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Aviation History
1954
1954 - 0469.PDF
FLIGHT, 19 February 1954 219 ff IN GREEN AND SILVER, but with out the fashionable white top, Viscount EI-AFV "St. Patrick" is the first of four ordered by Aer Lingus. Accommodating 48 passengers each, they will shortly enter service on the Irish airline's routes from Dublin to London, Manchester, Amster dam and Paris. A Viscount order from India is reported below. CIVIL AVIATION INDIA ORDERS VISCOUNTS ALTHOUGH formal confirmation was not available at the time of going to press, it appears certain that Vickers-Armstrongs have won the long "sales battle" waged in India against Convair. A report from New Delhi last Saturday stated that a £2m order would shortly be signed for six Viscounts, for service with the nationalized Indian Airlines Corporation. This contract would bring the number of Viscounts firmly ordered to 94, including 53 for overseas airlines. Other Viscount contracts are under negotia tion, and at least one more overseas order is likely to be announced in the near future. TUDOR TO HAMBURG A FTER the granting of an unrestricted C. of A. to modified **> Tudor 1 and Tudor 4B aircraft (reported in last week's issue), the first passenger proving-flight took place on Sunday last. The operating company was Air Charter, Ltd., and the flight, from Stansted to Hamburg, was made in G-AGRG, a Mk 1 machine. This aircraft is the first to be modified for passenger-carrying by Aviation Traders, Ltd., and is fitted with 42 seats, all but four of which are rearward-facing. Maximum all-up weight of the type is 80,000 lb; on the flight to Hamburg, made with 24 passengers, the take-off weight was 72,000 lb. The crew com prised Capt. E. N. Jennings (the company's chief pilot), Capt. J. N. Carreras, Nav/Off. H. Wolter, Rad/Off. R. W. Williams, Eng/Off. B. W. Blunden, and Stewardesses Daphne Ayscough and Hillary Coleman. A cruising speed of 180 kt T.A.S. was maintained but, due to a holding period overhead at Hamburg, the time for the trip amounted to 2 hr 54 min. The return flight was made the following day; 26 passengers were carried (at a take-off weight of 78,300 lb), and the time taken was 2 hr 38 min. The certification of the Tudor in the full public transport category is the direct result of the efforts of Mr. F. A. Laker, managing director of Air Charter, Ltd., over the past few years. The modifications approved by the A.R.B. for the type include the removal of the pressurization, the re-positioning of electrical and radio equipment and the addition of an extra emergency exit. The fleet of ten Tudors which are being thus modified will be operated from Stansted, the company's main base. There is in addition a permanent Air Charter unit at Hamburg which operates two Yorks and two Bristol Freighters on freighting flights along the Berlin corridor. STORM OVER THE ATLANTIC A FULL debate on the question of North Atlantic air freight ** services seems the probable outcome of a spirited interlude at question time in the House of Commons on February 10th, when the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation, Mr. Alan Lennox-Boyd, was called upon to account for recent develop ments in that field. It is hoped that Mr. Lennox-Boyd—who has Drofessed himself ready and willing for such a debate—will in fact be given an early opportunity to allay some of the fears and suspicions which have been raised in the House. Much of the questioning already mentioned was of a political nature—some displaying a curious ignorance of the application procedure—but a few points were raised to which reference must be made. For instance, there was the matter of five Britannia freighters thought to have been ordered by B.O.A.C. Mr. Lennox-Boyd said that when the Corporation applied to him, in February 1953, for permission to buy them, he made it plain that his consent was given on the basis that they realized that they had a commercial use in mind for the aircraft, and that all applica tions for new freight routes wou'.d have to go to A.T.A.C. In a later exchange, he said B.O.A.C. had agreed to hold off freight applications for one year until last July, since when they had been as free as anybody else. They had not since applied, although their intention to do so had been announced in a Press statement [presumably that published exclusively in Flight] last February. In view of Mr. Lennox-Boyd's firm assurance that as from July 1953 no persuasion had been exercised on B.O.A.C. with regard to their proposed North Atlantic freight application, it is difficult to understand why no application has yet been made. The Minister revealed that he had had a number of consulta tions with Sir Miles Thomas and the chairman of Airwork in regard to the latter's all-freight service on the North Atlantic route. Both had told him that they would consider the possi bilities of co-operation in the national interest in the develop ment of their respective North Atlantic services, which would be complementary rather than competitive. In reply to Mr. Frank Beswick (Lab., Uxbridge) he said that he knew of no proposed agreement between them which embodied new principles on which the House should be informed. The subject cropped up again at question time on February 15th, when Mr. Lennox-Boyd S3id that B.O.A.C. had not placed a firm order for five Britannia freighters; the only order was for 25 passenger versions. THE ELBA SEARCH ON Friday last the frigate Wakeful, from which a search is being made for the main wreckage of the Comet that crashed in the sea off Elba on January 10th, made her first major "find." Manoeuvring his vessel over a position at which trawlers had reported contacting heavy objects with their sweeps at a depth of about 400ft, Cdr. Morrow arranged for the lowering of an underwater television camera, and for several hours the experts on board were able to study four major portions of wreckage. Numsrous photographs of the television screen were taken and, after processing, passed to Mr. Bertram Morris (M.C.A.) and Mr. Peter Detmold (de Havi'Iands) for identification. At the time of writing it is believed that this wreckage consisted of the major parts of the wing and its centre-section. It is reported that the sighting was made on a new Pye under water television camera that had been flown out during the pre vious week. A camera of this make was already in use by the Admiralty when it was learned that there was a new Pye project for equipmant designed to operate at 3,000ft. The equipment was scarcely beyond the drawing-board stage, but on receipt of an urgent Admiralty request the firm built a prototype within a week, and two of their engineers flew it out to Piombino, on the Italian coast, for collection by the destroyer Wakeful. Several other companies have also made valuable contributions to the operation. Marconi's were early on the scene with a tele- sion camera; it was flown out by one of their technicians, with another from Siebe, Gorman, who made the pressure-casing for the camera. Ekco television monitoring equipment was also used. Much of the initial search for wreckage was conducted by means of echo-sounding, a technique in which many advances have taken place in recent years. Admiralty-pattern sounding equipment, of the type developed by Kelvin and Hughes, Ltd., was employed. Last Monday, further major wreckage—believed to be the rear fuselage and tail—was seen on the television screens; later, rough seas hampered attempts to bring to the surface what was believed to be the nose section.
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