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Aviation History
1955
1955 - 1146.PDF
260 FLIGHT HANDLEY PAGE HERALD Thought and Practice Behind Britain's New Branchliner TO each new British transport aeroplane of post-war yearssome adjective, appropriate or not, has been affixed. Thus,the Elizabethan was to everyone elegant; the Britannia is majestic — and the Handley Page Herald workaday. This deliberately unglamorous description of the Herald was, we suspect, bestowed by Sir Frederick himself. Certainly it was he who, on a recent occasion, said, "We have endeavoured to make something which has a comparatively slow landing speed, has a good get-off, and has economical operation at the speed at which it is going to fly, and in addition is robust and easy to maintain. That I think can be summed up in the words that we have been looking for a workhorse in the air." It was on the same occasion that Sir Frederick said, "If your only competitor is an ox-wagon, you don't need to go through the sound barrier to convince your potential passengers that it is much better to go by air than go by ox-wagon." Equally apposite were the remarks of G/C. R. C. M. Collard, Handley Page sales manager, who said of the Herald, "It is intended to do the work which is today being done by the DC-3. Directly you look upon it from, shall we say, a European stand- point, I think you will miss the point, because for one thing in Europe the facilities are so good that you can operate almost any aeroplane; and for another thing, in Europe practically nobody flies. Of course, they fill the seats, but they're roughly the same people all the time . . . What we must think of are those areas of North and South America, of Africa, and of Australasia, where transport is an essential part of the life of the community and where everybody flies. In other words, one must consider this problem more from the point of view of, shall we say, an advanced air minded Peruvian Indian rather than a pedestrian and largely earth bound European." G/C. Collard added: "Of four engines, I need only say that they are there for safety. That's the main and really the only argument. Whatever may be said about a two-engined layout— and it has many advantages—we all know that if you have a failure on a two-engined aeroplane you've lost half your power, and you are faced with a crisis at once . . . On a four-engined aeroplane, if you lose one engine it is no more than an incident. Then the engines are piston engines. There are many reasons for that, but they can be all summed up in this: they are piston engines to enable the owner and the operator to make money. It is no use saying that local services can be operated by a larger line in its spare time, on the side, make a loss and make it up on the long hauls. If that were so, then aviation would slowly die o/er a great part of the globe. Local services branch lines can be operated with profit, but only if you have the right aero- plane." And while citing the views of Handley Page personalities we may well recall die words of Mr. T. C. Wallace, of Alvis, Ltd., makers of the new Leonides Major engines with which the Herald is powered: "At Alvis, we are particularly conscious of the diffi- culties ot an aircraft constructor who offers a new aeroplane with new engines. It is so well known that the operator, while welcoming the economic advantages of modern airframe design, is invariably suspicious of new engines. It is fortunate perhaps for the progress of aviation, and indeed for the engine constructors and designers, that some aircraft constructors have the confidence and courage to use what the operator regards as a new engine. But we ourselves do not think of the Major as new. We regard it as a bigger and better Leonides. After all, the bore and stroke of the engines are the same. The cylinder, piston and valve arrangements are essentially the same, and these cylinders in Flying Training Command alone have built up a total of no less than one million flying hours. That figure does have the immense advantage that it gave the Major benefit in quick development since the cylinder assembly is always one of the slow features in a new engine." It will have been gathered that the thinking behind the Herald is deep and clear. Certainly Handley Page spared no pains to elicit the viewpoint of operators in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australasia and South America. Indeed they sent G/C. A. F. (Bush) Bandidt as Sir Frederick's personal representative to visit nearly every air- line in the world to search for the answer to the re-equipment problem of the short-haul operator. The outcome of their delibera- tions and designs is thus an eminently practical aeroplane, holding such promise that several months ahead of the first prototype's maiden flight (now imminent) the makers had announced orders for a total of 29 Heralds—by Australian National Airways, Queens- land Airlines and Lloyd Aero Colombiano. The Herald's wing comprises a centre-section, two outer panels and two tip panels. In the centre-section the skin is a metal sandwich, composed of a corrugated filler spot-welded to inner and outer skins. There are no heavy spar booms, so that the sandwich skin-panels carry bending and end loads. Handley Page The Herald nears completion: a "Flight" photograph taken last week at the Radlett works.
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