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Aviation History
1955
1955 - 0475.PDF
FLIGHT, 15 April 1955 475 MANUFACTURERS' EVENING OUT Wit and Wisdom at the Contractors' Dinner at Boscombe Down THE dinner which the Air Commodore and Officers ofthe Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establish-ment give each year to the British aircraft contractors took place on April 1st at Boscombe Down as usual. The dining hall was packed to capacity; and, both before and after the more formal part of the evening, the "contractors"—the heads and chief designers of the principal manufacturing companies—were to be seen with the test pilots of the industry and Services and Ministry of Supply technicians, engaged in their favourite pastime of combined shop-talk, leg-pulling and reminiscence. After an excellent dinner—the menu seems to have improvedeach year since the war—A. Cdre. A. H. Wheeler, the Air Officer Commanding the Establishment, rose to propose the guests. Itwas, he said, the third time—and would, unfortunately, be the last time—that he had the honour of proposing this toast. Itwas 13 months instead of 12 since the last dinner, but at the rate which people worked at Boscombe it was traditional to getfar more into a year than was normally expected. He also made the perennial reference to the inadequacy of the Mess. A. Cdre. Wheeler specially welcomed Sir Sydney Camm, whowas to reply to the toast. He then went on to say that, during the year, a start had at last been made on the full testing ofV-class bombers. 4ie was glad tfiat the Naval squadron at Bos- combe had been awarded the Boyd Trophy for the best perform-ance by any Naval squadron during the year. He thanked Sir Richard Fairey for its original presentation, and congratulatedCdr. Orr on the efficiency of his winning squadron. The Air Commodore went on to recall that during the year there hadbeen an unprecedented event for the Establishment, in the shape of a visit from the Press, which had been most broad-mindedlypermitted by the Ministry of Supply. The Establishment had nothing but gratitude for the really appreciative interest takenin its work, and for the way in which it had been reported. An event of the year was the fact that the A. and A.E.E. hadbeen instructed to test the Heron which de Havillands were preparing specially for the Duke of Edinburgh. A. Cdre. Wheelerspoke most appreciatively of the work of Mr. Handel Davies, and of his three-year association with him. [Mr. Handel Davieshas already taken up his new appointment as Scientific Adviser to the Air Ministry but was present as a guest. The new chiefsuperintendent is Mr. J. Hanson.—Ed.] A. Cdre. Wheeler recalled that, when he and Mr. Handel Daviesfirst went to Boscombe the latter had said to him "in a place like this, you can't do everything. Let us try at leastto be able to claim some concrete achievement." After some discussion, it was decided that they should try to foster that spiritof goodwill and smooth running which, in their opinion, should prevail in all their work. An example of their intentions in practicewas provided by the re-wording of a report on an aircraft. Origin- ally it had read "this aeroplane stalls without any warning at alland is dangerous." The corrected version read "a more definite stall warning would enable pilots to exploit fully the otherwiseexcellent slow-flying qualities of this aircraft." He had also come across a phrase in one of the Establishment's reports which indi-cated that broad-minded tolerance could begin at home: referring to a Naval aircraft, it read "one exceptionally heavy landing whichoccurred is considered to be unrelated to the aircraft's charac- teristics." A. Cdre. Wheeler went on to say that information had trickledthrough that there were still some members of the aircraft industry who considered that Boscombe Down was only a useless delayinglink in the chain of aircraft development. Having often heard this criticism before, he had made a historical study back into theremotest ages. For example, the Romans certainly insisted on all military equipment being approved by their legionaries. TheGreeks, who were great individualists, both selected and tested their weapons themselves, so there was no precedent there. Goingfurther back to Egyptian methods, one could be sure that the Pharaohs wanted to have the longest possible preview of theirPyramids before putting them into operational use. Only when he had gone back to the first chapter of the Book of Genesis, saidthe speaker, did he find the famous recorded case where a manu- factured product was subjected to checking only by the makerand had proved satisfactory ever since. Boscombe Down had had the usual quota of crises in the pastyear. The arguments, perhaps, grew heated, the M.o.S. got interested and even the Air Ministry