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Aviation History
1953
1953 - 0724.PDF
718 FLIGHT, 5 June 1953 HERE AND THERE Flying Grandstand A SOLENT of Aquila Airways is to make one-hour, 150-mile, luxury tours of the Coronation Naval Review area, cruising at 1,000ft in a special zone permitted by the M.C.A. Fares will be £12 on June 15th and £10 on the 14th and 16th. Taking it Down SCHEDULED for the fastest commercial flight ever made between the United Kingdom and Australia, a Constellation of Qantos Empire Airways was due to leave London Airport at 9 p.m. on Coronation Day with films and photographs for delivery in Sydney 58 hours later. Mapping a City MORE information is now available about the large-scale air-survey of housing sites in Sheffield, recently referred to on this page. The work was undertaken by Meridian Air Maps, Ltd., of Shoreham Airport, who employ a Miles Aerovan flying at as low a ground speed as 50 m.p.h. in order to reduce image-movement. A six-inch camera lens allows a photographic scale of 1 : 1,200 to be obtained, from which plans on a scale of 1 : 500 are pre pared. Contours, it is stated, are accurate to half the vertical interval, i.e., to 6in, and horizontal detail is accurate to plus or minus 6in. Taking Shape HAVING completed the full-size plaster model of the Alcock and Brown Memorial, the sculptor, Mr. William McMillan, R.A., is now working on the actual memorial, which is to be in Portland stone. It will be erected at London Airport. Since a public appeal was made last September, a little over £3,500 has been subscribed towards ATLANTIC PIONEERS: The design for the Alcock and Brown Memorial (see "Taking Shape,") U.S.AfF. F-86 SABRES are likely to be regu lar visitors to air dis plays this summer. These eight appeared at Elmdon's Whit- Monday event, de scribed last week. "Flight" photograph ,^-:..„.\ the cost, which will be £5,000. Further subscriptions will therefore be welcomed; cheques should be made payable to the Royal Aero Club, and crossed "Alcock/ Brown Memorial." Jersey Display ON Thursday, July 9th, the Harbours and Airport Committee of the States of Jersey is to hold an air display at Jersey Airport, from 3.30 to 5.30 p.m. Australian Canberra's Flight ON May 28th, the first Australian-built Canberra made its initial flight, with com pletely satisfactory results, at the new Avalon Airfield near Geelong. Mr. Eric Harrison, Minister of Defence Production, said that several more of the 48 initially ordered for the R.A.A.F. were well advanced on the production line. He added that the first of the Australian-built Avon-Sabres would fly this year. Regal Reduxing THE wheels of the State coach—which was built in 1761—were shod with rubber tyres for the Coronation. After preliminary tests by the Dunlop Company, it was decided that the iron rims, which in places were more than iin out of true, would have to be rebuilt with Araldite synthetic resin and rubber strips bonded to them by the Redux process. By permission of the Crown Equerry and the coachbuilding firm of Hooper, the story of the rebuilding is told by Aero Research, Ltd., in the current issue of their Technical Notes. Rewarded THE "densified wood" material used for airscrew blades and other aeronautical pur poses has brought Dr. Bruno Jablonsky £15,000 under a decision of the Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors. Kurt Tank on the Mig-15 SPEAKING at Goertingen, Prof. Kurt Tankj former chief designer to Focke- Wulf and now head of the State Aero nautical Institute in Cordoba, Argentina, has expressed the view that the Mig-15 is based on the design of his own Ta 183. Prof. Tank, who was lecturing to the Society for Aeronautical Science in Goettingen, adds that he thinks it likely that his designs fell into the hands of the Russians when they occupied the German Aeronautical Research Institute at Berlin- Adlershof in 1945. Prof. Bock, who was in charge of the Institute at the time, was taken into Soviet custody and was later heard of from time to time from the U.S.S.R. Prof. Tank also spoke of Argentina's series of Pulqui jet fighters, a more powerful night and all-weather version of which is now under develop ment. - Prince Bernhard at Brough IN England to attend the Coronation, Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands last Sunday flew from Northolt to Brough, East Yorkshire, to inspect and fly the Blackburn Universal Freighter. During two of three flights over Lincolnshire with Blackburn's chief test pilot, Mr. Tim Woods, the Prince took over the controls. Offshore Radio Order THE Procurement Division of the U.S.A.F. in Europe has placed a $1,400,000 "off shore" order for ground-to-air V.H.F. radio transmitters, receivers and spares with a British firm, the General Electric Co., Ltd. The transmitters are of similar design to those now being manufactured by the company for the Ministry of Supply. Fly-Past D.F. USED during the Coronation fly-past, and also to be employed for the Royal Birthday fly-past by Bomber Command Canberras, a temporary V.H.F. /D.F. installation, utilizing the Standard Telephones P.V.i.B. automatic D.F. equipment, has been established in Regent's Park, London. The impossibility of securing "line-of-sight" transmission in such a situation—especially to aircraft flying at under 1,500ft—has been circumvented by a special aerial system giving bearing accuracy of better than 1 deg over a relatively narrow (40 deg) sector centred on the line of approach. Similar equipment will be used for the R.A.F. Review fly-past at Odiham. Export Record "AEROPLANES, airships and balloons and parts thereof (except magnetos, rubber tyres and tubes)"—to quote the official definition of Britain's aviation exports— valued at £4,899,490 were exported during April. This compares with £3,737,490 in 1952 and £3,736,533 in 1951 and brings the total for the first four months of 1953 to a record figure of nearly £i9m. Now being added to by exports of jet airliners and bombers, the total for the year is expected to reach £6om. Soaring Figures ONE significant aspect of the export pic ture is that the firms who have been able to export the greatest proportion of their products during recent years are Slingsby and Elliotts, the two manufacturers of gliders and sailplanes. Sometimes as much as 80 per cent of production capacity has been exported, and a considerable fillip was given to sales generally by last year's British victory in the International Gliding Championships. Both companies are developing new sailplanes, in spite of the high development cost, which may now be as much as £10,000.
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