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Aviation History
1957
1957 - 0003.PDF
4 January 1957 3 FARM IMPLEMENT: First flying view of the Kingsford Smith PL-7 Tanker agricultural aircraft, described in "Flight" of October 12 last. Price is quoted as £A13,000, or £10,000, or $29,000, delivery to start three months from the date the aircraft receives its C. of A. Ltd., under the terms of which the Gnat will be manufactured byValmet OY at their works at Tampere. Finnish engineers will be trained by Folland who will probably also send out instructorsof their own to assist in the initial tooling. Production is already under way on Gnats for India and arrange-ments are also being finalized for the manufacture of the aircraft under licence by Hindustan Aircraft, Ltd., at Bangalore. Indiawill also manufacture the Gnat's powerplant, the Bristol Orpheus turbojet. Folland Appointments SEVERAL new appointments within the Folland Aircraft^ organization, effective from January 1, were announced last week-end. Mr. E. N. Egan, formerly a director and the company'ssecretary, becomes assistant managing director. In addition to being responsible for commercial and financial matters he willassist in the administrative work of Mr. W. E. W. Petter, managing director and chief engineer. Air. Egan joined Follands as chiefaccountant in 1936 and was appointed secretary in 1937. He became a director in 1942. Mr. Egan's place as secretary will be taken by Mr. A. E. Lane,who joined the company in 1939 and was appointed assistant secretary in 1942. Mr. T. Gilbertson, who has been general manager since 1942and a director since 1945, continues to hold these appointments; Mr. J. A. Grace has resigned his position as commercial director;and Mr. P. P. Nelson-Gracie, previously senior liaison officer, has been appointed technical sales manager. Vulcan Comments COMMENT and counter-comment quickly followed the AirMinister's statement in Parliament on December 20 about the Vulcan accident at London Airport [see p. 27]. The followingday Mr. Stanley Mayne, general secretary of the Institution of Professional Civil Servants (which represents the civilian airtraffic controllers in the Ministry of Civil Aviation) issued a statement expressing "dismay" at the report and saying that theInstitution had been forced to the conclusion that the civilian air traffic control organization was being "used as a scapegoat in thisaccident to a military aircraft." Commenting on this, Air Marshal Sir Harry Broadhurst, co-pilot of the Vulcan, said it was "unbe-lievable" to him that two ministers should have made a scapegoat of anybody. In the course of the I.P.C.S. statement the general secretarycommented on the Air Minister's remark that after the aircraft hit the ground the controller "continued his talk-down as if theapproach had been normal." "What is apparently not appreciated," the statement said, "is that elevation information is presentedin meter form, the meter being fed from a radar source which the controller has no means of monitoring. An acceptable lag inindication from this source, coupled with what must have been an unprecedented descent rate, could result in the aircraft being atground level before the meter indicated it was below the glide path." The Institution pointed out that the G.C.A. equipment in use atM.T.C.A. aerodromes is American-built to a 1941 specification, and that "since its modification in 1949 it does not allow thecontroller to supervise the accuracy of his elevation information." In his comments on the accident and the I.P.C.S. statement,Sir Harry Broadhurst said: "The whole thing is a puzzle to me. It seemed to me an absolutely normal glide approach until theground appeared in the wrong place. If we had been coming down at an unprecedented rate, we would have hit the ground and theundercarriage would have been forced up into the wings. As it was, we touched so lightly we merely thought the aircraft hadburst a tyre or something. We had no idea that the undercarriage had been ripped off. "Until then, the captain, obviously very experienced, imaginedhe was being talked-down normally. The fact is, they were still talking him down normally after he had gone up again. Obviouslysomething went wrong. We cannot supply the missing link." New Slingsby Projects TTWO new sailplanes, prototypes of which are expected to appear-1- at this year's National Gliding Championships, are currently being developed at the Kirbymoorside factory of Slingsby Sail-planes, Ltd. One is a cheap single-seater, and the other is a development of the well-proven T.21b side-by-side two-seater.The single-seater, designated the Slingsby T.45, has a span of 12m (40ft) and is expected to cost about £600. It will incorporatea laminar-flow wing, and a simple fuselage with a slab-sided rear BEFORE THE DUKE: The Edgar Percival EP.9 agricultural aircraft demonstrating at Christchurch, New Zealand (see opposite page). section, and is intended to meet the need for a moderately pricedmachine, with a useful performance, for club and private owner use. The two-seater is the Slingsby T.21 Mk 2. The main differencesbetween this machine and the T.21b are the addition of a closed cockpit canopy, the removal of the wing-mounting pylon, and thedirect attachment of the wings to a fuselage centre-section (which increases the span from 54ft to 57ft). This "modernized" T.21is expected to have an improved performance; production aircraft will be available with dive-brakes in place of the normal spoilers.The machine incorporates a high proportion of T.21b parts and, indeed, is designed to fulfil the same role, that of an ab initiotrainer with soaring capability. Prototypes of both new machines are expected to fly in a few months' time. First published sketch of the Slingsby T.21 Mk 2, described above.
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