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Aviation History
1953
1953 - 1627.PDF
FLIGHT, 11 December 1953 781 222 McDonnell XF-8S" parasite" fighter (1948) 223 (Top right) Vickers Viscount (1948). 224 (Right) Douglas Skyrocket (1948). 225 (Below) Saab J-29 (1948). ; : : ; ^ V .. '...".. ; • 1949 The diligent reader will remember our reference far back to the Breguet Coffee Pot, which carried sis people in 1910, and will thus turn to the Breguet Deux-Ponts (226) with the greater interest, for this type seats 59 passengers on the upper deck and 49 on the lower. Although the advantages of the delta wing were first pointed out by the German Lippisch, it was in this country that this design was first exploited to the full—in the Avro Vulcan bomber, later illustrated. At 227 is shown the first of a series of Avro 707 research aircraft—scale models of the great bomber. The dainty little jet at 228 is the Cyclone, one of a series of Fouga monoplanes designed for the tiny Turbomeca jet units. Having headed the page with the world's first turboprop airliner, we foot it with the de Havilland Comet (229)—the first airliner with turbojet power. The Series 1A Comets have four de Havilland Ghost centrifugal turbojets, but in the Mk 2 version these are replaced by axial Rolls-Royce Avons. It has justly been claimed for the Series 1 and 1A Comets that they have achieved a revolution in air transport by virtually doubling normal operating speeds without economic penalty. Comet travel has been summed up by the chairman of B.O.A.C. in these words: "The coffee drinkers like to tell of filling a cup to the brim without losing a drop. . . . Smokers describe their long ash. There's a sensation of standing still with the world running past you." 226 France's'_double-decker: the Breguet Deux-Ponts of 1949. When Flight wished success to the Vickers-Armstrongs Viscount, on the occasion of its entry into service early in 1953 we remarked that speed, comfort, economy and safety (in reverse order of importance) were all to be found in it in generous measure. This is largely due to the Rolls-Royce Dan turbo- props—and it is the Viscount (223) that we acclaim as the world's first turboprop airliner. With such fine aircraft of our own we can afford not to stint our praise of the Americans for their sponsorship of such amazing machines as the Douglas Skyrocket (224). As long ago as 1951 a Skyrocket exceeded 1,200 m.p.h. and attained a height of 75,000ft; and during this year an altitude of 83,235ft and a speed of 1,272 m.p.h. (repre senting a Mach number of 1.96) have been claimed for a similar machine. From this pioneer research aircraft we glance at two fighters— the McDonnell XF-85 (222), designed as a parasite for the protection of large bombers—from which it was air-launched— and Sweden's Saab J-29 (225), a swept-wing fighter which ranks next to the Sabre and Mig-15. 227 (Top) Avro 707 (1949). 228 (Centre) Fouga Cyclone —later Sylphe—of1949. 229 (Left) de Havilland Comet (1949).
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