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Aviation History
1955
1955 - 1589.PDF
706 FLIGHT, 4 November 1955 OTTERS IN THE PHILIPPINES . . . remembers that it is built up in a series of very short flights, withpassengers and cargo changing at every stop. The Otter's solid weight-lifting qualities contribute to the convenience of the opera-tion. All services operate with full tanks (216 U.S. gal) from base, which is sufficient for the return flight on all routes, withoutpenalizing the capacity payload of eleven passengers and two or three hundred kg of cargo. Thus no outstation refuelling facilitiesare required and the station facilities at most of the jungle strips comprise no more than a basha (thatched) hut with an ancienttypewriter, a file of manifests, and a local general-storekeeper or gas-station operator acting as traffic officer, loader and ground"hostess." The strips provided for the Otter have in most cases beenrecently cleared specifically for this operation and would be unusable by any other aeroplane of similar payload/range capabi-lities. Not only are they short and surrounded in many cases by jungle topping 200ft, they have also been constructed by an enthu-siastic but inexpert local population. Some strips are loosely bound by jungle grass, with an occasional truck-load of gravel in thedeeper depressions; some are rolled earth. Few are longer than 400 yards; usually they are as wide as a main road and have similarshelving shoulders. The approaches are often spectacular but the Filipino pilots handle the Otters with confident precision so thateach landing seems to be the simple and matter-of-fact manoeuvre which the public obviously like it to be. The pilots are unani-mously enthusiastic about the Otter's handling and the more startling aspects of its performance and, while sensibly recognizing SOUTHAMPTON UNIVERSITY FELLOWSHIP "PVR. J. E. YOUNG, of the acoustics laboratory, MassachusettsU Institute of Technology, has been appointed to the Shell-B.P. Fellowship in Aeronautics, which was established earlier in theyear at Southampton University by Shell-Mex and B.P., Ltd. He will take up his duties on January 1st, 1956. Dr. Young, a graduate in physics of Howard University, Wash-ington, has been associated with the acoustics laboratory at M.I.T. as research assistant and research staff member since 1949. While at M.I.T., Dr. Young has been mainly concerned withproblems in physical acoustics but since 1951 he has also under- taken the study of the propagation of noise fields within closedregions. At Southampton he will be engaged, under the direction of Prof.E. J. Richards, on problems of the noise-induced vibration of Struc- tures, as well as on more purely acoustical problems. BACK TO THE ANCESTRAL HOME TWO U.S.A.F. B-57Bs—a Glenn Martin licence-built ver-sion of the Canberra—arrived on October 24th at Warton, Lanes., for a two-day visit to English Electric. The aircraft hadflown from Laon, in France, and called at the U.S.A.F. base at Burtonwood to clear Customs. The two crews were Lt-Col.T. J. Price and Lt. L. J. Kaford (seen in the photograph below being welcomed by Mr. G. Hobday of English Electric) andLt-Col. J. R. O'Neill and Lt. J. Acton. During their stay they saw Canberra production at Preston and test-flying at Samlesbury. This photograph of one of the B-57Bs on arrival at Warton (see above) shows the hinged canopy which is among the major differences externally visible in the American product. that "it is early days yet," are confident that the operation is certainto go from strength to strength. The hazards of flying single-engine equipment over the jungleare not ignored, but the record of the Wasp engines in Beavers and Otters all over the world reduces this aspect to a modest level ofimportance. The pilots believe that the low stalling-speed and extraordinary robustness of the Otter will take much of the perilout of a forced descent in the jungle tops. A glance round the cabin, where a planter reads Time magazine and a young mothernurses her baby as we skim the mahogany forests under a low cloud-base, with no navigational aids beyond the pilot's profoundlocal knowledge and experience, quickly persuades one that the people are taking to the Otter with unreserved satisfaction. This public enthusiasm is not hard to explain. The landjourney from Gingog to Buenavista takes five hours by car and costs forty pesos. The Otter takes twenty minutes and the fareis nine pesos. Bislig to Davao is a fifty-minute Otter flight. Alterna- tively you can spend a week on a coastal freighter which sails oncea month. Lianga to Bislig is a twenty-minute Otter flight or a twenty-four-hour journey by outboard motor-boat and truck fornine months of the year; during the monsoon there is no surface communication. North from Lianga, the flight to Buenavistatakes thirty minutes by Otter and there is no land communication except a three-day foot-trail. Admittedly there is a five-day seatrip or a week on a river boat, when available. No wonder the air route remains popular! Is there anything wrong with the Otter? Well, the entranceladder which suits the Royal Canadian Military Police is pretty unsatisfactory. Women do wear high heels in the bush occasion-ally, praise be. H. G. R. CHARLESTON STRIKES A BLOW A MANIFESTO issued recently by the Aircraft Owners and**• Pilots Association of Washington, D.C., deserves quotation in full. We have tried—and failed—to imagine what would be said(and, no doubt, done) were our own Royal Aero Club, say, or the Association of British Aero Clubs and Centres, to publish a similarprotest about Royal Air Force acquisition of a civil airfield. Here it is: — "Efforts of the U.S. Air Force to quietly take over the giantmunicipal airport at Charleston, S.C., and ban civil aviation from its use, were blocked recently by efforts of Charleston city offi-cials. They were assisted in Washington by the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA), which has long regarded this AirForce policy a serious threat to civil aviation throughout the United States. "Working behind the scenes at Charleston, Air Force officialshave been seeking exclusive use of the big airport. They have been concentrating their efforts on local merchants, using pat-riotism and promise of multi-million dollar payrolls as their major inducements. But Charleston city officials, headed by MayorWilliam Morrison, have stood firm for the preservation of civil aviation in the state's second largest city. AOPA strongly supportsthe official Charleston position that the Air Force be permitted to have joint use of the airport along with civil aviation, but thatthey not be permitted to ban civil aviation or place unjustified restrictions on it. "When AOPA first heard of the Air Force's behind-the-scenesaction from AOPA members in Charleston, that national associa- tion immediately requested a formal public hearing into the entirecase by the Government's top Airport Use Panel, a body that has been given the specific responsibility of preventing any unfairactions by any Government agency in the use of U.S. airports. As the result of AOPA's request, Charleston city officials appearedbefore a preliminary meeting of the Airport Use Panel in Washing- ton, revealing for the first time in detail what actions had beentaken by the Air Force in its attempts to quietly take over the civil airport. "As the result of this prompt action, it now appears that the AirForce will either agree to joint use of the airport, or pay the city for the present airport so that Charleston can build a new civilairport." NOMAD APPLICATIONS WE reported last week the lecture delivered by Mr. A. G.Newton, of Rolls-Royce, as part of a symposium held by the University of Delft, Holland. On the same occasion Mr.E. E. Chatterton, chief engineer, piston engine development, of D. Napier and Son, Ltd., spoke about the Nomad. It wasintended, he said, to fit Nomads in a Blackburn and General Aircraft Universal, but so far there had been no money for theproject. The Britannia with Nomads would have a greater range (5,000 miles) than with Proteus turboprops (4,000 miles), andB.O.A.C. was interested in such a development. Again, however, there seemed to be no money for it. Studies had also been made ofa Nomad-Packet, performance of which was "quite astonishing."
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