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Aviation History
1955
1955 - 1358.PDF
472 LIGHT .6 Sept. 1955 FARNBOROUGH FINALE Six-figure Crowds at the Week-end SOME 300,000 people attended the 16th S.B.A.C. FlyingDisplay and Exhibition, which concluded on Sundaylast, September 11th. Attendances on the four guest days—Monday to Thursday of last week—totalled about 60,000, of whom at least one in ten were overseas guests. Friday's crowd numbered 25,000; on Saturday the total was stated to be 112,006, despite poor weather on Sunday, the final public day, an attendance of 102,000 was recorded. The many distinguished visitors to the Show included the Prime Minister, Sir Anthony Eden, who arrived by helicopter on September 6th, and left that evening by Avro Vulcan, and Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, who came in to nearby Blackbushe the same day, piloting his own DC-3. Except for the absence of the English Electric P.I and Fairey Delta, the weekend flying programme was essentially as presented during the week. As a public spectacle, the display was perhaps slightly less effective than its predecessors of the past two or three years. One reason may have been the em- phasis on production aircraft rather than prototypes, and the comparatively small number of completely new types on show. The omission of supersonic bangs, by mutual agree- ment among the manufacturers concerned, detracted not at all from the technical value of the Show, but was probably regretted by many of the public. Piloting was, in general, ex- cellent, though on occasions the demonstrations fell short of the standards of originality established at previous S.B.A.C. Shows. From the public viewpoint, the breathtaking climb per- formance of the Olympus-Canberra was, once again, one of the outstanding features of the display; this event was seen at its best in Friday's and Saturday's relatively clear skies. The Gn3t, too, made a great impression with its compactness, speed and extreme manoeuvrability. For the public days, the Victor had something up its sleeve—a cluster of four braking parachutes, publicly shown for the first time. The weather finally tried to stop the show on Sunday, the
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