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Aviation History
1957
1957 - 0095.PDF
FIRST AERONAUTICAL WEEKLY IN THE WORLD FOUNDED 1909 a'n d AIRCRAFT ENGINEER No 2505 Vol 71 FRIDAY 25 JANUARtY 1957 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 Thomas Skinner and Co., Ltd. 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 97 Supply of Military Aircraft 99 "No Other Individual . . ." 101 The Pilot's Place 105 CL-28 108 "Comet 3JA" Powerplant 109 Hunters in Peru 111 Fiat Aviazione 115 Operational Angles on theB-47 126 A B-52 Comes to Britain Recommendations—and Disclosures AT the price of sixteen shillings there is now to be had of Her Majesty's f\ Stationery Office a stout blue-wrappered octavo volume containing the J~ -^- Second Report from the Select Committee on Estimates and entitled The Supply of Military Aircraft. The cost of its printing and publishing is estimated, by the same office, as £1,199 15s, and the preparation for publication of the shorthand minutes of evidence is recorded as £340 5s 6d. The committee having been ordered to report "what, if any, economies" might be effected, and finding itself faced with multi-million-pound transactions, the odd 6d bespeaks a seemly concern for public funds. The businesslike conclusions and recommendations are set out on page 98 of this issue, and first among the latter is one calling for more effort by the Ministry of Supply to obtain a con- tribution to research and development projects from the contracting firm, and for serious consideration of the proposal that this might be fixed at 20 per cent of the estimated cost, to be returned if the project went into production or was favourably reported on by the M.o.S. There is much of value and interest not only in the general conclusions of the report but in the particular instances cited in evidence; and though answers to certain questions are piously stated to have been "suppressed for reasons of security," the resolute reader is often rewarded by references to such pulse- quickening projects as an all-steel supersonic research aircraft having a straight, thin wing; a Bristol bomber for which models were made before the scheme was abandoned; and an R.A.F./Army requirement for a missile which never material- ized because the Army took up the American Corporal and it was decided as an economy measure that the R.A.F. should not have the same weapon. One reads, also, of a cancelled Vickers [air-to-ground?] "flying bomb"; but, most interesting of all, there are allusions to a rocket fighter (doubtless the SR.53) now said to be leading to another project that "will probably be ordered in substantial quantities by the R.A.F.," and to a supersonic naval strike aircraft—"really a bomber"—referred to (by inference) as N.A.39 and built by Blackburn. Whatever the ultimate value of the report to the industry, the Ministries and the Services, any foreign air attache or intelligence officer with an eye to business will find his sixteen shillings well spent. Band of BrothersT HE disbandment of a great fighting force is, of all occasions, one to arouse emotion; and should that force have been founded in a spirit of voluntary service, then its dissolution may engender the strongest feelings—of resent- ment as well as regret. Following the events detailed on pages 98-99 of this issue, centring on the disbandment of the flying squadrons of the R.Aux.A.F. and R.N.V.R., such feel- ings have, indeed, been manifested. The squadrons themselves (the four famous units of the London region in particular) were not slow to put their case. Their first manifesto proposed that, while a requirement for day-fighter squadrons remained, this could largely (and more economically) be met by the R.Aux.A.F. What they failed to point out was that the scheme could only be implemented if the squadrons were re-equipped with modern aircraft—a procedure hardly com- patible with the official determination to reduce expenditure. Not surprisingly, this approach was soon relinquished in favour of a seemingly more practical proposal, whereby the Auxiliary squadrons would be attached to Regular R.A.F. units whose aircraft and facilities they would use at week-ends. That the C.A.S. especially (as an old Auxiliary adjutant) countenanced dis- bandment after the deepest heart-searchings is not to be doubted. He of all people knows the worth of these "splendid young men, with their high enthusiasm and incomparable morale" (to quote the chairman of the Air League); and the Auxiliaries may take assurance that their plight is beheld by the nation, as by the Government, with the utmost sympathy. Any workable plan which might yet save the day will receive earnest consideration and measureless goodwill,
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