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Aviation History
1955
1955 - 1796.PDF
FLIGHT, 16 December 1955 . CIVIL AVIATION ... 100 miles and up to 8 P.P.I, displays can be used with one aerialhead. At Jan Smuts the radar head will be remotely operated from the control tower at a distance of about 1J miles. GATWICK DEVELOPMENTST HE first two contracts for the development of Gatwick Airportwere let on December 2nd, announces the M.T.C.A. One, for the construction of diversion roads, was awarded to Tarmac, Ltd •the other, for the demolition of 17 houses and ground clearance preliminary to construction of the runway, was awarded to theCrawley Demolition Company. The road contracts will cover the diversion of two and three-quarter miles of the London-Brighton trunk road (A.23), the con- struction of a link road from A.23 to the Reigate Road (A.217), andthe diversion of 900 yd of the Lowfield Heath-Charlwood Road. Work under both contracts will be started before the end ofthe year. MORE SUPER-Gs ORDERED EIGHT L.1049G Super Constellations have been ordered byT.W.A., with delivery beginning in June 1956. The airline's present fleet of 125 Constellation-series aircraft (largest one-typefleet in the world) includes 20 L.1049Gs. These aircraft, dubbed Super-Gs by T.W.A., were recently introduced on North Atlanticservices. 919 T.C.A. SELL FREIGHTERS ^ r *THREE Bristol Freighters and a DC-3 cargo aircraft have•* been sold by Trans-Canada Air Lines to Central Northern Airways, of Winnipeg. The total price is given by T.C.A. as£394,642. Announcing the sale, the company said that it "has now completed the conversion of an adequate number of NorthStars to all-freight carriers. These have a greater capacity and are faster than the Bristols which are now being sold." MR. A. A. PRIESTER E record with regret the death of Mr. Andre A. Priester, chairman of the I.A.T.A. technical committee and one of itsfounders in 1945. He died suddenly in Paris on November 28th after the opening session of the committee's tenth anniversarymeeting. In the words of I.A.T.A.: "His outstanding services . . . will remain as a lasting memorial in the eyes of the airlineindustry-" Mr. Priester, who was 64, was a vice-president of Pan American World Airways, which he joined in 1927. He wasresponsible in the early years of PanAm for the technical direction of the company's operations and for the selection of new equip-ment; he played a leading part in the development of many famous airliners including the Fokker F.7 and F.10, the FordTrimotor, Sikorsky S-38 and Boeing Stratocruiser. Recently he had been concerned with jet transport development. He learnt tofly after the first world war, in which he served as lieutenant in the Royal Netherlands Army. His aviation career began withK.L.M. in 1920. BREVITIES A PARTY of six senior officials of Lufthansa recently spenta week studying the Viscount at the Weybridge and Hurn factories of Vickers-Armstrongs, Ltd. Among the party wereHerr Reishenbaker (head of planning) and Herr Sussenguth (deputy chief engineer). * * * B.K.S. Air Transport, Ltd., are reported to be planning theexpenditure of more than £lm on replacements for their fleet of DC-3s and Vikings. The choice of type has been narrowed downto two—the Handley Page Herald and the Fokker Friendship, which was recently inspected at Schiphol by Mr. T. D. Keegan,one of the directors of B.K.S. * * * The appointment of Mr. Derek J. Plan as commercial manager is announced by Hunting-Clan Air Transport, Ltd. For the past year Mr. Platt has held a similar appointment with British West Indian Airways and was previously commercial manager, Cyprus Airways, for six years. He joined Imperial Airways as a trainee in 1936 and subsequently served with both B.O.A.C. and B.E.A. * * * Two overseas airlines have announced the adoption of theKelvin Hughes periscopic sextant for British-built aircraft now on order. Central African Airways have specified it for theirfive Viscount 748s, and the instrument will also be fitted in the three long-range Britannia 300s ordered by El Al.* * * A contract worth "several million dollars" has been awarded to the Solar Aircraft Co. by Lockheed Aircraft Corporation for construction of stainless steel engine-nacelle components on the new L.1649 Super Constellation. * * * Capt. Rudolf Mayr, chief pilot of Lufthansa, is one of thefour captains who, as reported recently, are the first German pilots to take command of German-registered civil aircraft sincethe war; the others are Walter Blume, Jupp Foerster and Fritz Stehle. Mayr and Blume are veterans of the pre-war Lufthansa,having between them made a total of 166 crossings of the North and South Atlantic. Foerster and Stehle both began flying withthe Luftwaffe and took out civil licences in the Middle East in 1948. All four are captaining DC-3s on German internal routes.* * * S.A.S. have created the new post of general sales manager forGreat Britain and Eire as part of an expansion of their sales activities. It will be filled by Lt. Col. Colin Gray, who was untilrecently managing director of Davell and Co. (London), Ltd. * * * Air transport movements at U.K. airfields in September 1955totalled 31,000, and traffic for the month comprised 63,333 passengers, 16,000 tons of freight and 1,430 tons of mail; thesefigures represent percentage increases of respectively 16, 22, 42 and 18 over the total for September 1954.* * * Aircraft crossing the eastern half of Cyprus have been for-bidden to fly below 9,000ft and a limitation of 7,000ft applies to the rest of the island. These regulations are reported to bedesigned to prevent illegal smuggling of arms and explosives or the entry of unwanted persons. * * * The A.R.B. have approved an increase from 1,250 to l,500hrin the overhaul life of the de Havilland airscrews fitted to Elizabethans of B.E.A. The overhaul life of these four-blade,16ft units was originally set at 400 hr and has increased steadily since the Elizabethans went into service in March 1952. * * * Hunting-Clan Air Transport are the latest independent air- line to use the Airwork air terminal in Brompton Road for handling of their passenger services. Opened in December 1953, the terminal is also served by Britannia, Dan-Air, Eagle and Skyways, and, of course, by Airwork. * * * Operational user trials of Decca A.S.M.I. (airfield surface movement indicator) radar began at London Airport on Novem- ber 30th. During the trial period information from the radar screen will be used by air traffic control to supplement, but not to replace, current taxying procedures.
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