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Aviation History
1955
1955 - 0401.PDF
401 FLIGHT, 25 March 1955 The new Southern Air Traffic Control Centre, shown above, is situated at London Airport. Right, inside the operations room, flight progress boards and radar displays can be seen. "Flight" photograpn CIVIL AVIATION . . . SOUTHERN AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL A NEW air traffic control centre for the southern area of theU.K., located at London Airport, will come into use on April 3rd. It will replace the air traffic control centre at Uxbridge,which was separated from its associated long-range radar unit at London Airport by five miles of telephone wires. As radar is nowaccepted as an essential part of the control system, rather than as an adjunct, the new centre is self-contained in this respect,and the "procedural" air traffic controllers will work together with radar controllers in the one operations room. This fundamental change has enabled the new centre to bedesigned on extremely efficient lines. The six flight-progress boards at which the procedural controllers work in the opera-tions room are similar to those at Uxbridge, but are situated near to their respectively associated radar displays. The displayconsoles are of refined design, and for ease of maintenance most of the associated equipment is located in the basement directlybelow the operations room. The radar installations consist of long-range, short-range andheight-finding equipment. Amber screens are fitted over the display tubes, enabling them to be viewed clearly without inter-ference from the relatively bright lighting over the flight progress boards. This lighting is deficient in yellow colour, being a mixedlight from blue, green and red fluorescent tubes. Also situated in the operations room are a meteorological section (with tele-printers and forecast bench), and an R.A.F. liaison unit which is in direct contact with the R.A.F. air traffic control at Uxbridge.In addition to the radar installations, complex systems incor- porating V.H.F. R/T., G.P.O. telephones and "communicators"(teleprinter operators who pass on company and other messages from aircraft) are essential to the centre's operation. With thesefacilities, the unit is claimed to be the most modern and ambitious air traffic control centre in the world. B.E.A. FARES INCREASE IN the House of Commons on March 16th, Mr. Boyd-Carpenter,Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation, said, "With my approval, British European Airways is increasing the fares oncertain services within the United Kingdom as from April 1st. The increases, which vary in amount but are mostly betweenfive and 15 per cent, are intended to reduce the substantial losses incurred by B.E.A. on internal services. The fares on these ser-vices remain, on average, some 30 per cent below the level of those on the Corporation's international services." It may be recalled that April 1st is also the date on which theI.A.T.A.-agreed fare increases for scheduled operators on Euro- pean international routes will take effect. B.O.A.C. FLEET ORDERS COMPLETEW ITH the signing of a £13m contract for 10 Douglas DC-7Csby Sir Miles Thomas in London last Friday, B.O.A.C. orders for replacement aircraft are now complete. Other aircraft on orderare 20 Comet 4s and 33 Britannias. The DC-7C order includes spares engines and other parts.Delivery is expected between October 1956 and March 1959 at an initial rate of one aircraft per month, increasing to two permonth. CANADIAN ACCIDENT REPORTS 'T'HE respective findings of the Boards of Inquiry into theA aircraft accidents near Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan and Bramp- ton, Ontario, last year, were recently published by the CanadianDepartment of Transport. The primary cause of the mid-air collision between an R.C.A.F. Harvard and a T.C.A. North Starover Moose Jaw on April 9th, in which all passengers and crew members were killed, was stated to be the failure of the pilotsof both aircraft to maintain a proper lookout; while negligence on the part of the Captain was also given as the cause of the secondaccident, in which a T.C.A. Super Constellation crash-landed during an I.L.S. approach to Malton Airport, Toronto, onDecember 17th, with no fatalities. The first accident occurred as T.C.A. North Star CF-TFWwas flying at 6,000ft on Green Airway No. 1 between Winnipeg and Calgary, on a westerly flight from Toronto to Vancouver.R.C.A.F. Harvard No. 3309, which had taken off from R.C.A.F. Station Moose Jaw on a solo navigation exercise, was crossingthe airway on a northerly course when the two aircraft collided. Pilots of both aircraft, the report states, failed to maintain aproper lookout; the onus of responsibility for keeping out of the way being with the Harvard pilot, as he had the other aircraft onhis right. The Board's recommendations included the specification ofrevised cruising altitudes; that elementary flying training be con- ducted clear of airways; that airline pilots should be required toremain at the controls and maintain a proper lookout within a radius of 25 nautical miles from an airport; that the field ofvision from the pilot's cockpit of all Canadian civil aircraft be "John Hunter," one of the two new D.H. Herons for the Scottish Air Ambulance Unit, named by Miss Jean D. Jolly, matron of the Southern General Hospital, at Renfrew last Friday. The Rapid es now in use will go out of service on April 17th. Details of the ceremony and of the B.E.A.-operated ambulance service will appear in a forthcoming issue. -.-•'•.-, "Flight" photograph
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