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Aviation History
1953
1953 - 0998.PDF
152 CIVIL AVIATION . FLIGHT, 31 July 1953 Navy, the Red Cross, the police, and a number of farmers are actively interested in the use of the helicopter for various purposes. The Navy, in particular, is replacing its Sea Otters, previously used on air/sea rescue duties, by four S-55 machines during thil summer. During the NATO air show on July 18th, a helicopter was assigned to traffic control duties at Soesterberg airport. HELICOPTERS ON T.V. THE B.B.C. Television Service went to the Bristol Aeroplane Company again last Friday, July 24th, for a 30-minute pro gramme entitled Travel by Rotor Coach. The background to the company's helicopter work was provided by Capt. Cyril Uwins, and Raoul Hafner, chief helicopter designer, then explained some of his designs' features. With the aid of diagrams, he outlined the power-transmission system of the Bristol 173 which, with two Alvis Leonides driving two interconnected rotors via freewheels, provides the twin- engined safety essential to operation over built-up areas. Mr. Peter Masefield, chief executive of British European Airways, then took up the story. He began by discussing the type of operations for which rotary-wing aircraft are suited; at present, he said, B.E.A. were obtaining operational experience—with Bristol 171 Mk 3AS, although the Corporation also owns S-51S and Bell 47s— which would place them in a strong position when economical helicopters were available. These new Beabuses, into the design of which B.E.A. were putting the fruits of their extensive research, would be capable of seating over 40 passengers and, up to stage-lengths of about 300 miles, should prove very much cheaper per seat-mile than any fixed-wing machine of similar capacity. Additionally, the city-centre to city-centre time would be reduced to a value which, allowing for surface transport time, could only be matched by a fixed-wing airliner able to cruise at some 4,000 miles per hour on a London-Paris schedule. (Mr. Masefield's lecture on com mercial helicopter operation was summarized in our issue of November 14th, 1952.) The most advanced helicopter at present in this country, the Bristol 173, was shown in a film sequence taken some few days before the broadcast. By last Friday the aircraft—the first proto type—had been returned to the shops for a modification to extend its range of control. When this new control system has been proved it will be incorporated on the second prototype, now nearly complete, and this second machine will also be fitted with a s?t of stub wings. In this condition it is reasonable to assume that it will appear at the forthcoming S.B.A.C. show, when it will provide a foretaste of the 173 Mk 3 transport, a three- view drawing of which was published in our issue of July 10th last. But even the 173 Mk 3 is only a stepping-stone to the Bristol 181, of which Mr. Hafner first spoke last year. During last Friday's programme, Mr. Masefield showed an artist's impression of this design, and it was seen to bear a strong resemblance to a concep tion of our own published in our March 6th issue. Powered by two Proteus gas turbines, the 181 has a layout similar to that of the winged 173, but is clearly very much bigger. Oddly enough, the drawing showed rotors with four blades (rear) and five blades (front). No information was given regarding the progress of this impressive design, but Mr. Masefield also showed the Fairey Rotodyne picture published on p. 131 of this issue, and welcomed the award of a M.o.S. contract for a prototype. The Fairey layout, with two Eland turbines, was promising, he said, and should result in a high cruising speed. The Rotodyne should also be capable of fairly conventional "fixed-wing" approaches, were complete power failure to be suffered. When Capt. Cameron flew Mr. Masefield back to Northolt, viewers saw a B.E.A. Bristol 171 demonstrate the backwards- take-off procedure. Shortly before the programme began, incidentally, one of the three television cameras was found to be faulty, and the 171 was called upon to collect a replacement from the Whitchurch T.V. base nine miles away. The round trip was completed in 17 minutes. PAN AIR PLANNERS: Pictured at London Airport are the president of Panair do Brazil, Dr. Paulo Sampaio (right), and Capt. Paul Lefevre, chief pilot of the airline's recently formed Comet group. Panair have ordered four Comet 2s, the first of which will be delivered in Septem- bsr 1954, and are negotiating an option on a number of Comet 3s. THE DC-3 REPRIEVED SENTENCE of withdrawal of the Douglas DC-3 from sched uled passenger service, which was originally pronounced by the Civil Aeronautics Board in 1942, has now been suspended indefinitely. Applying only to American-registered DC-3S and converted C-47S, the original C.A.B. regulation was to have taken effect in 1947. The order for withdrawal was repeatedly postponed, the latest deadline being December 31st, 1953. A recent C.A.B. statement, however, says that the safety record of the DC-3 "indicates that these aircraft may be continued in scheduled passenger service without detrimental effect on safety in air transportation." Most other countries had already decided (out of sheer neces sity) that these invaluable aircraft could continue in service as long as they could be kept in safe flying condition, so that in allowing the DC-3 an indefinite life, the C.A.B. has merely fallen into step. Although over 10,000 DC-3S and C-47S were built, their manufacturers' belief that some 4,000 are still in com mercial service is believed to be optimistic; recent estimates have put the number in regular airline service as nearer to 1,000. U.S. RAIL-AIR REVENUES COMPARED THE extent to which America's leading domestic airlines have captured traffic from railways — or, in some cases, increased their own revenues without tapping those of their surface competitors—is graphically shown in the July 20 issue of Aviation Week. Our contemporary compares the passenger revenues of the ten leading railroads and airlines over a five-year period. In 1948 the ten wealthiest companies (of which four were airlines, occupying third, fourth, fifth and eighth places) earned $745m; the four airlines' share of this total was $250m. Figures for 1952 show airlines occupying first, third, fifth and sixth places, earning $489m out of the $969m total passenger revenue of the ten leading airlines and railways. First place was occupied by American Airlines ($158m in 1952, compared with $76m in 1948). The Pennsylvania Railroad, top earner in 1948, when its passenger revenue was $160m, took second place last year, with $156m. United Air Lines earned $126m in 1952, $2m more than the New York Central Railroad; Eastern Air Lines ($105m) and Trans World Airlines ($100m) occupied fifth and sixth places in the list. Recent passenger-revenue figures for British Railways, London Transport and British European Airways provide an interesting comparison, underlining the difficulty of building up airline services in a small, densely-populated country. In the calendar year 1952, British Railways' passenger revenue was almost £112m; London Transport's trains, buses and coaches earned £67m; and the B.E.A. revenue from domestic passenger services was approximately £2.3m—less than a fifth of the Corporation's total revenue for the year. BREVITIES T HE B.O.A.C. Comet which landed at Juhu, Bombay, on July 16th instead of at the main terminal of Santa Cruz, was flown out "light" on July 24th by Capt. J. B. Linton. * * * To cope with extra holiday traffic, Swissair flew fourteen instead of the normal eight services from Britain to Switzerland on July 25th. The total number of passengers carried was about 500. * * * A Bristol Freighter of Aer Lingus was used as a furniture van on July 20th when an entire Irish household was flown from Dublin to London. The charge for moving four tons of furniture and a family of five was reported to be £100. The government-owned Indonesian Aviation College, at present operating Chipmunks and Aiglets, is reported to have placed an order for a number of Saab Safir trainers from the Dutch de Schelde concern, which is manufacturing these aircraft under licence from the Swedish company. * * * Before sanctioning the export of a helicopter to Ceylon, the United States recently demanded an assurance that the aircraft would not be used for spraying rubber plantations. A similar ban on the export of sulphur, used to kill pests on rubber planta tions, was made almost two years ago, on the grounds that Ceylon was supplying rubber to Communist China.
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