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Aviation History
1956
1956 - 1628.PDF
786 FLIGHT, 16 November 1956 The visitors: (left to right) Ldg. Teleg. D. Dodds, P.O. Teleg. C. J. Byway, Chief Aircrewman S. W. Lock, Lt-Cdr. H. Cureton, R.N., Lt-Cdr. E. Dufall, R.N. (Senior Air Traffic Controller at Lee), Lt-Cdr. M. W. Rudorf, D.S.C., R.N. (No. 781 Sqn. Command- ing Officer), Senr. Cmd. Pit. L. A. Cox, R.N., Lt.- Cdr. E. Waterhouse. R.N., Lt. G. Hunt, R.N., Lt-Cdr. (A) C. B. H. barford, R.N.V.R. By C. B. H. BARFORD IN a covering letter to the Editor, the author of thisinformal but informative account of a visit paid to London Airport by flying personnel from a Navalair station apologizes for what he calls the "sermon" in his concluding paragraphs; but with practicalexperience both as a B.E.A. pilot and an R.N.V.R. officer he is assuredly well qualified to discuss theconflicting Service and civil approaches to the subject of air traffic control. His plea for co-operation echoes our own ("Flight," October 12). Service Visitors to a Civil Airport INTO the organized babel of the London Airways V.H.F.frequencies there has recently been creeping a new call-signto vie with the Swissair and Bealines, the Rafairs and Panams, the Speedbirds, and even (occasionally) the Soviets. It is"Navair." Ground users of R/T. must inevitably conjure for themselvesa vision of the speaker at the outer end. A Speedbird, for instance, must surely be a man with iron-grey hair, gold rings upto his elbow, and eyes deeply crow's-footed from thirty years and 20,000 hours of peering into the wide blue yonder. But what doesa Navair look like? Perhaps he is rather like a Speedbird, only with fewer rings, and with a large beard stuffed inside his oxygen mask.Does he request permission to "land-on" rather than merely to land? Is there salt caked in his eyebrows? No, he really looks a very normal human being, as one of theaccompanying photographs shows. It is a picture of some of the crews of No. 781 Naval Air Squadron, and their CommandingOfficer, Lt-Cdr. M. W. Rudorf, D.S.C., R.N., is standing at the foot of the steps of one of his DJHL Sea Devons. For some 15 years this squadron has acted as the communica-tions unit of Royal Naval Air Station Lee-on-Solent, the head- quarters of the Fleet Air Arm. It has been equipped with manyand various aircraft, and today it is the proud guardian of the Navy's one remaining, and rather majestic, flyable Swordfish;but not until last year did it have any machines armed with all the radio gear necessary for airways flying. The squadron's duties include regular flights between navalair stations as far apart as Culdrose, in Cornwall, and Lossiemouth on the Moray Firth; journeys to Northholt to pick up VeryImportant Naval Persons; and flights to several points on the Continent and Malta. With the increase in controlled air spacesin Europe the unit's usefulness has been more and more restricted, but the delivery last year of four Sea Devons, each equippedwith two V.H.F. sets, a radio compass, I.L.S. and fan-marker receiver, has made it possible for them to fly safely and legally toany civilian and military airfield, no matter how exacting the control precedures may be. In a quick look-round the cockpit of one of these Devons threethings occur to the observer as possibly being worth altering to ease the task of the crew: the addition of a M.F. receiver, sothey can listen to a radio range (or the Light Programme!) at the same time as having the radio compass tuned to somethingelse; the installation of individual mixer-boxes so that each man can listen to any one or more radio facilities he wants withoutdistracting his neighbour; and the use of a little yellow and blue paint on the face of the I.L.S. dial to assist in rapid orientation. It is easy to build up empires. There be they who say thatthe ability of a pilot to fly airways and do what he is told in control zones is a special skill which not all pilots possess. This,of course, is nonsense. Any man capable of being a Service pilot can fly airways when he has a competent assistant—but itdoes take practice to do it without causing delays to other air- craft and bringing grey hairs to air traffic controllers. The pilots and aircrewmen of 781 have acquired this practice;and, just to complete their familiarity with the control system, it was thought a good idea that they should fly into London Air-port to see how the people work "on the other end." So, an approach was made to Mr. W. Woodruff, Air Traffic Controller-in-Charge at L.A.P. He responded most cordially, with the result that soon after 1 p.m. on September 28 a Devon callingitself Navair 744 left Lee-on-Solent, flown by Lt-Cdr. Rudorf, and carrying four pilots, three aircrewmen, Lee's Senior AirTraffic Control Officer, and die writer. Back-tracking a little, so as to insert herself into the airwayssystem, 744 flew north-west to the M.W.E. beacon on Southamp- ton Water. She was then fairly in the groove of Airway Red 1 at5,000ft and with a 50-knot wind behind her. With a slight holding at the Dunsfold Range, and a radar-guided descent fromEpsom Range, 744 was soon down-wind for Runway 23 Left in such good visibility that there was an excellent chance of lookingat the general layout of London Airport. To the visiting pilot the lanes of intersecting concrete arerather confusing; but after landing the Devon eventually found
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