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Aviation History
1956
1956 - 0130.PDF
130 FLIGHT Powered by Armstrong Siddeley Cheetahs, four C.A.S.A. 201 Alcotans, the first of 112 machines for the air force, come off the production line at C.A.S.A.'s factory near Madrid. The company is responsible for three transport aircraft as well as the Heinkel 111 bomber, the Dornier 25 liaison aircraft and Bucket Jungmann trainers. MADE IN SPAIN Design and Production in the Peninsula By C. M. LAMBERT DURING a visit to Spain last month I was granted extensivefacilities by the Spanish Air Ministry to visit the country'saircraft factories. In fact, the review which follows could not have been prepared without the wholehearted co-operation ofthe Ministry, of the government agencies supervising production and of the directors of the firms themselves. And this was not all;I was invited to make a full conducted tour of I.N.T.A., the national aeronautical institute, which is an organization combin-ing the functions of our own Farnborough and Boscombe Down. Little comprehensive information about Spanish aircraft designand construction seems to reach other countries, partly because the industry is, for many good reasons, established on a verymuch more limited scale than those of more extensively indus- trial countries, such as the U.S.A. and Great Britain, and partlybecause production is not aimed to any great extent at export sales to other countries. This latter condition is in many waysregrettable, for some of the aircraft now being developed appear to be well worth exporting. The industry as a whole suffers under several severe handicaps,the most important of which are the lack of a really comprehen- sive accessory industry, the absence of home-produced engines ofhigh power, and the difficulty of producing the most complicated components with the materials and equipment available. Air-craft construction (though by no means based on outmoded principles) is therefore generally simple; and new aircraft havenot until recently been designed round very high-powered engines. Spain has found it difficult for one reason and another to importmaterials and equipment from abroad; but components of all kinds, and particularly engines, are now reaching the factories inlarger numbers. Most severely affected has been the production of the aircraftbuilt under German licence in Spain since World War 2. The Heinkel 111 bomber and the Messerschmitt 109 were put intofairly large-scale production in Spain and were to have been powered respectively by the Junkers Jumo 211 and the Hispano12-Z-17. The Jumos were, however, made in France during the occupation and those that were delivered (some 200) are now veryold and not always reliable. The Hispano 12-Z-17 was made in Spain, but production has since stopped. Numbers of HeinkelIlls and some MelO9s have therefore been awaiting new power- plants for some considerable time, but this has now been remediedby the purchase from Britain of a large number of Rolls-Royce Merlins. One version of the Merlin is being installed in theMelO9, for which it is admirably suited, and another in the Heinkel. It is not claimed for either of these types that they areany longer front-line righting aircraft, especially since T-33s for conversion training and F-86Fs for squadrons are now beingdelivered to the Spanish Air Force from America. The important factor about these German aircraft is that theyhave given the factories a knowledge of the construction of modern and fairly complex aircraft which makes them capable of under-taking any similar work that may now come to hand. This holds good particularly for the factories of C.A.S.A. (the main construc-tor of large aircraft), which are well laid out and well equipped, and for Hispano, who are even now beginning to take on jet-aircraft construction. The engine difficulty is by no means general, however, sinceE.N.M.A.S.A.—the national aircraft engine company at Barcelona —now has in production a range of lower-powered engines whichhas given (and is still giving) excellent service in several types. They range from the 150 h.p. Tigre to the 750 h.p. Beta. Thenational company is at present developing the new Sirio medium- powered radial engine and the first test runs of a medium-thrustturbojet have been made at I.N.T.A. The problem of airscrews has been overcome by E.N.H.A.S.A.—the national airscrew company in Madrid—by the production under licence of some de Havilland types, and the English com-pany has in fact designed a small metal, four-blade, constant-speed airscrew specially for the Sirio engine. This power unit is atpresent being bench- and air-tested at I.N.T.A. and in the central nacelle of one of the C.A.S.A.-built Ju52s. There are a number of subsidiaries of foreign component com-panies—such as Spanish Pirelli, Marconi, Bressel and Standard— which provide the industry with tyres, radio, instruments, elec-trical equipment and radiators; but practically everything else— including in some cases rivets and other small parts—are made bythe constructors themselves. Among these components are under- carriages, hydraulics, brakes and other specialized items, so thedesign staffs consequently have to shoulder a load which should not normally be theirs. In its turn this must discourage designersfrom trying too quickly to incorporate in their projects such com- plex equipment as advanced radio or radar, pressurization andair-conditioning and gyro gun-sights, which would in Britain or America receive the attention of companies that have longspecialized only in such equipment. The following account of the various companies' activitiesattempts to make no comparison between individual concerns, but gives a picture of present activity and of new aircraft now beingdeveloped. A number of foreign designers have been able to take advantage of the industry's capacity to produce new aircraft suchas the Hispano trainers, the A.I.S.A.-Dewoitine AVD 12, C.A.S.A.'s Dornier 25 and the Cantinieau helicopters of theAerotecnica company. These merit particular attention because they show what the industry can accomplish in small aircraft. Anexcellent purely Spanish light aircraft is the A.I.S.A. I-11B, now in production, and C.A.S.A. is now developing the C.A.S.A. 207Azor twin-Hercules transport, Hispano Aviation, S.A. Traditionally the Hispano companyhas built single-engined aircraft of the fighter and advanced- trainer type. By virtue of this, and because of a long-standing
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