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Aviation History
1955
1955 - 1628.PDF
746-747FLIGHT, 11 Novemb,1955 CONTINUOUS PERFORMANCE THERE is a certain visual satisfaction in the airport scene,with its flat patterns of windswept grass and concrete,enlivened by die sleek, shining forms of transport aircraft. Airliners, painted and polished, are the non-stop performers onthis great open-air stage. Audiences are made up of the spec- tators who crowd public enclosures to watch the exits andentrances of aeroplanes, and to travel vicariously to and from loudspoken destinations. Airport workers and passengers formthe supporting cast, too much a part of the play to see it as a whole. It is a scene subject to dramatic change, according to the time,the place, the traffic and, above all, the weather. All four influences are at work in these contrasting impressions of threemajor airports. Schiphol, airport of Amsterdam and gateway to the Nether-lands, is seen (left) on a late October afternoon. Standing on the glistening apron, dwarfed by a massive autumn cloudscape,are four inter-city airliners—a B.E.A. Viscount, a Scandinavian Airlines Scandia and two locally based K.L.M. Convairs.Schiphol lies 13ft below sea level and was once part of a lake, the Haarlemmermeerpolder.The sunny London Airport scene above recalls an uncommonly fine summer, which saw the opening of the new central terminalbuildings in the background. Such weather undoubtedly helped to encourage the growth of London's traffic, which reached arecord peak of 689 landings or take-offs in one day. Among the most frequent users of this, Europe's busiest airport, are theViscounts of B.E-A. and Air France, four of which arc seen in company.Finally, a dazzling glimpse of the Lockheed Air Terminal at Burbank. An almost symbolic setting, this, for while a nightshift prepares two new Super Constellations for flight-testing on the morrow the floodlit terminal in the background is main-taining the tempo of routine airline schedules. In the far distance are seen the Hollywood Hills, silhouetted against theCalifornian night sky. w> -^i*.
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