started taking a hand.Ministers rang up, the Air Marshal perhaps flew down, then, almost at the climax, the battle rolled on to other spheres, perhapsto the corridors of Whitehall, perhaps even nearer to the centre of the city of Westminster, and a sort of peaceful desolation settledfor a short time on Boscombe Down. A. Cdre. Wheeler thought this resembled one of the old pictures of some battlefield—theusual wreckage, a few dead horses, perhaps, and a broken gun carriage or two, and the whole atmosphere one of silent desolation.Boscombe Down had often reminded him of such a picture: a few discarded ailerons or elevators in a corner of a hangar; thedead horses were replaced by a heap of intake baffles which had failed to achieve their job or which the aircraft designer hadresolutely refused to fit. But the air of silent desolation was soon disturbed, for on the northern horizon was seen appearing a deltashape, slim and clean—delta-shaped because it was the fashion these days, slim because it was supposed to go faster, and cleanbecause it had not yet arrived at Boscombe Down. . . . Speaking more seriously, the air commodore said that theEstablishment still valued the tradition of working together and really tried to foster it. Boscombe appreciated how irritating itwas to makers when things went wrong with their products diere. Said the Air Commodore "we take no delight in watching spannersgoing into the works. We, like you, only want the Services to have the best possible equipment in the shortest possible time." In his reply on behalf of the guests, Sir Sydney Camm brieflyrecalled the aircraft reports of Martlesham days. He then spoke of the difficulties of designers today, and quoted the passagefrom Horatius "Those behind cried 'Forward!' and those before cried 'Back!'" Bombers were always going higher and faster.With the advent of missiles, it had been said in 1947 that there would be only one more fighter. Here Sir Sydney referred cryptic-ally to Mr. Petter's return from India and added that some designers had fighters weighing 60,000 lb to 100,000 lb in mind.Of one thing he was certain, and that was diat the time involved in re-equipment must be shortened, but aircraft must be evolvedgradually over small steps. He concluded with a tribute to the ready co-operation of Boscombe. He would like to see theEstablishment increased both in power and size. The toast of the aircraft industry was proposed by Air ChiefMarshal Sir John Baker, Controller of Aircraft, M.o.S. He paid tributes to the work of Boscombe Down and particularly toA. Cdre. Wheeler and Mr. Handel Davies, and he welcomed A. Cdre. Ramsey Ray and Mr. Hanson, who are taking over fromthem. The final speech, a reply on behalf of the aircraft industry, was by Mr. S. D. Davies, Ayro's chief designer. Speaking ofthe contrasting interests of the industry for whom he was replying, he remarked that, after all, aeroplanes would not go withoutengines and equipment; in fact, the airframe was becoming little more than an envelope for the engine and even the engine peoplecomplained because their job seemed to be becoming one of driving pumps. Regarding the line he should take, and the earlier refer-ence to delta bombers, he indicated his difficulty by mentioning "a plausible looking project at Manchester which should becapable of knocking down deltas or any other bomber." With forthcoming trials in mind, Mr. Davies remarked thatgratitude had been defined as a lively sense of favours to come, but the industry must not expect to be spoon-fed. It shouldendeavour to become more independent in technical matters. It would be stupid to blame future failures on lack of facilities inthe industry. The rate of technical development was increasing so fast that the only hope of producing aircraft quickly was toget them right first time. So much more research was needed and he placed structures before aerodynamics. Computors werevaluable for the "simple plumbers" of the aircraft industry and it should not be imagined diat these were "long-haired stuff, onlyfor Americans." More computors were needed. A small country such as ours had to live on technical ability. MORE TITANIUM FOR DC-7s MORE titanium is now being used in the construction of latermodels of the DC-7. The amount is 800 lb per airframe, as compared with 450 lb in early models. The nacelles of theDC-7B and DC-7C are almost entirely made of the new metal and the "saddle" tanks fitted over the nacelles will also befabricated from it. Some nacelle frames, the undercarriage doors and the firewall webs are also of unalloyed titanium.Titanium does not pay in all applications., however, and the cost per pound of weight saved by the use of certain titanium boltswas found to be $400—hardly an economical proposition.
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