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Aviation History
1953
1953 - 0125.PDF
FLIGHT, 23 January 1953 123 B.E.A.'s HELICOPTER UNIT A Brief History of its Development By Dr. G. S. HISLOP PRACTICALLY from the setting-up of the Corporation in 1946, B.E.A. has taken an active interest in the possible application of the helicopter to airline operations. With the full co-operation of M.C.A., the B.E.A. Helicopter Experimental Unit was set up in July 1947 for the purpose of actively exploring the operating problems likely to be encountered were this class of machine to be adopted for airline use. Three American Sikorsky S-51S and two Bell 47s were bought in America and the Unit took shape at Yeovil in Somerset under W/C. R. A. C. Brie, who is still ofncial-in-charge. Overall control of the Unit, technical policy, and general helicopter-project work and forward thinking were the responsibility of the Research and Special Development Depart ment of the Corporation, then under the direction of Mr. N. E. Rowe. Yeovil was chosen as the initial base because Wcstland Aircraft, Ltd., were the licensees for the aircraft in this country and we were thus close to the main source of spares and equipment—and advice. Early contact was made with the G.P.O., which expressed interest in the possible use of the helicopter for mail carriage, and they agreed to co-operate in a series of experiments to culminate eventually in the carriage of "live" mail. At the same time, however, it was made quite clear to us by the G.P.O. that in this country mail is moved by night. Thus we in our turn were early bt ought up against the vital necessity to equip the aircraft and the Unit so that night and blind flying operations could be conducted safely. At this time, no serious blind flying of helicopters had been done and we were, therefore, pioneering new ground. Considering the problems from the airline point of view, it was also clear that any possible transport helicopter would also have to be capable of night and blind operations. Here, then, was the main target for our experimental effort. It was approached by developing suitable blind-flying equipment for use in one of the S-51S, training the pilots, conducting trials, modifying the equipment and generally going through the mill of aeronautical development in a new field. Ground lighting, navigation and emergency- equipment aids all had to be developed at the same time. Whilst this work was proceeding on the one hand, we conducted a dummy-mail operation in Dorset for a period of seven weeks early in 1948, to accustom the Post Office and ourselves to the drills, techniques and limitations of this new vehicle. Day Mail.—Eventually we felt capable of tackling a daylight live-mail service and, as the area chosen by the Post Office was East Anglia, the base of the Unit was shifted to Peterborough in April 1948. Shortly afterwards the day-mail service, linking nine towns in East Anglia with Peterborough and hence with the main railway system, was begun. It was carried through successfully during the summer of 1948 for a period of four months, with a regularity of 98.4 per cent. Night Mail.—All this time we were pressing on with night and blind- flying experiments, and they culminated in the now historic night-mail operation to Peterborough and Norwich during the six winter months of 1949-50. It really was a night operation, as anyone who knows East Anglia will appreciate. There are precious few ground lights about in that area in the small hours of the morning—especially in winter. This, the first occasion in the world when a helicopter and its operating organi zation were approved for instrument flight, marked a real milestone in the development of the vehicle and was one in which B.E.A. can take real pride. To provide adequate safety when operating a single-engined aircraft of this type under blind conditions, required certain operating limits to be observed, and these Umitations had, naturally enough, an adverse effect on the regularity. Nevertheless, the regularity figure of 77.1 per cent was almost exacdy as predicted by our planning experts and, furthermore, enough data was gathered to let us estimate with reasonable accuracy what could be expected with further technical advances. Passenger Operations.—On the completion of the night-mail opera tion we turned to the carriage of passengers. There are a number of possible roles for a passenger transport helicopter, e.g., direct inter city service over country with poor surface-communications, feeder services into the major airports, taxi services, and so on. As an airline, B.E.A. is not interested in the last-named, hence experimental passenger operations would naturally be applied to one or other of the hrst two possibilities. For a number of reasons we made our first choice 01 passenger operation over the route between Liverpool and Cardiff, with a twice-daily return service, beginning in June 1950. This was another historic occasion, as it represented the first regular scheduled passenger- helicopter operation anywhere in the world. It ran with a high degree ot success and regularity in the summer, although m the winter months the regularity did suffer because of the necessary operating Umitations associated with a daylight contact-flying passenger-carrying, operation. Nevertheless, by the time the experiment finished at the end ot Marcn 1951, a great deal of vital information had been accumulated. Milestone : B.EA. inaugurated their first "live-mail" helicopter service at Peterborough on June 1st, 1948. Sikorsky S-51s were employed. THE author of this article, Dr. G. S. Hislop, Ph.D., B.Sc, A.R.T.C., M.I.Mech.E., A.F.R.Ae.S., is in charge of B.E.A.'s helicopter research and development. He has had a distinguished technical career in aviation, at Farnborough and elsewhere. Our next experimental object was to assess the problems associated with the other major field for transport helicopters, viz., operating a feeder service from one city to the major airports of another city. In this instance the choice fell on Birmingham as the centre from which the feeder service should originate, the destinations being Northolt and London Airport. The service began from a specially designed and built rotorstation on the edge of the heavily built-up area of Birmingham, situated about half way between the city centre and Elmdon airport. This service ran from June 1951, first of all on a three-time-daily return service, then (in winter) coming down to one return service per day. Once again it was driven home that operating single-engined equip ment under contact conditions imposed quite severe handicaps, especially in winter. It did show, however, that the problem of at least small-scale helicopter operations into the Metropolitan Control Zone, with its high fixed-wing-aircraft movement-rates was not difficult, and the best approach procedures were readily evolved. The other lesson which emerged emphasized our experience on the Cardiff-Liverpool run the previous year. Over the Birmingham-London route one might have imagined that the competition of a very good train service would have been very severe and that lower load-factors than those experienced on the Cardiff service might have been realized. In fact, however, the traffic was better and this showed, initially at least, that passenger services should be operated between cities or urban areas where fairly heavy traffic already exists. With this proviso one will be reasonably sure of securing enough of the first-class traffic to provide reasonable load-factors on the aircraft, whilst the route system is being built up and pending the development of a thoroughly economic aircraft. Move to Gatwick.—By the time the Birmingham passenger service had run through the winter, we felt that enough had been learned from S-51S to discontinue the passenger services with this type Passenger services run in conjunction with an experimental programme, as we were endeavouring to do, over a route not passing through the main base, are very expensive in manpower and equipment—so much so that our experimental work was severely restricted. Our plans for the following year (1952-3) were therefore based on the intention to shut down Peter borough, transfer our operating base to an airfield close to London, yet outside the Control Zone, and operate a minimum scheduled service in order to retain the core of operating experience essential for this class of work. The Unit accordingly moved to Gatwick in the spring of 1952, and the present freight service with Sikorsky S-51S, originating from Gatwick (via the London airports) to Birmingham, began at the same time. We have certainly found that this regrouping of our resources has been of very great benefit, as has been shown by the experimental work now proceeding on the use of the Decca Navigator and Flight Log, blind flying and night lighting. Over this last year or so we have been flying, under test, a Bristol 171 on free loan from the Ministry of Supply and have been able to get pre liminary assessment of the type under civil conditions. Naturally, the experience has been very helpful and we are impressed by the general behaviour of the machine whilst it has been in our hands. The experi mental work now in progress with our fleet covers a fairly wide field, although naturally we are concentrating on these important operating problems which at the same time may take quite a while to solve.
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