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Aviation History
1953
1953 - 0620.PDF
614 FLIGHT, 15 May 1953 SPECIALISTS IN SPARES THERE are, of course, very many companies that supply aircraft spares, but there can be few, if any, who have brought such intensive specialization to this branch of the industry as have Aerocontacts, Ltd., of Gatwick Airport, Surrey. The firm is a comparatively young one. It was founded some five years ago by S/L. H. K. Hughes, D.F.C., who had served during the war with Nos. 79, 87 and 3 Squadrons and, apart from having shot down six enemy aircraft, had achieved something of a reputation as a "train-buster." But that is by the way; what is pertinent to the present story is that Hughes came out of the Service with an ambition to start and build up a business which, in particular, would be able to find and supply hard-to-get spares for pre-war aircraft still in, or resuming, civil use. This aim, successfully achieved, presently led naturally to the stocking and distribution of equipment and spares for current- production types. Today, Aerocontacts have a staff of over 70 engaged solely in meeting demands both at home and abroad; requests come not only from charter operators and airlines, but from aircraft constructors and from purchasing commissions. So great has this side of the business grown that within the past year the firm has formed a special division, under the name SCOBA ("Supplies Co-ordinating Organization for British Aviation") to deal with the work. "Co-ordinating" is the operative word, for the aim is to save manufacturers and operators the time and trouble of keeping track of sources of supply of the vast variety of equipment used in, or in connection with, all types and sizes of British aircraft. In connection with the scheme—which is under the manage ment of Mr. E. H. Newman—a records department has been built up in which thousands of items are listed and cross-referenced. Any one of them may be found and the source or sources of supply traced in a matter of minutes, irrespective of whether the enquiry gives the manufacturer's part number, the inter-service reference number, or the Air Ministry reference number. Should the demanded spare in fact be virtually non-existent, then Aerocontacts proceed to give effect to the second half of that well-known slogan "The difficult we do instantly; the impossible takes a little longer." In other words, the records department is able to turn up the names of firms which, co-operating in the SCOBA scheme, can manufacture the item required. Not long ago, Aerocontacts tell us, a well-known firm of aircraft construc tors needed a number of electrical adaptors of a type which became obsolete in 1941, and the original manufacturers of which had lost or destroyed the tools and drawings. SCOBA arranged to supply new drawings from which a member-firm could tool-up and make the components, and these were eventually supplied to the cus tomers within three weeks of their making the original enquiry. S/L H. K. Hughes, D.F.C., founder of the Aerocontacts business. In this wartime snap shot he is seen alongside a No. 3 Sqn. Tempest. As another example of the "impossible," a private owner wanted to rebuild a pre-war Aeronca in, of all places, the Fiji Islands. He lacked two trifling components, in the form of wings. Aerocontacts managed to find them and ship them out to him. The firm reports very willing co-operation from aircraft- component manufacturers, and in a number of cases plans are being made to market equipment under the SCOBA trade-mark as well as the manufacturer's own name. A market-research sys tem studies future trends, to the ultimate mutual benefit of cus tomer and supplier. Lest it be thought that any and every item is sent out for, it should be added that Aerocontacts also maintain considerable stocks of radio equipment, electrical components, instruments and general aircraft spares for immediate delivery. A separate section of the Aerocontacts organization is the air craft division, managed by Mr. M. J. Spence. Apart from sales of new and used aircraft, British Commonwealth agencies are held for the S.N.C.A.S.O. Bretagne, for the Piaggio P. 136 amphibian and P. 148 trainer and (from S.N.C.A.S.O.) for the Turbomeca Palas jet-boost unit. Recent aircraft sales have included Tiger Moths for the important New Zealand crop-dusting industry referred to in Flight of April 10th, and the company states that such machines, or engines or spares for them, have been sent on almost every ship sailing to New Zealand during the past two years. Aerocontacts have agents, representatives or correspondents in the Scandinavian countries, the Benelux countries, Spain and Portugal, Iraq, the Middle East, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Thailand and India. Canadian sales are direct. As regards aircraft servicing, arrangements have recently been made with the B.K.S. Engineering Co., Ltd., Southend Airport, whereby machines of up to 80,000 lb a.u.w. can receive anything from minor overhaul to major conversion. Certain airframe work, also, is done by Aerocontacts at Gatwick; here, too, the firm has a radio laboratory and electrical test-house equipped to undertake work to A.R.B. and A.I.D. requirements. Altogether, an enter prising concern that looks like going on to still bigger things. BIRMAL'S FIFTY YEARS SOME 250 friends of the Birmingham Aluminium Casting (1903) Co., Ltd.—a proportion of their customers and suppliers, with some members of Government departments—gathered in Bir mingham on May 5th at a dinner to celebrate the company's fiftieth anniversary. The concern actually had its origin in the latter years of the nineteenth century, when it began to use aluminium for certain bicycle parts. One of the founders of the business was Walter J. Maudslay—grandson of the great engineer Henry Maudslay, inventor of the screwcutting lathe—and he soon recognized the potentialities of this still comparatively "new" metal for the young motor industry; thus it was that his company began to specialize in aluminium castings and that in 1903 it was reconstituted under approximately its present title. Since those days the story of Birmal—to give the firm its familiar short title—has been one of continued progress and expansion, in which the formation of the Birmid Industries group, shortly after World War I, was one of the principal milestones. During World War II Birmal output was on a prodigious scale : aircraft castings alone were turned out at the rate of 1,000 tons a month, while a factory erected at Stourbridge produced a million magnesium incendiary bombs each month. It may be remembered that the late Mr. Percy Pritchard, the then joint managing director (who was asked to form the Castings Section of the Government's Light Alloy Control) introduced D.T.D. 424 (later known as L.M.4), thus making available, without royalty, one of the most versatile light alloys. Today's Birmal products will be well known to readers in the industry. The latest specifications include "Birmidal," a general- purpose alloy, and a range of castings in the new magnesium- zirconium alloys under licence from F. A. Hughes and Co., Ltd. Last week's jubilee celebration, under the chairmanship of Lord Burghley, K.C.M.G. (Birmal's chairman) was a most enjoy able function distinguished by some speeches of outstanding wit and polish : they were contributed by Mr. J. J. Grade (G.E.C.) A.Cdre. W. Helmore, O.B.E. (director-general of the Aluminium Development Association), Mr. E. Player and Mr. J. W. Berry (Birmal joint managing directors), Mr. S. F. Burman, M.B.E. (managing director, Burman and Sons, Ltd.) and Mr. W. C. Puckey (Deputy Controller of Supplies, Aircraft, M.o.S.). HIGH-PRESSURE HOSE 1/ NOWN for over 50 years as inventors and manufacturers of •**• control-wire systems, Bowden (Engineers) Ltd., of Willesden Junction, London, N.W.10, claim also to be Britain's largest manufacturers of high-pressure hose. That this circumstance is not equally well known is due to the fact that, hitherto, they have not sold such hose directly to the user. Now this side of their business is being separately developed, and coincident with the fact comes the introduction of an entirely new "Bowdenfiex" high-pressure, high-temperature hose with quickly detachable end-fittings. A data-list shows that the range approved for aircraft use—a polysar-lined hose with flame- resistant neoprene outer cover, and suitable for most fuels and oils—comprises nine sizes; working pressures run from 1,500 to 3,000 lb/sq in for single-wire-braid hoses and from 3,000 to 5,000 lb/sq in for two-wire types. The hose can be supplied either with or without end fittings. "Bowdenflex" hose is being employed on a number of well-known gas turbines.
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