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Aviation History
1954
1954 - 0569.PDF
5 March 1954 257 Students of human engineering might well be able to help by determining the limits to which an individual could be expected to go in an emergency, in making use of what the designer had given him. It had recently been suggested that designers must not assume that the pilot was always at peak efficiency. But accidents could be caused by weather conditions, faulty design, mistakes in construction, or bad maintenance, in addi tion to the breakdown of the human element. An aircraft might encounter storms, sometimes accompanied by turbulence giving rise to severe buffeting, and might also meet with conditions of rain, hail, icing, snow or fog. It might also be struck by lightning. This gave a frightening picture, but although accidents had been caused by loss of control in some of the conditions just mentioned, the speaker knew of no case of a fatal lightning strike. Glazed ice was rare, and early warning of such phenomena was usually given. If fog existed such that visibility was reduced below the operator's minima, a diversion was always offered or advice given to a pilot to return to base before his "point of no return" was reached. The lecturer next showed a comprehensive selection of photo graphs illustrating cases where careful and systematic examina tion of parts of crashed aircraft had indicated the type of material failure and so the cause of the accident. From the pictures, he said, the importance of careful wreckage examination—not only on the spot, but if necessary later in the laboratory—could be seen. That was why the Inspectorate of Aircraft Accidents insisted that the wreckage of a crashed aircraft should be left intact until an opportunity had been afforded for expert examination. Exchange of Information among Government departments, Manufacturers and Operators.—This was a very important factor and could be divided into two categories. (1) The reporting of every accident and incident, and the passing on of the report, although it might seem to be only of local interest, and (2) the dissemination of technical information. It was important that, if safety were concerned, vital informa tion obtained by one organization should be made available generally. It was easy to understand reticence on the part of a designer or operator, where commercial rivalry was concerned, but if people's lives were in danger it could be an almost criminal act to keep it "under the hat" for purely personal reasons. During the war, in the common interest, it was agreed that knowledge of this kind should be pooled, and the continuation of co-ordinated knowledge between the Ministries, fighting Services, designers and operators was still needed. Statistics.—Another important aid to safety was the compila tion and analysis of statistics. But statistics must be accurate and not based on numbers which were too small to be realistic. Generally, numbers of accidents or of fatalities were related to revenue passenger-miles, or to revenue aircraft-miles. Thus, one learnt that in the United Kingdom in 1950 the passenger miles flown per passenger killed were 16,198,500, which meant that 23,600 miles were flown per passenger killed. This could be expressed as 0.045 fatal accidents per million aircraft miles, or it could be said that 6.8 passengers were killed per 100 million 1AST week we dealt at some length with the Statement on J Defence and with the Memorandum on the Air Estimates. Certain information of general interest to Flight readers, arising from the Navy and Army Estimates and their accompanying Memoranda, can now be added. The Navy. Aircraft carriers, about which so much has been said and written during the last year, and which are now regarded as the capital ships of the Navy, comprise the most important items in the building programme. Eleven carriers are at present in commission, and during the coming year three more should be completed—Ark Royal, 36,800-ton sister ship to the Eagle, and Centaur and Bulwark, which are 20,000-ton carriers. All three will have the new angled deck and Ark Royal will also have a steam catapult. Indefatigable and Implacable are soon to be withdrawn, bringing the total of carriers in reserve to five. Two other 20,000-ton carriers, Albion and Hermes, are building. The gross estimate for the Navy for 1954-55 is £403,300,000, which represents a net increase of £23im by comparison with the previous year. Aircraft are included under Section 3 (Contract Work) of Vote 8—Ship-building, Repairs and Maintenance, etc. The gross estimate for Section 3 is £100,957,000, for which there is an appropriation-in-aid of £23,095,000. This includes £14m granted as Mutual Defence Assistance. A break-down of the estimate shows that hulls and machinery are expected to cost £50,386,000; armour, gun mountings and equipment £9,412,000; aircraft, including repairs, £24,628,000. The figure for aircraft in 1953-54 was £17,837,000. passenger miles. Again, it could be shown that the number of stage flights per fatal accident was 61,300. The speaker personally thought that the most realistic picture was that 22,395,000 air craft miles were flown per fatal accident. There were so many variables that no comparison between the various forms of land, sea and air transport with respect to safety seemed possible. The accident rate trend, however, was certainly encouraging. Publicity.—In so far as publicity might serve to keep designers, manufacturers and operators on their toes, it could serve a useful purpose, but the aircraft often seemed to be at a disadvantage compared with other forms of transport. A distorted picture of airline safety was likely to shake public confidence, and the speaker suggested that the too well illustrated front-page news of an aircraft accident sometimes resulted in a disservice to aviation in general and to British civil aviation in particular. A. Cdre. Brown concluded "I have spoken about accidents caused by failure of the human element and of those due to weather, defective materials and poor maintenance. I have referred to airworthiness, crashworthiness and to airline opera tion, statistics and publicity. But you will want to know what is being done to overcome the hazards of flying. "The Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation has a per manent representative at I.C.A.O. in Montreal who watches over the United Kingdom's interests in the international field of civil aviation, particularly when standards and recommended prac tices are discussed. At home it has the help and advice of the Air Registration Board. Arising out of I.C.A.O. representation and the activities of the A.R.B. and from considerations of acci dent reports, the Ministry from time to time makes such regulations as seem necessary towards safer flying. "There is a close liaison between the ministries in order that valuable information obtained from the experience of the fighting Services and civil aviation shall be pooled, so far, of course, as security makes this possible. This data is made available to the Society of British Aircraft Constructors who can pass it on to the designers and manufacturers. What is perhaps even more important is that the experimental establishments, and particu larly the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough, are avail able to everybody for advice and guidance. Airworthiness is of a high order and crashworthiness is given its relative importance, and in respect of our pilots, our crew and our ground staffs, our operational and maintenance engineering staffs, our meteoro logical services and those concerned with air traffic control and the operation of navigational aids, I doubt if their training and their overall efficiency can be bettered in any other country. "Moreover, our two airline corporations have their own safety committees, whose duty is to investigate thoroughly every inci dent and accident which happens in their organizations. "All this is surely very encouraging and to end, can I give greater assurance than to say that, in spite of what I know as the result of 15 years' work connected with the unfortunate side of aviation, I still use the aeroplane as a means of transport when it is convenient to do so!" Readers will be familiar with the recent introductions into service of new Naval jet fighters, in particular of Sea Hawks during the last few months. These represent a great advance over the earlier piston-engined types, but it has been noted in several quarters that the Navy are still a long way from receiving any swept-wing machines with performance equal to that of the latest aircraft in service with the American Navy. The Army. The announcements regarding atomic weapons are of direct importance to all three Services. Officially it is stated that the War Office is nearing a decision on the intro duction of an effective Army atomic offensive weapon. It will probably take the form of a medium-range guided missile in the ground-to-ground classification and handled by the Royal Artillery. The Secretary of State for War, Mr. Head, has stated that he doubts whether the stage had been reached when the introduction of atomic weapons could lead to significant savings of manpower. Mr. Head also said, in his Commons statement, that an atomic missile seemed preferable to the atomic shell fired by a gun, since the explosion of a small shell was an uneconomical way of using limited supplies of fissile material. In answer to questions, Mr. Head stated that the prototype of the Army's guided weapon to which he had referred, already existed, but he was not pre pared to say whether it was British. Another announcement concerned provision of detection instruments—the term "radiac" was used to describe them. Their purpose was to detect radio-active after-effects of an atomic-bomb explosion, and troops were now training with them. THE NAVY AND ARMY ESTIMATES
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