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Aviation History
1956
1956 - 0661.PDF
FIRST AERONAUTICAL WEEKLY IN THE WOR:LD FOUNDED 1909 and AIRCRAFT ENGINEER No 2471 Vol 69 FRIDAY 1 JUNE 1956 Editor MAURICE A. SMITH D.F.C. and BAR Associate Editor . ', H. F. KING M.B.E. Technical Editor W. T. GUNSTON Production Editor ROY CASEY Iliffe and Sons Ltd Dorset House ~ Stamford Street London, S.E.I Telephone • Waterloo 3333 (60 lines) BRANCH OFFICES Coventry 8-10 Corporation Street Telephone • Coventry 5210 Birmingham 2 King Edward House, New Street Telephone • Midland 7191 (7 lines) Manchester 3 260 Deansgate Telephone • Blackfriars 4412 (3 lines)Deansgate 3595 (2 lines) Glasgow C.2 26B Renfield Street Telephone • Central 1265 (2 lines) Toronto 2, Ontario 74 College Street Telephone • Walnut 4-5631 New York 6, N.Y. Ill Broadway Telephone Digby 9-1197 SUBSCRIPTION RATES Home and Overseas • Twelve Months, £4 10s. U.S.A. and Canada, $14.00 In this issue 664 Formation Aerobatics 667 Handling the Napier Eland Airliner 670 New Tunnel at Belfast 671 Vickers Vanguard 677 The de Havilland D.H.9A— Part 2 681 Whitsun in Retrospect 690 Nostalgia in N.W.4 The Mysterious StrangerU NLIKE ships, aeroplanes in their element are seldom wholly amenable to disguise or camouflage. The most cunning dazzle-painting could never cause a Hunter to appear to be going astern; nor would the most imposing array of pods, turrets and radomes give a Canberra the air of a B-36. True, there have been numerous instances of mass deception in recent years, such as black- crossed Battles, asymmetric observation machines and butterfly-winged V.ls over England during the war. But people today are less easily deluded or bamboozled, especially if they dwell on the fringes of a busy airfield, and the testimony of a Flight reader that he has seen a strange type of jet aircraft over the Lakenheath, Suffolk, district must not be ignored. "In the sky," he says, "it looks like the war-time Horsa glider." He believes it to have one jet engine and reports a high tailplane, unswept wings of high aspect-ratio, and the ability to fly and climb at a very great speed. Another local report mentions a jettisonable undercarriage. There we have clue number one. Against this can be set a second—the seemingly guileless comment of a U.S.A.F. spokesman when questioned concerning the machine described. "It is not a combat plane," he said. "It is a high-altitude weather-research plane . . . being tested at Lakenheath as part of the programme for aeronautical research." So the stranger is no apparition. Clue number three (or have recent events over-stimulated our imagination?) is the disclosure in Flight of May 18 of a new aircraft known as the Lockheed U-2 which will cruise at a height of ten miles "as a matter of course." It is powered by a Pratt and Whitney J57 and is to be used for studying jet streams, for investigating turbulence and gusts, for examining air for cosmic ray particles, ozone —and radio-active content. ' Another thrilling instalment next week? T Traffic in Olive Branches "W^ORTY years ago Lenin prepared an instruction manual for students of •H Communism with a title which corresponded roughly with the International -*- Standards and Recommended Practices of the documents familiar to students of I.C.A.O. The most sinister annex contained the following three-point plan for Communist world domination: (1) provoke the enemy to the very threshold of conflict, (2) suddenly beguile him with repentant overtures of peace, (3) smash him down when his guard is lowered. It may well be that Communism's technical committees, like those of the International Civil Aviation Organization, are constantly revising their recom- mendations in the light of changing conditions. If, however, Lenin's chilling plot is still unfolding according to the author's original plan, the world is now at Stage 2. But we believe that the West, without dropping its guard according to Stage 3, has nothing to lose by assuming that the present overtures are genuine. Western aviation, in particular, has everything to gain. The Tu-104's recent skittish Sittings to and fro, with payloads of vodka and caviare, between London and Moscow; the outstretching of Aeroflot's hand to Finnair, S.A.S., PanAm and B.E.A. (one of whose Viscounts is visiting Moscow next Tuesday with a party of travel agents); the invitation to the U.S. and British Air Staffs to attend the Soviet air display on June 24—all these are reminders of the role that aviation, particularly civil aviation, can play in the wealth and trust of nations. But, as the world airline organization I.A.T.A. well knows—particularly when it comes to the implementation of the fares and technical services it recommends —the airlines are limited in action by governments. It is seven months since the chairman of B.E.A. was in Moscow to discuss an exchange of traffic rights—yet, so far, through travel from London to Moscow is by S.A.S. or Finnair. British civil aviation, we feel, should be free to trade on the new spirit, which can be tested for genuineness in no better way.
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