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Aviation History
1956
1956 - 1186.PDF
332 FLIGHT FROM ALL QUARTERS FILL 'ER UP: A crucial moment in the triumphal, if sedate, progress of a Vertol H-2J helicopter on a 2,610-mile flight-refuelled journey from San Diego to Washington. Here the H-21 is being refuelled, by the looped-hose method, from a de Havilland Otter (U.S. Army U-l). Britannia Proving FlightsB RISTOL BRITANNIA proving flights to Johannesburg, dis-continued by B.O.A.C. in April pending engine-icing modifications, were due to be resumed last Tuesday by G-ANBC.Two other flights to Johannesburg will be made before the inaugural passenger service (now scheduled for October 1), andthese are due to begin on September 3 and September 17. It is probable that a proving flight to Sydney via Hong Kong andSingapore will leave London on September 7. English Electric Accelerate DETAILS of two new supersonic tunnels for the EnglishElectric Company were revealed this week at a meeting of AGARD in Brussels (the first such meeting at which S.B.A.C.representatives have attended). The engineer in charge of the Warton research establishment, Mr. F. E. Roe, announced thatby 1958 the company's aircraft division will have a 4ft-square tunnel capable of Mach 4, and the guided weapons division an18in-square tunnel able to reach Mach 6 (faster than any other British installation of similar size). Both tunnels will be of the intermittent blow-down type, usinga common air supply. Data recording and reduction, by Deuce computer, will be automatic and the cost is reckoned at £300,000.A model of the installation will be on the English Electric stand at the S.B.A.C Show next week. The Gyron Junior JUST a year ago the de Havilland Engine Company were per-mitted to announce the existence of a turbojet called the Gyron Junior. Since that time security restrictions have forbidden publi-cation of any details of this unit; in fact, it has not even been pos- sible to confirm the fairly obvious fact that it is a scaled-downvariant of the Gyron. It is now certain that the company will be permitted to display a model of this engine at the forthcomingS.B.A.C. Exhibition and we are accordingly offering a few pre- liminary comments. In our "aero engines" issue of May 11 we published the follow-ing extract from an account written in the autumn of last year by an American journalist who had then just completed a tour ofseveral British aircraft plants: "de Havilland's pride is Gyron Junior DGJ.l, a scaled-down Gyrondesigned for thrusts in the 8,000 to 11,000 lb bracket. One of these engines is now (October) running on the test stand at the lower end ofthe design thrust range. The current weight is about 1,500 lb, a figure which should not increase to any great extent as the thrust values climb.Prospects are that the Junior will soon be announced as the highest known thrust/weight ratio turbojet, approaching a ratio better than 7 to 1.Observers see the engine as an Avon replacement. Its light weight and minute size—comparable to the Viper of 28in diameter and 66in length—fit it for a wide range of applications. Among these is installation in one of the prototype interceptors now nearing flight at Saunders-Roeand Avro." Such an engine fills a vital gap in the available range of aircraftpowerplants. It is instructive to prepare curves of thrust plotted against weight for recent designs of turbojet operating at the sameturbine-inlet temperature. If this is done the Junior shows up extremely well and no other engine more vividly illustrates theprogress which has been made since the first generation of axial turbojets appeared some seven years ago. The American writer's fhrase "Avon replacement" may be a trifle misleading, in that theunior is hardly likely to replace the Avon in airframes currentlyusing the latter engine. It is, however, an obvious choice for a wide variety of future designs of aircraft, many of which wouldsuffer serious performance penalties were any other engine to be chosen. Obvious applications for such a unit include all mannerof small, high-performance aircraft, with particular emphasis on mixed-power supersonic machines in which the turbojet could wellhave an afterburner, probably with a convergent/divergent nozzle. Compared with corresponding engines which have recentlybeen designed on the Continent, the Junior is very much more powerful. This indicates that we are either going to employ oneengine in types of aircraft for which the French have specified two, or, equally likely, that certain of the British aircraft which will usethis engine will be rather larger and heavier than has previously been thought necessary. Altogether the Junior should become one of the world's mostimportant engines, and its successful—and incidentally rapid— development augurs well for the future business of de Hayilland.Examination of the Gyron Junior at Farnborough will give dramatic indication of how the technology of the turbojet is begin-ning to approach its limits, at least as we see them at present. D.H.110 Mk 20: Pending allocation of a name, the foregoing is the designation of the production-type D.H.110 all-weather fighter, shown in this latest manufacturer's drawing (superseding that on page 354). Gnat Trainer "INTENDED to serve as a single stepping-stone between ab initio•*• instruction and operational flying, the two-seat Folland Gnat is shown for the first time in an accompanying three-view drawing.Basically the airfrarne is similar to that of the fighter, and the engine remains a Bristol Orpheus. Major differences include a slightly longer fuselage, with asecond Folland/Saab lightweight ejection seat for the instructor, GNAT FOR TWO: General arrangement of the Folland Gnat trainer, briefly described in the paragraph immediately above.
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