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Aviation History
1955
1955 - 0291.PDF
11 March 1955 291 OFF THE LINE: Subject of this topical Russell Adams picture is Gloster Javelin FAW.1, service number XA 550; the pilot, S/L. Peter Scott. First production Javelin, at Farnborough last year, was XA 544. that the Britannias will ultimately be afine aircraft, yet we cannot maintain a hold on expanding business on a 'jamtomorrow' basis and must have access to aircraft that can currently carry thetraffic." He added that there was also the necessity for getting the convertedStratocruisers and Constellations into operation, and for making arrangementsfor the introduction of the Douglas Seven Seas. The message concluded with refer- ences to the Corporation's cabin service —"one of the B.O.A.C.'s greatest assets." Herald Progress Y17ITH the minimum of fanfares or fuss, Handley Page (Reading)'» have been pressing on with the building of the two prototypes of their Herald feeder-liner, which precede what is already to bea substantial production batch. Orders have been placed by Australian National Airways and Queensland Airlines, and lastweek a third company, Lloyd Aero Colombiano, who are based at Bogota in Colombia, became the third company to sign acontract for Heralds. This brings the total of orders to 29 and deliveries are scheduled to begin in 1957. Appropriately, such adjectives as "workaday," "robust" and"versatile" are being used in connection with the four-engined Herald. It is intended to operate from small airfields with theminimum of servicing equipment. In its pressurized fuselage —the first is illustrated on the opposite page—some 44 passengerscan be accommodated, and carried over short or medium stages at a cruising speed of 200 plus m.p.h. The Alvis Leonides Major 870 h.p. piston engines are aboutto start their air tests in the H.P.R.5 Marathon test-bed, which is expected to fly this week from Reading, with S/L. Hazelden atthe controls. After preliminary trials, it will be taken over by the engine manufacturers to continue with engine testing and develop-ment work. Airfield Customs WantedT HE lack of "on call" Customs facilities at certain non-State-owned airfields was brought to the attention of the Minister of Civil Aviation last Friday by a deputation representing airportowners and others interested. At a 90-minute meeting, it was suggested to Mr. Boyd-Carpenterthat the lack of facilities was causing operators expense and incon- venience and hampering the growth of traffic. The Minister under-took to consider the representations and to look into some specific cases, details of which the deputation promised to forward to him. Members of the deputation were Cllr. L. W. Biggs (chairmanof Manchester Airport Committee) and Mr. C. M. Newton (of Sywell Aerodrome), representing the Aerodrome Owners' Asso-ciation; Mr. R. V. Perfect, for the Air League; and Aid. Rhodes Marshall (Blackpool) and Cllr. T. Earnshaw (Derby), for theAssociation of Municipal Corporations. Tye on Fatigue THE second Barnwell Memorial Lecture, held at Bristol last•*• Tuesday, was the occasion of a paper, The Outlook on Air- frame Fatigue, by Mr. Walter Tye, O.B.E., B.Sc, F.RAe.S., chieftechnical officer of the Air Registration Board. After an historical introduction to the subject, Mr. Tye dealt in turn with the safelife of spars, wing tests, pressure-cabin testing, the present situa- tion, the immediate future and longer-term developments. The lecturer concluded that, although full-scale and ad hocfatigue-testing was necessary for the immediate future, in order to "reach a position where a safe life is really safe," the ultimatesolution, in his belief, was to obtain sufficient understanding to design structures, the fatigue failure of which would be wellbeyond the operational life and in which, if cracks did occur, the failure would be non-catastrophic. Naval Aircraft Debated TN his statement to the House of Commons on the Navy•*- Estimates, Mr. J. P. L. Thomas, First Lord of the Admiralty, said that by the end of the year the front-line Fleet Air Armwould be completely equipped with jet and turboprop aircraft in the day and all-weather fighter and strike and anti-submarine roles.New aircraft were planned to replace all those in the Fleet Air Arm which had been in front-line service this year, and sub-stantial orders had been placed for a new single-seater day fighter —the N113—which would replace the Sea Hawk and had beendesigned to carry guided missiles (see first news paragraph). The D.H.I 10, replacement for the Sea Venom, was describedby Mr. Thomas as a first-class aircraft for naval purposes. It had been subjected to intensive tests since the accident at Famboroughin 1952, and it should enter service with far fewer latent troubles than other aircraft. It was designed to carry a guided missile. After references to the Gannet and the Whirlwind helicopter, hewent on to say that the conversion of most of the R.N.V.R. fighter squadrons to jets was planned to take place this year, and withinthe next year or two they expected to give the R.N.V.R. air divisions Sea Hawks, Gannets and Seamews. At the same timethe R.N.V.R. establishment of these costly aircraft would have to be reduced by about one-fifth and there would also have to besome reduction in aircrew. In a defence of the aircraft carrier, Mr. Thomas said that thistype of vessel had proved its value for all to witness in the Korean war. The expert advice given to the American Navy and to ourown supported the carrier battle group full out in a war of nuclear weapons as a self-protecting, largely self-contained mobile air-field. Such a battle group, as described in the White Paper, was compact and hard-hitting and at the same time flexible and elusive.In the last war much was said of the vulnerability of the carrier, but of the 226 carriers used by all sides, only 39 were sunk andof these only four by shore-based aircraft. Of these four carriers, which were all American, three were sunk by Japanese suicideaircraft. As for a future war, the carrier battle group as a mobile target with its screen of fighters and its early warning aircraftmight well be relatively immune from some of the most formidable of modern weapons. In the section of his speech devoted to guided-weapon progress,Mr. Thomas said that ship-to-air missiles would be tested at sea next year in the experimental guided-weapon ship Girdleness. In the debate which followed, Mr. James Callaghan criticizedcurrent aircraft equipment in the carriers. Neither the Sea Hawk nor the Attacker, he maintained, was capable of overtaking andintercepting the aircraft it would have to meet. He also spoke of "severe strictures" on the D.H.I 10 made by another Member. Several Members made references to the merits or otherwise ofa suggested integration of the R.A.F. and the Navy. Supporting the suggestion, Capt. Robert Ryder said that an examinationshould be made to see if some kind of fusion could be achieved. Nobody suggested that that was going to be done suddenly orwould even necessarily be a complete fusion. What was going to happen in the case of the ship-to-air guidedmissiles? After all, some of the problems of the identification of distant aircraft were much the same. "Are we," asked Capt.Ryder, "to have the Royal Air Force mounting these new 'guns' of the Fleet, or are we going to have guided missiles at sea underthe control of the Navy and so work contrary to the decision made on land?" Air Safety Board Appointment "COR the first time in six years, the Air Safety Board has an--Tnounced a change in its membership. This follows the accept- ance by Sir William Scott Farren of an invitation from theMinister of Transport and Civil Aviation to join the Board in place of A. Cdre. F. R. Banks, who recently resigned. Sir WilliamFarren is technical director of A. V. Roe and Company. He was previous president of the Royal Aeronautical Society (1953-54)and one of the three assessors at the Comet Inquiry. It may be recalled that the Air Safety Board, set up by theMinister of Civil Aviation in 1946, has as its terms of reference: "to keep under continuous review the needs of air safety in Britishcivil aviation and recommend measures likely to promote safety in respect of both the operation of British civil aircraft throughout theworld, and the efficiency of the ground facilities provided for civil
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