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Aviation History
1955
1955 - 1617.PDF
734 The pleasing proportions of the Britannia 300 are apparent from this picture, taken last week, of the first aircraft. It is due to fly before the summer. Note the protective clothing which guards the pressure hull from manufacturing scratches. BRITANNIA PROGRESS REPORT ? Results of Last Summer's Development Programme: Orders and Deliveries WITH well over 2,500 test flying-hours to its credit, theBristol Britannia 100 is now approaching the thresholdof its introduction to regular airline service. Three pro- duction aircraft should be ready for delivery to B.O.A.C. by theend of the year and the remaining 12 Mk 100s are in various phases of final assembly; the fourth Britannia 100, G-ANBD,has reached the engine-running stage and the fifth is not far behind it. Rate of production, therefore, is not the factor which will de-cide the date of introduction to service (on the London-Johannes- burg route); this is largely dependent on the issue of a Certificateof Airworthiness. The bulk of C. of A. testing was in fact completed during thepast summer, and the Air Registration Board are in possession of all the resulting data. When the Certificate of Airworthinesshas been issued B.O.A.C. will take delivery of their first aircraft to begin a final pre-service programme of route-proving andtraining. With memories of recent Britannia proving flights in mind, many readers may query the necessity for a second seriesof overseas flights. The explanation is that trips made so far have been intended largely to prove the aircraft under routeconditions; the B.O.A.C. programme will prove the service in all its aspects, which represent too many birds to succumb to asingle stone. Every pilot, for example, must be checked out on instrumentprocedures at every airport on the Johannesburg and—a little later—Sydney routes. The best of a number of theoretical cruiseprocedures must be determined in practice. Replacement of 40/56-seat Argonauts by 90-seat Britannias cannot be effectedovernight without training ground staffs of all grades, to handle the new aircraft. Scores of new Britannia crews have yet toundergo their basic flying conversion courses—a task which cannot be delayed overlong, since the Britannia 100 fleet shouldbuild up fairly rapidly to full strength after the introduction to service. The later the introduction, in fact, the larger will bethe fleet and the more profound its influence on B.O.A.G's operations.A fair amount of work, then, has yet to be done by B.O.A.C. before the Britannia gets into service. In Bristol's hands, how-ever, prototype and production Britannias have already flown far more hours, over a wider range of tests, than any previoustype of airliner in the pre-delivery stage of its career. This fact stems from a decision taken just over a year ago—in October,1954, when it was agreed between Bristol and B.O.A.C. that the Britannia should amass a total of 2,000 flying hours, including250 hours of overseas route-proving trials, before delivery. Bristol's flight-test team set themselves the task of completingthis programme by mid-1955, the target date also for the C. of A. Starting with a total of some 700 hours in January this year,Britannias had passed the 2,000 hr mark by July 1955, and the 250 hr of route-proving by 19th October last, in the course of anintensive round-the-clock programme involving four aircraft, with duties allocated broadly as follows: G-ALBO (prototype)—engine and airscrew development, electrics and radio; G-ANBA —performance, functioning of systems, autopilot; G-ANBB—handling; G-ANBC—route-proving. The opportunity was taken by B.O.A.C. during the programmeto familiarize crews with the Britannia. In fact, by the end of 1954 G-ALBO was being flown almost entirely by the Corpora-tion's officers, and to date a total of 17 crews have been checked out. The route trials, undertaken by G-ANBC between September9th and October 19th, were as follows:— September 10-14th: Johannesburg via London Airport, Cairo andNairobi (45 hr 59 min); 15-18th: Johannesburg via London Airport, Cairo and Nairobi (42 hr 11 min); 20-21st: Idris via London Airport,with full passenger load, primarily for check on functioning of cabin atmosphere system (11 hr 55 min); 22-23rd: Rome via London Airport(circuitious route). Originally planned for Idris, but plans changed owing to B.O.A.C. crash there (12 hr 13 min); 25-29th: Entebbe via LondonAirport and Cairo. Local flight from Entebbe for anti-icing tests (34 hr 34 min); October l-6th: Karachi via London Airport and Cairo.Intended to fly to Bombay but diverted to Karachi by bad weather (39 hr 16 min); 8-10th: Tel Aviv via London Airport. Demonstrationflight at Lod on October 9th. On return flight to L.A.P. aircraft stacked over Epsom for 1 hr 50 min (23 hr 32 min); 12-19th: Nairobi via Romeand Khartoum. Local flight from Nairobi for anti-icing tests, and local test flight at Khartoum. Flew Filton-Rome direct because of bad weatherat L.A.P. Returned via L.A.P. (36 hr 53 min). In addition, with the agreement of A.R.B., a number of local flights tocomplete some outstanding test work were carried out as part of the route-proving programme. These, all Filton-Filton flights, brought thetotal route-proving hours to 262 hr 10 min and the total flying hours completed by G-ANBC to 331 hr 5 min. The last of these flights wasmade on October 24th. Sights had been set high for a mid-1955 target: but by July
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