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Aviation History
1955
1955 - 0857.PDF
and AIRCRAFT ENGINEER First Aeronautical Weekly in the World Founded 1909 No. 2422 Vol. 67. FRIDAY, 24 JUNE 1955 EDITOR - •"• " ' MAURICE A. SMITH, D.F.C. and Bar ASSOCIATE EDITOR H. F. KING, M.B.E. TECHNICAL EDITOR W. T. GUNSTON ART ED/TOR JOHN YOXALL J Editorial, Advertising and Publishing Offices: DORSET HOUSE, STAMFORD STREET, LONDON, S.E.1. Telegrams, Flightpres, Sedist, London. Telephone, Waterloo 3333 (60 lines). Branch Offices: COVENTRY 8-10, Corporation Street. • : Telegrams, Autocar, Coventry. Telephone, Coventry 5210. BIRMINGHAM,! King Edward House, New Street. Telegrams, Autopress, Birmingham. Telephone, Midland 7191 (7 lines). MANCHESTER, 3 260, Deansgate. Telegrams, Iliffe, Manchester. Telephone, Wackfriars 4412 (3 lines). Deansgate 3S9S (2 lines). GLASGOW, C.2. - . " ' ' I' ,.', 26b, Renfield Street. Telegrams, Iliffe, Glasgow. Telephone, Central 1265 (2 lines). SUBSCRIPTION RATES Home and Overseas: Twelve months £4 10s. U.S.A. and Canada, $14.00. IN THIS ISSUE: Without Visible Means of Support - - - - Week-end in Paris - - Stands at the Salon Scharfoldendorf Cham- pionships - - - •• The Turboprop in Practice - - - - Low-Consumption Turbines - - - - 861 867 873 875 877 882 Why Are We Waiting?G ENERALLY speaking we have the greatest admiration for the way in which airlines "process" their passengers. By comparison with almost any other form of transport, aviation offers clean, comfortable, sophisticated travel. In spite of the price paid for a ticket, there is the feeling that one is enjoying a privilege, as well as an experience, each time one takes a passage in a modern airliner. Even the hardy perennials among passenger complaints—the waiting period before and after a flight and the time of travel to and from an airport—are relative matters. Is an extra hour really important after saving perhaps weeks by flying instead of sailing from South America or the East? (Remind us to think of this next time we personally suffer a delay!) There is one subject, however, to which we have referred on more than one occasion in the past, one which to our certain knowledge continues to frustrate and irritate air passengers, namely, the withholding of explanations for delays. The railways are, of course, worse offenders; they are more frequently late and probably do not know why themselves. The shipping companies, on the other hand, are usually quite good on this score. Why must the airlines—B.E.A. and B.O.A.C. among them—fail to tell their passengers the reasons for delays when they occur? Admittedly the traveller is some- times informed, perhaps 30 minutes after the scheduled time of take-off, that the flight will be delayed by so many minutes, and on special occasions technical reasons or the weather may be mentioned. This is better than nothing, but we maintain that it is not unnatural for passengers to ask why, and to expect to be answered, immediately their carefully laid plans start to be upset. Quite possibly the lack of ready information is simply the result of there being no one available to discover, quickly, the cause of the delay and to announce the findings to the passengers. If this is in fact the case, we would venture to suggest that the matter is of sufficient importance to passenger/operator relations to justify an additional member of the staff. To keep passengers in the dark is bad psychology. It disturbs everyone, it gives rise to alarm and it is in the nature of an insult to their intelligence. Power at Paris v •T HE twenty-first Paris Show, concluded last Sunday, was above all an affair of power- plants, not merely as static items, but as subjects of aerial demonstration. The week-end crowds were edified (and once or twice well-nigh stupefied) by rockets and ramjets, and they gazed hour after hour upon machines variously propelled by most other forms of prime mover, characterized by their roaring, howling, beating or whisper- ing. It was seen how the blast of a jet can be tamed to propel aircraft in reverse; how gas turbines are already serving as practical powerplants for helicopters; and how even big piston-engined transports can benefit from the judicious application of auxiliary turbo- jets. And in the static show could be glimpsed, in the models of coleopters (as described at length in this issue), how powerplant and airframe may ultimately become indivisible. Indeed, the Leduc ramjet aircraft was tangible, working evidence of such a trend. Of more immediate significance were light, simple turbojets for special purposes, notably our own Bristol Orpheus and aspiring French rivals of about half its thrust, intended for dual installations in tactical-support aircraft or light fighters. And in the Turbomeca range were miniature gas turbines—several completely new—in wide variety. That the French do not build them as mere trinkets is proved by the success of practical, light jet trainers and executive aircraft designed round such units. As for installations, the beautiful new Caravelle transport, with its flank-mounted Avons, was an eminent example of imaginative French approach—the realization of a formula long postulated, but never, until now, accomplished. That the engines are Avons is at once gratifying and a sign that France's own high-power turbojets are insufficiently developed as yet for commercial application. This situation may well be altered in the years ahead. Meanwhile, it is satisfying that a nation with a healthily growing aero- engine industry of her own should set such store by the Avon, Sapphire and Viper, and (who knows), by newer and less conventional powerplants from these shores.
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