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Aviation History
1952
1952 - 0466.PDF
208 FLIGHT PASSENGER round the WORLD . . . over the North Atlantic. The joint announcement by the n companies who will operate the tourist fares had appeared a few days previously in the U.S. and Canadian press. Mr. G. McDougall, B.O.A.C.'s Montreal manager, said that his office alone had booked more than 600 "tourists" within the first seven days after the announcement. "And not one of the passengers has travelled by air before to the U.K.," he added. It seems that operators' forecasts that tourist fares will open up a new transatlantic market is likely to be realized. The number of travellers from this side who will be able to take advantage of the bargain rates is, of course, still limited by dollar restrictions; but at least we can look forward to an increase in dollar-spending visitors. Promptly at take-off time, the B.O.A.C. Stratocruiser in which I was to fly to England left Dorval Airport, Montreal, and headed over the dark Atlantic. Roger, a 12-year-old travelling alone in the seat behind me, was crying softly to himself. A sympathetic hostess chaffed him out of it. "He doesn't want to go back to school," she whispered to me. "I felt like that about a two-mile journey to lessons when I was his age," I said. Roger travels between Canada and his London school every holiday period, in order to spend his vacations with his father. B.O.A.C. serve carefully thought-out, adequate meals during the flight. Passengers' digestions, especially when they are English, and are therefore associated with austerity-shrivelled stomachs, should always be protected against their owners in this way. Our flight-plan called for a Q|-hour direct flight to Prestwick. There was slight turbulence as we went out over St. John's. About dawn the B.O.A.C. skipper, Capt. Woodman, invited me on to the flight deck. From the height at which we were flying, the horizon fell away at the sides in a gentle parabola which the rising sun tinted to a rosy pink. We were running about 45 minutes behind schedule because of a temporary 130-m.p.h. head-wind which had no right to be there. Then down through swirling cloud until we came out over the Scottish coast and to a soft landing at Prestwick. After refuelling passengers and aircraft, the flight over the uniformly neat English countryside to London was only a short hop. Grey mist was closing in on Heathrow when we landed. Half an hour later, the weather was "clampers ". I said to Roger as we went through the terminal building, "I suppose you'll have an interesting story to tell your schoolmates about the flight." TECHNICAL TELEVISION WHEREAS to most people the term TV suggests fireside entertainment, a recent paper read before the Royal Society of Arts demonstrated the immense value of television techniques in a number of more serious fields. The author, Mr. J. D. McGee, M.Sc, Ph.D., A.M.I.E.E., of E.M.I. Research Laboratories Ltd., divided his paper into three main sections: the extension of human vision made possible by TV, the increased range of light wavelengths which could be "seen", and the capacity for visual memory. He expressed surprise at the past lack of exploitation of such fields, but said that this phase appeared to have ended—the future would probably see a much more widespread use of television in a number of applications. Under the "extension of vision" heading, Mr. McGee spoke of colour TV of surgical operations, submarine television—the first application of such a camera as a substitute for a human observer in difficult or dangerous situations—and the use of TV in connection with dangerous processes and guided weapons. The two last headings were combined in a discussion of atomic- weapon research, whilst the paper also dealt with the simplicity of televising structural failures in radio-controlled aircraft—in which connection, what mipht be termed "chairborne test-pilots" were mentioned. The subject of guided weapons was naturally restricted by security, but Mr. McGee's paper recorded an interesting series of experiments which took place in 1938-9, in which transmission from an airborne TV camera was studied in the E.M.I, laboratory at Hayes; ground targets were easily identifiable up to ranges of over 50 miles. This had led to discussion upon the use of tele vision as an accurate guide to the flight of, for example, a guided missile for use against small targets. Under the heading of "increased range of wavelength," the paper discussed the use of television with infra-red and ultra violet radiation. The sub-headings of the "television memory" section were "radar display"; "transmitting pictures over a narrow frequency- band circuit" (for still, or slowly varying, picture transmission); "stroboscopic television;" and "television in astronomy.". Snowmen: B.O.A.C. engineers prepared for the worst at Dorval. He looked at me scornfully. "All we did was take off, and fly, and then land again," he said. Time was when a journalist could thrill his readers with wonder as he tapped out a story of how he dined in Canada and breakfasted in England. Now, as Roger said, all you do is take off, and fly and then land again. It's as simple as that. Which is as high a compliment on the reliability of 1952 air travel as you could wish to have. On the 15,223-mile flight eastwards across the world, I had been held up, in all, for 3 hours 10 minutes. The next stage, via B.O.A.C. and Qantas, is through the Middle East, homeward, to "down under". SPECIAL GAS-TURBINE COURSES THE School of Gas Turbine Technology, Farnborough, is to hold three detailed and highly specialized courses this summer. Normally, the school's courses cover the overall picture of gas- turbine design as comprehensively as possible in the space of three weeks. Three special courses, however, have been arranged, each of which will take one component and devote a whole week to dealing with it in detail. This instruction is primarily intended for those already engaged in design-work. The first course, from June 30th to July 4th, will deal with the theory and design of compressors; the second (July 7th to nth) with combustion and the design of heat-exchangers; and the third (from July 14th to 18th) with the theory and design of turbines. Other S.G.T.T. courses arranged for this year are as follow: practical aircraft-engine courses, February 25th-March 7th, June 9th-20th and October 6th-17th; aircraft-engine design, May I2th-30th, August uth-29th and November 24th-December 12th; international courses on aircraft and industrial gas-turbines, March 17th-April 4th and September 8th-26th; design and applica tions of industrial gas turbines, April I5th-May 2nd and October 27th-November 14th. The design courses are of approximately post-graduate standard and are open to students of British or Commonwealth nationality. They include the running and testing of gas-turbine power units, together with performance calculations. The industrial design courses also include specialist lectures on economics and on the use of gas turbines for power generation, ship propulsion, land traction and process-plant installations. The international courses are for foreign students only, and are a combination of the aircraft and industrial design-courses, thus covering all applications of the gas turbine. The practical aircraft-gas-turbine courses are open to students of any nationality. These courses are concerned principally with stripping, assembly and installation work, and do not require a high standard of academic knowledge. All courses start at 9 a.m. on Mondays and finish on Friday afternoons. »
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