canada, $10.00. BY AIR: To Canada and U.S.A., six months, $16. IN THIS ISSUE : Air Year Reviewed - - 30 Boosting Gas Turbines - 36 Mig versus Sabre - - - 41 For High-Mach Tuition - 42 More About the Gannet 44 Flutter 45 Tomorrow's Traffic T HE first week of the new year has seen a most important event in the maiden flight of the Bristol 173. First British twin-engined helicopter to fly, the 173 represents a new advance towards B.E.A.'s requirements as outlined by Lord Douglas and later specified in detail by Mr. Peter Masefield. In particular, the 173 does provide twin-engined safety and thus, later on, will permit trial operations into city centres. To the ordinary traveller the potential convenience of the helicopter—a quality which he can visualize clearly—is probably its greatest attraction, for as yet he has no real experience of the safety it can offer by virtue of a hovering approach, nor are its economics of any real concern to him. Very few air travellers on the short routes to European countries give more than a passing thought to the type of aircraft which carries them. In a year or two's time the fact that rotating rather than fixed wings bear it may seem to be of equally small consequence; what does matter is how much time must be wasted at and between city and airfield reception halls. With London road traffic becoming increasingly chaotic, Northolt and London Airports are, in effect, daily getting farther away from London; moreover for the majority of services they are also in the wrong direction. This fact adds to the helicopter's opportunities. Creditable though B.E.A.'s pioneer services with Sikorsky S.51S have been, they have as yet done little more in public eyes than blaze a'trail. If all goes well, the Helicopter Division will receive a Bristol 173 during next year, and some experimental operations will follow. The difference will be marked, for a three-seat machine is only in the air-taxi class, whereas a 12-14 passenger twin-engined type is a commercial vehicle half-way towards the Beabus concept. It has been estimated that a helicopter to this specification, with perhaps 40 seats, may be ready for trial operation by i960. Between times the Bristol 173 will be the key aircraft—probably in expanded form from 1957 onwards. We have no doubt that in ten years' time hehcopter operations will be absorbing a great deal of B.E.A.'s energies and eventually to the passenger services there may be added Beatechnicons for internal and continental freighting. Silver City Airways already have ideas in this connection. Whether or not the Corporation will one day concern itself with air bus routes which are purely local remains to be seen, but traffic and housing difficulties already existing in Greater London surely foreshadow a need for South Coast to London Rotorbuses and even a Wimbledon Common—City—Hampstead Heath shuttle. Today's high prices and wages have made time expensive; perhaps, sooner than we think, the helicopter will be providing an answer to big-city commuting. Anti-Submarine Equipment W E have often stressed the need for new carrier-borne anti-submarine aircraft. It is obvious that the Fairey Gannet, the Navy's chosen instrument, is still far off: in the opinion of Aviation Week, this type—some aspects of which are discussed on page 44—is eighteen months away from production. There are, however, various mitigating circumstances, not least the fact that the Gannet is superior to any known prototype existing, or projected, abroad. Moreover, a useful A-S. conversion of the Firefly is in production, though the most ingenious adaptation could hardly be expected to carry the bulky weapons now found in the anti-submarine armoury. More amenable to the stowage of massive search and strike loads (though itself designed for attack on surface, rather than under-water, targets) is the Douglas Skyraider, now being acquired "in substantial numbers" for the Royal Navy. Skyraiders will fill an urgent need (as will the Lockheed Neptunes in the R.A.F.) and provide yet another instance of our indebtedness to America. But, as we have pointed out in the past, Anglo-American technical traffic is by no means one-way, and a Curtiss-Wright licence for the Armstrong Siddeley Double Mamba, round which the Gannet was literally designed, and from which many of its qualities stem, gives cause for satisfaction on both sides. The view that the Double Mamba has "a very bright future" in America has been expressed by Curtiss-Wright's president, Mr. Roy Hurley, and it will be interesting to see if one of its applications is a carrier-borne machine in the Gannet class.
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