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Aviation History
1955
1955 - 1316.PDF
430 FLIGHT FROM ALL QUARTERS A New Altitude Record—65,876ft DURING flight-development of the Olympus turbojet, theEngine Division of the Bristol Aeroplane Company have twice found it a comparatively straightforward matter to attackthe World altitude record (Class C: aeroplanes). Such is the unbeatable combination of a Canberra airframe and a pair of high-compression turbojets delivering very high thrust up to extreme altitude. Yet it should not be inferred that such records areobtained merely by sitting at the controls, for efficient flying in a regime in which critical Mach number is virtually coincident withstalling speed is not exactly easy. Bristol's assistant chief test pilot, W/C. Walter F. Gibb, D.S.O., D.F.C., was the pilot on boththe Olympus-Canberra records. He took off from the company airfield at Filton at 3.10 p.m.on August 29th and set course on about 290 deg, climbing up to 50,000ft off the Irish coast. He then turned south, to burnoff excess fuel during a ten-minute level cruise, at the end of which he again began to climb while heading back to Filton,reaching the peak altitude over the airfield. Power was then shut down, and, taking care to prevent excessive Mach-numberbuild-up, Gibb landed the Canberra at Filton at 4.23 p.m. The new record figure is 65,876ft (20,079m). This is 3.47 percent better than the previous record of 63,668ft (19,406m) set up by the same aircraft and pilot on May 3rd, 1953. To seta new record, the previous one must be bettered by three per cent. English Electric built WD 952, the test-bed Canberra, backin 1951. It is one of the very first production batches of B.2 aircraft, and has since logged a considerable number of hoursin several roles. No aerodynamic changes have been made to the aircraft, and its altitude performance—as an airframe—isinferior to that of the much later P.R. Mk 9. On its first record climb, in 1953, it was fitted with a pair ofBristol Olympus BO1.1/2B engines, delivering up to 10,000 1b static thrust. Originally, WD 952 was built to take a pair ofearly Avons, and the installation of the Olympus raised several problems. The big two-spool Bristol engine projected far aheadof the wing, causing e.g., mounting and wing-stressing problems, and the considerably greater mass flow made it difficult to run thenew jet-pipe through the spar banjos. These troubles have all been overcome, and the aircraft can now utilize all the thrustavailable from its power units. The latter are now Olympus BOl.lls. These are much morerecent members of the Olympus family, and their thrust cannot yet be published. It can, however, be stated that they deliversignificantly more installed power than WD 952 has ever had before. Overall handling remains outstandingly good, andrelights have regularly been made at heights over 50,000ft. For normal engine-development purposes, the Canberra isequipped with comprehensive instrumentation, including two large auto-obseryer cameras in the bomb bay. Further equip-ment is stowed in the space made available by removing one of SATISFACTION ALL ROUND: After the Olympus altitude flight, reported in column 1. Left to right, W/C. W. F. Gibb, Mr. B. G. Markham, Mr. C. F. Uwins, Sir Alec Coryton, and Dr. S. G. Hooker. the two rear ejection seats. For height-record calibration,W/C. Gibb flew alone, a considerable amount of additional recording equipment being carried to provide the most reliableand accurate results. Official observer appointed by the Royal Aero Club was, asnoted last week, G/C. J. F. H. du Boulay; Philip Mayne was timekeeper. In charge of the instrumentation were Messrs. W.Goldsmith, P. A. Dixon and T. P. Wade, all of the R.A.E. Also from Farnborough was Mr. K. W. Smith, responsible for flightcalibration. Live Ejection at Nought Feet T AST Saturday evening, at Chalgrove airfield, near Benson,•J-'S/L. J. S. Fifield, a Martin-Baker test pilot, carried out the first successful ejection from the back seat of the modifiedMeteor Mk 7/8, while the aircraft was travelling at 120kt on a grass surface. From the time he pulled the blind to fire theseat to the moment his feet touched the ground in a stable para- chute landing, some four or five seconds elapsed. The seat was a normal Martin-Baker Service Mk 3 seat, withback-type standard parachute and leg-restraint garters. The automatic-release timing mechanism had been modified so thatthe drogue gun was fired 0.5 sec after ejection and the parachute deployed one second later. S/L. Fifield is an experienced testpilot, but not a professional parachutist. He had made three live ejections before. The pilot of the Meteor was Capt. J. E. D.Scott, the company's chief test pilot. Though a number of successful dummy ejections from runwaylevel at low speed had been made with both the Mk 3 and Mk 4 seats, this first and completely successful live ejection provesbeyond doubt the efficacy of Martin-Baker's latest venture. It provides a new safeguard for pilots of high-speed aircraft.It is hoped that the release mechanism of standard Service seats will, when the double-drogue deceleration system is fitted,be modified so that either the instantaneous or slightly slower high-speed operations can be available as required by the pilot.Automatic explosive hood jettisoning, initiated by the pulling of the ejection blind, would also be incorporated. FLIGHT TRIALS of the Curtiss-W right T49 tur- boprop began on August 26th, when the Boeing XB-47D took off from Boeing Field, Seattle. Rated at about 6,500 e.s.h.p., the T49 is at present the most power- ful shaft - drive aero engine to have flown. It is based on the J65 Sapphire turbojet, and is derated in B.E.25 manner. The XB-47D is a converted B-47B, the T49s replacing the two pairs of inner General Electric J47 turbojets.
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