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Aviation History
1956
1956 - 1583.PDF
FIRST AERONAUTICAL WEEKLY IN THE WORLD FOUNDED 1909 and AIRCRAFT ENGINEER No 2494 Vol 70 FRIDAY 9 NOVEMBER 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 1, Ontario 67 Yonge Street Telephone • Empire 6-0873 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 744 Heavy Loads Let Down Lightly 747 A Field for the Helicopter 748 Functional Efficiency 749 FalcoF.8L 750 The Importance of Time- Part II 754 Something Old, Something New 756 Sapphire 7 761 Sea, Land and Air 771 Nuclear Power for Aircraft "Not as a Scythe ..."O UT of the storm of indignation and emotion that followed Britain's action against Egypt, and sometimes obscured the political and moral issues involved, a plain fact emerged: that the modern air weapon—in this instance comprising shore- and carrier-based elements of the British and French Services—can, by the very speed and precision of its operations, go far to achiev- ing the aim of a campaign with a minimal loss of time and of life. Within hours, almost, the Egyptian Air Force had been largely neutralized. Her Army's equip- ment had been heavily damaged and installations had been knocked out. The pattern of attack was a classic, with Valiants and Canberras bombing by night from medium level, using radar and pathfinder techniques, to ensure that opposing fighters should be grounded during the succeeding daylight attacks by fighter/bombers and strike aircraft. "A very high degree of accuracy" is officially claimed to have been achieved, and not the least gratifying aspect of this was that the loss of Egyptian life was, so far as can be gathered, very small. The air weapon is in all truth a very terrible one. But the opening phases of this grave and bitterly controversial operation have shown what can be accomplished when that weapon is handled as a rapier and not as a scythe. As this is written the airborne assault is under way. In this type of operation large bodies of men may be opposing each other at close quarters over relatively long periods and casualties could be heavy on both sides. But in this phase once again we have sought to spare the Egyptian people, for there has been no preliminary bombardment of the target area. Early reports show that the Hastings, the Valettas and the French Noratlases have returned without loss, their way having been cleared by fighter-bomber attacks on flak posts and similar targets. Grave and contentious as the Egyptian issue is, we can at least take pride that, insofar as lives could be spared, the air forces of Great Britain and France have, through their sheer effectiveness, been able to meet the earnest injunctions placed upon them. Oil or Neutrons?T HAT these islands are utterly dependent upon imported petroleum is a fact we are inclined to overlook until events such as those of recent weeks drive the truth forcibly home. Even so, there seems to be a general belief that, provided the world's shipping routes are kept open, and that not too many pipe- lines are cut or wells closed down, we shall never be starved of our life-blood of crude petroleum. This belief may, or may not, be justified; but the publication in this issue of an abstract of a paper, by a British engineer, on the application of nuclear power to the propulsion of aircraft is unquestionably pertinent. Although few in this country have yet devoted much real thought to the subject it is clearly one which should by now be the full-time concern of an appreciable proportion of our aircraft industry. Practically nothing has so far been said of our work in this field. American policy is in striking contrast. A writer in one of our transatlantic contemporaries recently reported that: — "Weapons System 125A is a bomber with supersonic dash performance, powered by theterrible energy that has devastated two cities, vaporized a fleet and swallowed an island . . . Two parallel programmes are under way on 125A, with a possible third in the offing.Convair ... is teamed with General Electric on one concept. A second kind of power- plant plus airplane is being worked out by Lockheed . . . and Pratt and Whitney. TheWS-125A bomber system is closer to reality than is generally realized. Many of "its sub- systems and components have been built and tested in the peculiar environment in whichthey will work. The list of tangible accomplishments is a formidable one. . . ." [The report goes on to give the list.] No one could expect Britain to support a programme equivalent to either half of the WS-125A project. But it is heartening to note that few members of our industry still appear to regard the nuclear-powered aeroplane as a nebulous dream of the future. Indifference could lead to unpleasant surprises.
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