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Aviation History
1956
1956 - 0822.PDF
824 FLIGHT INDEPENDENT ENTERPRISE Otters and a Beaver in U.S.A. and Canada THE prerequisite of any successful new commercial ventureis the offer of something better than that which previouslyexisted. The introduction of a fifty-minute flight between Cleveland and Detroit, which makes use of water operation tosave considerable time on the journey between business centres, has, not surprisingly, been received with enthusiasm by business-men of the two cities. This enterprise was recently inaugurated by Air. Edward T.Knight and Mr. Edgar H. Eklund, respectively president and vice- president of the newly formed Taxi Air Group Inc. T.A.G.—their emblem boldly displayed on the rear fuselages—operate a ten-seater de Hayilland Otter and a five-seater D.H. Beaver float-plane (the first in use by a U.S. commercial operator) on four flights a day from the seaplane base in the Detroit river over LakeErie to the Cleveland Lakeshore Airport. This route represents a considerable saving in the surface mileage that has to be covered,and avoids the journey time from outlying airports. If sufficient demand arises, Toledo will be included in the T.A.G. schedule,and other water-based services of this type are obviously possible for similar cross-water journeys. Time-saving for businessmen is not the only service an inde- America: The DM. Otter of Taxi Air Group in flight over Detroit. Canada: The Wardair Otter fleet referred to below. pendent operator can provide. Max Ward, president of Wardair,Ltd., has progressed (from a one-man one-Fox Moth service) to become the operator of three D.H. Otters and a Beaver. Thishe has achieved by his experience of the region bounded by the Rocky Mountains, the Arctic Ocean, the District of Keewatinand the 60th parallel, and by the provision of aircraft suitable for transporting prospecting parties and equipment for mining campsto places as far north as Shepherd Bay, which lies within 140 miles of the Magnetic Pole. Although operations are confined to V.F.R. conditions, implyinglimited winter operations, Wardair Otters achieve a utilization of 1,000 hours per year, and the Beaver 600 hours. The company'srevenue-load capacity is now nearly 400,000 ton-miles per year at tariffs equivalent of 6s 7d per mile for the Otter and 4s 7d permile for the Beaver. Operations at temperatures of 68 deg below zero have beenmastered by the use of split wooden discs fitting over the nose- opening to seal the cowlings, and Herman Nelson heaters andcanvas airframe and engine tents. By these means even overhauls can be carried out in extreme sub-zero conditions. AUSTRIA'S EMPTY TRANSPORT SCENE AUSTRIA finds itself in the odd position of having new air-ports with no airlines wanting to use them. At the beginning of the year it appeared certain that a new airline, Austrian Airways,would be formed in Vienna with the backing of S.A.S. (Flight, April 6), and another airline, Air Austria, had also been estab-lished with K.L.M.'s backing (Flight, January 20). Since then, however, a general election has been held; Austrian Airways wasoriginally backed by the Socialists, while Air Austria was sup- ported by the Conservatives; these two parties had almost equalstrength, but as a result of the election there is now a coalition of the two parties. Some sort of compromise airline may result, butthe whole question of Austrian civil aviation seems to be rather a touchy one in Vienna at the moment. One of the new airports is at Graz, second city of Austria. Itis now completed, with a 1,640 yd paved runway. Six miles from the city, it is called Thalerhof, but no airline has consideredusing it as yet and its modern terminal buildings echo emptily to the occasional footfalls of a skeleton staff. At the end ofthe runway lie some of the largest hangars in Europe, built by the Luftwaffe towards the end of the war. Inside these vastedifices, like ants in a matchbox, sit two small flying-club machines. ARTIST AND R.A.F. 1AST year Pamela Drew (Lady Rathdonnell of Lisnavagh) spent' about three months in the Middle East and Kenya making a pictorial record of the R.A.F.'s activities in those areas. She visitedCyprus, Aden, Port Sudan, British Somaliland, Jordan, the Canal Zone and Kenya, and the results of her travels can be seen in aLondon exhibition open to the public (admission free) until July 1. The exhibition (at the Imperial Institute, South Kensington) wasopened on June 8 by the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Dermot Boyle. The C.A.S. spoke of his pleasure at being asked to open theexhibition and at meeting the artist again: she had been die only artist to paint the R.A.F.'s Coronation review in 1953, and she wasone of those people who seemed to get everyone interested in her work. She had flown in some 14 different types of aircraft duringher tour. The exhibition, which numbers 122 works, is of great variety,and whilst the emphasis is upon aircraft, the artist does not over- look the vital work of the ground forces: there are also someimpressive portraits. Pamela Drew has used both oils and pastels for her interpretations of R.A.F. life—and these cover a wide rangeof activities, such as flight servicing, forest patrols, aircraft refuel- ling and re-arming and tracker-dog searches.
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