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Aviation History
1953
1953 - 1424.PDF
578 FLIGHT FROM ALL QUARTERS Crew for Royal Stratocruiser A B.O.A.C. Stratocruiser will carry H.M. the Queen and H.R.H. **• the Duke of Edinburgh on the first stage of their Common wealth tour—from London to Bermuda and Jamaica. The aircraft will leave London Airport at 8.45 p.m. on November 23rd for Bermuda, where a night stop will be made, having refuelled en route at Gander. It is due to arrive at Montego Bay, Jamaica, at 3 p.m. on November 25th. The captain will be the flight superin tendent of the Stratocruiser and Constellation fleet, Capt. A. C. Loraine, who has flown 14,300 hr and has made 164 Atlantic crossings. Capt. Loraine, who joined Imperial Airways in 1932 as a first officer, was three times co-pilot of the flying-boats in which Sir Winston Churchill made war-time visits to America. Capt. R. A. Callander. Capt. A. C. Loraine. Other members of the crew will be Capt. R. A. Callander, D.S.O., D.F.C., lst/Off. J. E. Willett, Nav/Off. J. D. Elliott, Rad/Off. C. H. P. Phillips, Eng/Offs. E. O. Draper and R. Skepelhorn, Stewards R. L. Dunkley, J. Jarvis and M. J. Heath, and Stewardess J. A. Rolandi. Hawker Siddeley Homecoming LAST Tuesday, after being delayed, the Queen Mary docked at Southampton; on board were the leaders of the Hawker Siddeley design council on their return from their visit to the United States and Canada. This visit to the New World by two top men of the British aviation industry and of their senior design executives was probably unique, and it is certain to have far-reaching effects. The party left England by sea on September 30th, held high-level discussions in Washington—during the course of which Sir Frank Spriggs and Sir Roy Dobson were received by President Eisenhower—and then flew into Canada for further official talks there, and for personal liaison with the Hawker Siddeley Group's interests in the Dominion. U.S. Weather Ships to be Withdrawn THE network of North Adantic Weather Stations under the administration of I.C.A.O. will be severely affected next June by the decision of the U.S.A. to withdraw its weather ships at the end of the present term of agreement. Fourteen American vessels are involved, together maintaining four stations completely, and helping to maintain two others. Thus the activities of six out of the total number of ten stations will be curtailed when the decision takes effect. In a message received at I.C.A.O. headquarters in Montreal on October 22nd, the U.S. representative to the organization, Mr. Harold A. Jones, said: "The Government of the United States, as a result of a study just concluded, has determined that the services provided by the ocean stations in the North Adantic are no longer required by the United States and that the benefits derived by the United States are no longer commensurate with the cost." Consequendy, the message continued, the Government had decided not to take part in the programme after the expiration of the present agreement next June. To study the situation, an emergency session of the I.C.A.O. Council was convened for Tuesday last, October 27th, but the results are not known at the time of going to press. For some time past, the extent of, and financial responsibilities for, the ocean weather-station programme have been discussed at I.C.A.O. meet ings (the last such meeting was the third conference on North Atlantic weatiier stations at Brighton in July of this year). This pro gramme undoubtedly forms the largest 'tern of the organization's expenditure, amounting to considerably more than the cost of all its other activities. The main purpose of the I.C.A.O. ocean-station programme is to fill the gap in the weather reporting networks in Europe and North America. The ten floating stations take surface and upper- air weather observations at intervals, and report these back to their bases. The stations provide meteorological and navigational aids to aircraft, and serve as floating search and rescue bases. To operate these ten stations, a total of 25 ships is needed: depending on the station's distance from the shore base, two or three ships are required for each station. Although weather report ing is their main work, the ships have a good record for search and rescue duties, several hundred people (including the crews of four aircraft) having been rescued during the past few years. Allocation of cost and ship maintenance in the programme is based upon the number of North Atlantic crossings made by the aircraft of each participating nation. The present agreement pro vides that the United States maintain 14 of the 25 ships; five other nations maintain ships, and the remaining participating states make cash contributions. The original agreement to provide the network was signed in 1946 and revised in 1949. The 1949 agreement was due to expire on July 1st, 1953, but in the summer of 1952 was extended for another year. In any discussion of the value of the ocean stations network, there are a number of "non-aeronautical benefits" which need to be taken into account. These include those provided for maritime interests, such as the sighting of icefloes and icebergs, die making of oceanographic observations, and die guarding of distress frequencies to provide search and rescue for surface shipping. In addition, the meteorological observations serve to provide better weather forecasts for non-aeronautical interests, which include merchant shipping and deep-sea fishing, coastal shipping and coastal fishing, agriculture, and the general public of the countries bordering the North Atlantic. (It has been noted in connection with the U.S. decision that many of these benefits, e.g., to agriculture, do not extend to the U.S.A. or to any country on the western side of the Atlantic, since the weather moves in general from west to east.) From the purely short-term aeronautical view there would seem to be some substance in the American opinion that long-range radio and other navigational aids have made the weather-ship service an anachronism; but die value of the upper air observa tions obtained by the ships is great, and it is probably in the reports of these observations that the network's main value to aviation lies. Auster Twin Designs VISITORS to Auster's airfield at Rearsby have often wondered if and when the company would announce a twin-engined aircraft, for it was not difficult to catch a glimpse of an interesting- looking mock-up tucked away in the hangar. In fact, this project, a small pusher twin known as the A.7, was abandoned some time ago, but more recently the company have been considering another light twin design, known as the B.7. It would be a very conventional high-wing machine with single fin and rudder, retractable undercarriage, and powered by two Cirrus Bombardiers. Simplicity and economy characterize the design, as they do other Auster products. There has been no official announcement of this machine because the company are far from decided about proceeding with it; but so far as we know Austers have consistently indicated their interest in a light twin design and have been making a study of the sales prospects. To build and develop a prototype would be a very cosdy undertaking, and until a market survey indicates the probability of a sizable demand, construction of the prototype is not likely to begin. Convair F-102 Flies LAST Sunday, October 25th, the U.S.A.F. announced that the prototype Convair F-102 had completed its initial test flight. The company's chief test pilot, Dick Johnson, had been waiting since October 19th, but a number of last-minute troubles had caused postponements. The F-102 is scheduled for large-scale production as a standard Air Force intercepter. A delta, bearing a resemblance to the F2Y Sea Dart, it is powered by a J57 turbojet with afterburner, giving some 15,000-lb thrust. When a bigger engine becomes available it will be standardized—as in the case of the F-100, although the
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