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Aviation History
1954
1954 - 0251.PDF
29 January 1954 PROTECTIVE CUSTODY: In dry dock at B.EA.'s engineering base, London Airport, are nine Vikings and eight Admirals—now being Cocooned after withdrawal from service. Elizabethans and Viscounts have taken over nearly all the overseas and some of the domestic routes, but 20 Admirals remain in service. others which had only a brief existence, made things particularly difficult for the overseas competitors, and for youngsters without a first-rate knowledge of aircraft history. The teams represented units of the Army, Royal Air Force, Royal Observer Corps, Air Training Corps, the Combined Cadet Force, and the Women's Junior Air Corps; also competing were several civilian clubs, two units of the U.S. Army stationed in this country, and the Aircraft Recognition Wing of the Royal Netherlands Air Force Intelligence School. As detailed below, the Silver Hurricane Trophy for the best team performance went to Post 5/C4 of the Royal Observer Corps, with 86 points out of a possible 105. In presenting the prizes to the winners, Mr. Peter MaseSeld, President of the Aircraft Recognition Society, congratulated the teams on their prowess. While the cards were being checked, Mr. Frank Hillier, Secretary-General of the Air League of the British Empire, spoke briefly but convincingly about the vital ' need for this country to be strong in the air. His talk was followed by the showing of the Shell film Powered Flight: The Story of the Century, and from comments heard afterwards it was plain that the film had made a deep impression upon the audience, few of whom were born when most of the events recorded took place. RESULTS Silver Hurricane Trophy (best team).—Post 5/C4 (St. Albans), Royal Observer Corps (Ldg. Obs. D. S. Skeggs, Obs. F. P. Wallace, Obs; Nigel Price); 86 points out of possible 105. Silver Heracles Trophy (best A.T.C. team; trophy presented by Sir Frederick Handley Page).—No. 4 (F) Ilford Squadron, A.T.C. (Sgt. D. C. Potten, Cdt. R. J. Croxon, Cdt. R. Banham); 74 points out of possible 105. Air Pictorial Bowl (highest individual score).—Nigel Price, a member of the winning R.O.C. Team; 30 points out of possible 35. Wren Award (a coloured caricature of the Hawker Hunter by cartoonist Chris Wren).—Aircraft Recognition Wing of R.N.A.F. Intelligence School (Lt. A. P. De Jong, Lt. N. B. W. Bizot, Sgt. J. A. Musters); 32 points. Cold Starts T"\UE back at Wisley at mid-week was the prototype Vickers- *-" Armstrongs'' Viscount G-AMAV—of New Zealand Race fame—after a week in search of really cold weather in Scandinavia. Arriving at Bromma, Stockholm, on the 20th, it went on next day to Gardermoen and Fornebu, near Oslo. The object was not to test cold-weather performance in general —this was done very satisfactorily during the six weeks which the same aircraft spent in Canada early last year—but to try a new battery which its manufacturers believe will be very suitable for starting the Viscount's Darts. Made by the Varley Dry Accumulators, Ltd., this 24v 25 amp hr battery is claimed to have particularly high rates of discharge and recovery. The pilot on the Scandinavian trip was Stewart Sloane, a Vickers-Armstrongs' test pilot; the navigator was D. Jones and the engineer was E. W. Walker—who was on board -AV for the New Zealand Race. Lancaster Gets Bunkered LAST Friday, January 22nd, an Avro Lancaster of the M.o.S. was force-landed on a golf course near Nottingham, after suffering total loss of power while approaching to land at Hucknall. The aircraft, which was returning to the Rolls-Royce airfield after a routine instrument-testing flight, first "lost" its port engines at about 500ft, followed by diose on the starboard side; the pilot, W/C. J. H. Heyworth, skilfully put the aircraft down "in the rough," though he hit a tree in the process, suffering an injured hand. Three Rolls-Royce technicians who were on board, J. Dye, M. Costello and W. D. Edmenson, were unhurt. John Harvey Heyworth is, of course, Rolls-Royce's chief test pilot. He had returned to active flying only a month previously, after having spent over three months convalescing from injuries he received in the crash of a Bristol Sycamore helicopter at Farnborough last autumn, in which he was a passenger. He is now rapidly recovering from this latest incident and hopes to resume active flying shortly. TWIN DOUBLE WASPS power the Sikorsky XHR2S helicopter of the U.S. Marine Corps. This machine, seen with undercarriage retracted, bears the Sikorsky designation S-56 and is briefly described on page 129. Since that description was prepared, however, it has been stated by the Sikorsky organization that the top speed is "well over 150 m.p.h.," and that the XHR2S will carry "two combat assault squads—that is, about 26 fully equipped men." 115 More Guidance for the Plain Man [" AST week a short summary of missile homing systems •*—' (passive, active, semi-active and beam riding) appeared in these pages under the heading The Plain Man's Guide to Guidance. Here, from the same source, is a brief account of the flight control systems used in the missile itself. A guided missile normally attains supersonic speed a few seconds after launching, and maintains it throughout its flight. For this reason die lifting surfaces are small, sharp-edged and extremely thin. Yet these small surfaces, which resemble fins ramer than wings, can produce forces of from 7 to 20 g. There are two principal methods by which the missile's flight path is controlled—the Cartesian and the polar. Missiles employing the Cartesian system have two sets of wings arranged as a cross round the fuselage with movable control surfaces fitted to the trailing edges. Flight is controlled by gyros. One pair of surfaces governs direction and the other elevation. In a turn, the missile is merely wrenched round by the directional controls widiout the banking associated with a normal aircraft turn. In the polar system, the missile has only two wings, each with two control surfaces acting independently in the same way as the ailerons and elevators of conventional aircraft. The control gyros, directed by the missile's homing and ranging mechanism, maintain the wings at right angles to the target's flight path. Directional deflection is achieved solely by the elevators. The direction of a turn is selected by rolling the missile with the ailerons. The polar system is sometimes called "twist and steer" control. The simplest missiles have all-moving wings which combine the function of lift-producing surfaces with controls. The linkage between gyros and surfaces is similar to that employed between autopilot and controls in a conventional aircraft; the missile's system is, of course, much more compact and capable of with standing very high g forces.
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