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Aviation History
1953
1953 - 0053.PDF
9 January 1953 51 subsequent work. During the building the simpler jobs would be taught to the uninitiated, while the experts tackled the more technical side, all members contributing 4s a week for materials. Assuming that the reconstruction took six months, the sum available for materials, engineer's fees, insurance, etc., would amount to £96, which should prove adequate. The syndicate will have been cunning enough to enrol an ex-R.A.F. instructor who longs to get back into the air to escape the frustration of his post-war office job, and is willing to give dual just for the pleasure of flying for nothing. Now let's see how much it will cost to run. Say £5 per month hangarage, £1 per monthly portion of third party insurance, £1 per month routine maintainence, and £5 per month towards next year's C. of A. Then come the variable operating costs, assuming a power unit similar to the average Gipsy engine. Petrol, seven gallons an hour at 4s 8d; oil, one quart an hour at 3s; that makes 35s 8d. But now comes the rub ! Approved flying clubs were granted petrol-tax rebate by the Minister of Civil Aviation so that flying tuition might be offered at an acceptable cost, and a large reserve of pilots trained at no expense to the Government. How much more worthy is the cause of the syndicate, a non-profit-making group of enthusiasts, devoting their time, energies and limited resources in order to fit out their own craft and struggle into the air? Providing the group had a goodly number of non-flying members out of which to make pilots, who could doubt the sincerity and value of such a syndicate? The petrol tax rebate for such a power unit as I have in mind amounts to 14s 4d per flying hour. This knocks our costs to 21s 4d. Add 6s per hour to cover fixed overheads, and two hours flying per month by each member would balance the books. Surely, nowadays, most young men can afford 13s 8d a week to learn to fly? These figures have not been worked out by an armchair enthusiast, for several such schemes are in operation now. All that is needed is unshakable keenness, and a certain amount of ingenuity. Enough of this moaning about the difficulties and expense of private flying ! Let's get down to it next season and show that flying people, at any rate, have not sunk into the doldrums of apathy. CF-100 THROUGH THE BARRIER CONGRATULATIONS are due to Avro Canada and Jan Zurakowski, their chief test pilot, on the attainment of super sonic speed by a CF-100 Mk 4 all-weather fighter. A sonic bang announced the event to the residents of Malton, Ontario, where the company's two big plants are situated. The dive which set off the bang (at a height of 30,000ft) is described by Mario Pesando, Avro Canada's chief flight test engineer, as part of a planned and vitally necessary development programme further to improve the performance of the CF-100. It appears that "Zura" made about 15 dives at transonic speeds, gradually getting closer to Mach I, before he exceeded the magic figure at 9.52 a.m. on December 18th. The purpose of the dives was threefold : (1) to establish that the CF-100 was completely controllable at transonic and sonic speeds; (2) to remove present speed restrictions and eventually to qualify for a "no-limitation rating" on speed at high altitudes; and (3) to show R.C.A.F. pilots that, if they had to dive to attack or escape, the aircraft would be sufficiently powerful, and structurally sound enough, to penetrate the sonic zone. The CF-100 Mk 4 is claimed to be superior in power, speed, armament, manoeuvrability and general handling to the Mk 3, now in production for the R.C.A.F. It is scheduled to succeed the Mk 3 when the present run of that model ends—probably about June this year. BRISTOL DIRECTORS APPOINTED AT a meeting of the Board of the Bristol Aeroplane Co., Ltd., t on December 31st, Mr. William Masterton, C.A., and Dr. Stanley G. Hooker, O.B.E., A.R.C.Sc, D.I.C., B.Sc, D.Phil., F.R.Ae.S., were appointed directors. Mr. W. Masterton, who has been with the company for 13 years, has been secretary since January 1st, 1947. Before that he held, Mr. W. Masterton. Dr. S. G. Hooker. successively, the offices of assistant secretary and of treasurer. He is a director of two of the associated companies—British Messier, Ltd., and Societe d'Exploitation et de Constructions Aero- nautiques. Mr. J. F. Harper, C.A., chief accountant, succeeds Mr. Masterton as secretary. •._*.*. Dr. Hooker, who has been chief engineer (and a member of the divisional board) of the company's engine division since August, 1951, is 45 years of age, and has been associated since 1940 witn the design and development of aircraft gas turbines. He was educated at Borden School, Kent, at Imperial College, London (where he was awarded first the Busk Studentship and later the Armourers and Braziers Research Fellowship in Aeronautics), and at Brasenose College, Oxford, where he was elected a Senior 1851 Exhibitioner. For eighteen months after leaving Oxford, Dr. Hooker worked on the development of torpedoes and anti-aircraft rockets at the Admiralty Scientific Research and F.xperimental Establishment, and at Woolwich Arsenal. From 1938 to the end of 1948, he was engaged on engine design at the Barnsoldwick works of Rolls-Royce, Ltd., where he was chief engineer. He joined the Bristol Aeroplane Co. in January, 1949, as deputy chief engineer of the engine division. In 1946, Dr. Hooker gave the complete series of three Cantor Lectures to the Royal Society of Arts, taking as his subject High-speed Flight. He was made an O.B.E. in 1947 for his work on the power unit for the Gloster Meteor 4 which had, in 1945 and 1946, set up new world's speed records. ASLIB GROUP CONFERENCE IT is announced that the ASLIB Aeronautical Group of technical libraries and information officers serving the aircraft industry will hold its second annual conference at the College of Aero nautics, Cranfield, from Friday, March 27th to Monday, March 30th. The first conference, held last April, was highly successful, and the next—which is to have an international flavour—promises to be even more so. Technicians and libraries from Europe, America and the Dominions are to contribute papers, and social events will be arranged. All who are interested in the work of ASLIB will be welcome at the conference, whether members or not. Further particulars are to be announced shordy by the group secretary, Mr. C. W. Cleverdon, College of Aeronautics, Cranfield, Bletchley, Buck inghamshire. I.Ae.S. OFFICERS FOR 1953 TT is announced that Mr. Charles J. McCarthy, a vice-president of United Aircraft Corporation, has been elected president of the Institute of the Aeronautical Sciences for 1953. He is a Fellow and founder-member of the Institute. Four other Fellows of the Institute have been elected to serve for the coming year as vice-presidents; they are Messrs. George W. Brady, director of engineering, propeller division, Curtiss- Wright; Clarence L. ("Kelly") Johnson, chief engineer, Lockheed Aircraft; James S. McDonnell, Jr., president, McDonnell Air craft; and Ernest G. Stout, staff engineer, Consolidated Vultee. Treasurer for 1953 is to be Mr. Preston R. Bassett, president of the Sperry Gyroscope Company. Re-elections include those of Mr. S. Paul Johnston as director of tfle Institute; Mr. Robert R. Dexter as secretary and Mr. Joseph J. Maitan as controller. These officials will assume their duties at the twenty-first annual meeting of the I.Ae.S., to be held from January 26th to 29th, in New York. The new president has been associated with aviation for over 35 years; after starting in civil engineering he entered government service as an aeronautical draughtsman, and towards the end of World War I he was associated with the design of the Curtiss NC-i flying-boats. He continued with marine-aircraft work in various government establishments during the nineteen-twenties, and eventually went to Chance-Vought, where he received steady promotion through a number of executive posts. In 1943 he was elected to his present position as vice-president of United Air craft, the parent company.
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