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Aviation History
1957
1957 - 0135.PDF
FLIGHT, 1 February 1957 137 "If you read about the benefits of search radar they sound almost too good to be true . . . thafs what they tell you, and they're right." A close up of the Britannia's nose, housing Ekco search radar. BRITANNIA PRELUDE ... the benefits of search radar they sound almost too good to betrue. Never again need your aeroplane plough through the core of a cu-nim; smaller cloud-circumnavigations will save money;schedules can be held at night through the Intertropical Con- vergence Zone and the monsoon; seeing the ground below makesnavigation easier; the nervous apprehension of the crew is trans- formed to an "It's-a-shame-to-take-the-money" outlook. That'swhat they tell you—and they're right. Even today there are folks with an understanding simple andunschooled who believe the autopilot to be a luxury, the sole purpose of which is to save the pilot the trouble of hand-flying.Ten years from now the same simple souls, or their successors, will think search radar a similar luxury. The fact is that no air-line can afford not to fit search radar. Its contribution to efficiency and economy is too great to be ignored. On development flights the Britannia has used search radar inreverse. It has used it over Uganda and the Congo to find the cores of some of the toughest cu-nims in the world. It would befalse heroics to say that anyone on board enjoyed the experience. It seemed as if Nature flew into a towering rage at the effronteryof these men who defied her strength; and in her uncontrollable rage she tried to tear their aeroplane apart. It was thrown up,down and sideways; its whole structure flexed and strained; the nose was bashed in by hail; violent explosions and incandescentflashes filled the cabin as clouds discharged their millions of volts through the airframe. Where the Farnborough tank tests left off,Nature took over—and both of them lost. The Britannia is as tough an aeroplane as has ever been built. (The stressmen, it maybe added, were quite happy from the start. They had books full of calculations to prove the aeroplane wouldn't come apart. Andthey had another reason for being happy: they were 4,000 miles away in an office.) Restfulness of mind and body is not a statistic. For that reasonwe see no convincing charts with parameters of fatigue versus hours flown. You just get to know about these things when youfly in aeroplanes. It soon dawned on all those who flew in the Britannia that they were stepping ashore feeling fresh. A 24-hourflight produced no ear-singing, body-twitch, eye-tingle or dead- beat exhaustion. Naturally, the Britannia is pressurized, and that gives a decentsupply of oxygen to breathe. Yet so are all modern aircraft. But the Britannia is humidified, and many modern aircraft are not.Noses do not dry up and bleed when blown, eyes do not smart and the skin remains moist. The Britannia's noise-level is low.No aeroplane is quiet. In the confined space of a fuselage it would be dreadful if it were. Noise gives privacy. Silence would trans- mit snores, children crying, lavatory-flushing and what-have-youto all ears. In the Britannia the noise is right. There are no high-pitched whines or whistles, no rumbling, no roars or thumps.The sound is low, smooth, unobtrusive. No aircraft is completely free of vibration; there is always some,but in the Britannia it is truly slight—the surface of your coffee or Scotch remains motionless. Pencils can be stood up-ended ontables. Vibration is insidious. The body becomes fatigued if it is subjected to hour after hour of high-frequency judder. If thereis little vibration one of the major factors in aeroplane-travel weariness is eliminated. Humidification, unobjectionable noise and a freedom fromvibration—these, then, are the three main reasons why crews and passengers can fly all day in a Britannia without that commondesire to fall into bed and be left alone in quiet and darkness for the next twelve hours. If one writes in praise there will inevitably be a charge of bias;however, convincing as self-assurance may be, there is the sneak- ing belief that the charge is valid. And yet it is not easy to findnon-existent virtues in an aeroplane which for three years you have seen in all its moods, whose systems and structure have lainnaked before you. In the hands of crews and technicians an air- craft has no self-defence; neither paint nor fine trimmings willhide its flaws and birth-marks. But worth can be assessed only if that which stands on trial isranged with the greatest of its kind. There were more than thirteen good men and true who knew the world of aeroplanes andwho were merciless and inflexible. There was much they didn't like. Often Bristols agreed, sometimes they didn't; but alwaysthey listened, and always they acted. The objective was the same —to create an airliner which would be the best in its class in theworld. An airliner which would not accept existing standards but would set new ones. And it does. The unique maintenance docking employed by B.O.A.C. for major Britannia overhauls. It incorporates power-operated lifts on both sides of each engine, telephones, power and compressed-air points, and a fuel-tank-ventilating system. It permits quick positioning of the aircraft by means of hinges and rollers and was designed by B.O.A.C. and Roger Fretterington, Ltd., of London.
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