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Aviation History
1953
1953 - 1473.PDF
FLIGHT, 6 November 1953 627 G-AKCH CIVIL AVIATION HUNTING'S NEW TROOP CONTRACT A VALUABLE new Air Ministry trooping contract, running **• for two years, is announced by Hunting Air Transport, Ltd. The contract is in fact the extension of one awarded in August 1951 for carrying Service personnel and their families between the United Kingdom and Malta and Gibraltar; this expired on September 15th, 1953, and was extended for a few weeks pending examination of tenders for the new contract, which Hunting succeeded in retaining. In the next two years Hunting's 31/34- seat Vikings will make over 500 flights a year on these routes, carrying a minimum of 30,000 passengers annually. Over the past two years they have made 1,016 trooping flights to Malta and 232 to Gibraltar, carrying 75,333 passengers. RINGWAY-IDLEWILD IN 12 HR STRONG head-winds were encountered by the DC-6B of Sabena which, on October 29th-30th, inaugurated the first air service between Ringway, Manchester, and Idlewild, New York. It took off at 10.30 p.m. on October 29th and arrived at Idlewild just over 12 hr later, having maintained an average speed of some 270 m.p.h. Passengers included the Lord Mayor of Manchester, Alderman A. Moss, and other civic representa tives, who were greeted on arrival at Idlewild by Mayor Impelle- teri of New York. The aircraft was commanded by Capt. G. Jaspis, D.F.C., Sabena's senior North Atlantic pilot, who served during the war with No. 609 (West Riding) Squadron. Although on this occasion the journey was flown non-stop, the aircraft carried a reduced payload, and future services will make a refuelling stop en route to New York. B.C.P.A. ACCIDENT AFTER more than five years of trouble-free operation on the -^trans-Pacific route between Sydney and Vancouver, British Commonwealth Pacific Airlines suffered their first fatal accident on October 29th, when DC-6 VH-BPE struck a hill while making an instrument approach to San Francisco Airport. There were no survivors among the 11 passengers and crew of eight. The aircraft, commanded by Capt. B. Dixon, an Australian, was one of four DC-6s owned by B.C.P.A.; they were introduced in April 1948, and during their first five years of operation flew nearly 260m passenger-miles without accident. APPLICATIONS APPROVED AN internal service between Northolt and Lands End via Cardiff and/ or Bristol, to be operated by Cambrian Air Services, is among the new routes approved by the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation. Subject to the usual conditions, the company has been approved to operate the service until April 1964. East Anglian Flying Services' application for a service between Ipswich and Calais via Southend has been approved up to March 1961; and a Southend-Antwerp service with optional stops at Ipswich and Ypenburg, by East Anglian Flying Services, has been approved for the same period. Certain modifications are also announced to the routes reserved to the Corporations. B.O.A.C. may include Mafraq or Amman and/or Baghdad as traffic stops to Beirut and Damascus on their normal service to Bahrain, and such services may be ter minated at either Kuwait or Bahrain; the period of approval is seven years. Until March 1961, the Corporation can also include Baghdad and/or Bahrain as alternatives to Basra or Bahrain and may include Dacca as well as Calcutta as traffic stops on the Tokyo route. B.E.A. may include a traffic stop at Birmingham on certain London-Edinburgh services until April 1960. K.L.M. LIFTMASTER TOUR THE DC-6A Liftmaster of K.L.M. which won the transport handicap section of the New Zealand Race returned to Schiphol on October 21st and was back at work within four days—making a transatlantic flight with seven horses aboard. Yesterday, November 5th, it was due to begin a demonstration tour of the United States. When the aircraft returned to Schiphol it was announced that Queen Juliana had presented knighthoods in the Order of Orange Nassau to Capt. Kooper, lst/Off. Griffiths, R/Off. Kiepe and BIGGER BEAVER: The D.H.C-3 Otter, developed from the very successful Beaver and originally known as King Beaver, is powered by a 600 h.p. P. and W. Wasp and can carry up to 14 passengers. This example, now based at Hatfield and bearing a British registration, is soon to make a Scandinavian tour. Production in this country is not anticipated. Eng/Off. Van der Ham. In addition, each member of the crew received a Royal Aero Club medal. Distribution of the £10,000 presented to K.L.M. for winning the transport section was as follows: £1,000 to a New Zealand charity; £1,500 for members of the crew; £10 for each of the 54 emigrants aboard; the remainder was paid into a staff fund set up in 1934 with the prize money won by K.L.M. in the London-Melbourne Race. TRIBUTE TO A PIONEER Y^E learn that the operations manager of Air France, Cmdt. " Emile Bouderie, a former French military pilot who came to this country soon after the First World War and has remained ever since, is to retire at the end of the year. Two well- known figures in British aviation, Capt. A. G. Lamplugh and Mr. "Jimmie" Jeffs, write that "To those of us who have known Emile Bouderie from the early days of civil aviation, both in peace and war, it is going to mean a real loss. His cheery face, unquenchable humour and patriotism have set a standard which many successors will find hard to follow. We feel we should like to mark the occasion of his departure by some small presentation to a man who, on foreign soil, has been a tried and trusted friend." Donations can be sent to J. Jeffs, Airport Com mandant, Prestwick, or to Capt. A. G. Lamplugh, Underwriter, The British Aviation Insurance Co. Ltd., 3-4 Lime Street, London, E.C.3. JAN SMUTS TRANSPORT PROBLEM A CCORDING to a Johannesburg correspondent, there have **• been complaints that the new Jan Smuts Airport is "iso lated" from main towns on the Rand. Passengers are taken to and from the airport by South African Airways buses, but no transport has been provided for airport staff or visitors. Em ployees lacking personal transport must use the railway, and the nearest station is a mile away from the administrative buildings and half a mile from the workshops. An official's comment on the transport problem was that "Airports are built for passengers, not for visitors and sightseers. The train service is quite adequate for the staff, and there is no real need for transport for the public." This seems a remarkably short-sighted view: apart from the fact that the public have paid over £5m for the airport, and may there fore feel they have a right to inspect it, visitors' enclosures can be made to contribute to airport revenue. TURBOPROPS CAPTURE TRAFFIC TN last week's debate on the Corporations' reports, Mr. A. T. * Lennox-Boyd, Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation, recalled tliat in 1952-53 B.E.A.'s share of air traffic to Switzer land was only 29 per cent, and of that to Scandinavia, 28 per cent. On the Amsterdam service it was only 19 per cent and on the Brussels service 28 per cent. Since then, however, the Viscount had been introduced, and statistics were available for July and August. These showed that the Viscount had increased the proportion of traffic on the Swiss routes to 45 per cent in July and 46 per cent in August, compared with 29 per cent and 31 per cent in July and August last year. On the Scandinavian routes they had increased the proportion to 45 per cent in both July and August against, respectively, 32 and 30 per cent last year. On the remaining two routes (on which Viscounts have not yet been introduced) there was a very slight improvement. B.E.A. recently published some supplementary figures showing that Viscounts and Elizabethans operating the Zurich and Geneva services carried 7,760 passengers in September, com pared with 3,316 in September 1952; on the Copenhagen- Stockholm route Viscounts flew 3,047 passengers, compared with 1,662 in the corresponding month last year.
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