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Aviation History
1957
1957 - 0321.PDF
FIRST AERONAUTICAL WEEKLY IN THE WORLD FOUNDED 1909 ^ and AIRCRAFT ENGINEER No 2512 Vol71 FRIDAY 15 MARCH 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.1 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 of Canada, Ltd. 67 Yonge Street Telephone • Empire 6-0873 New York 6, N.Y. Thomas Skinner and Co. (Publishers), Ltd. Ill Broadway Telephone • Digby 9-1197 SUBSCRIPTION RATES Home and Overseas • Twelve Months, £4 10s. US.A. and Canada, $14.00 In this issue 326 A.W. 650 Philosophy 329 Production Up-to-date 331 Call of the North 332 High-energy Fuels 336 Prophecy in Aeronautics 339 One Year Supreme 340 Naval Types 342 DHC-4 Caribou 343 Sagittario II Light Fighter 344 Cinderella Transformation Gracious Voyaging S the airlines moved—circa 1930—from the wicker-chair and walnut-veneer era they began to seek ways of distracting their patrons from fretfulness and boredom. Instinctively they plumped for the gimmicks. Harassed busi- nessmen, Paris-bound at 90 m.p.h., were afforded typing facilities (it being supposed that they would not travel unaccompanied), and every so often an air- borne cinema show or mannequin parade would burgeon briefly in the headlines. The unfailing diversions of eating, drinking and smoking were given full play, and the steward or stewardess reigned over all. As traffic increased, so did the problem of reconciling comfort with speed. While it could hardly be claimed that the renown of Imperial Airways rested in any noticeable degree on the velocity of its airliners, the Hannibals and Scyllas unquestionably had something of the reputation—indeed the appearance—of the Savoy Hotel. But the Empire boats were the true patricians. Clean-lined, majestic and spacious as well as fast, they offered cabins on two decks and a promenade where one could lean against the rail and gaze upon the uneclipsed glories of an Empire. Never were there such aeroplanes; and they were as British as the Medway, where they first graced the water. But they passed, as the clipper ships passed; and those who had known them were left lamenting. Enough, now, of this reactionary sentimentalism. Are we not promised today, in all the solemnity of hoarding and brochure, that to travel Gargantuair is to travel graciously? Is our epicurean taste not flattered by the assurance that our filet mignon will be graciously served, with champagne warranted from France, Europe? Are we not gratified by the gracious company of our fellow passengers— company so urbane that it is a privilege indeed to have it for countless hours at our elbow (rubbing both elbows, in the most gracious aeroplanes of all)? And does not this very intimacy promote the most edifying exchanges and most gracious courtesies? What scope for our good breeding is the opportunity of assisting a neighbour to extricate his air-sickness bag or to disengage his seat-belt from the redolent folds of his burnous. And what memories remain to us after a modern aerial voyage. It seems but yesterday when the writer was graciously pursuing his trade over the North Atlantic in the temporary company of an American nobleman of some fifteen summers (on vacation bent from his father's Arabian oil holding, he confided). "Say," he addressed us with becoming deference and in the most gracious Texan, "can you fix braces?" With all the courtliness of our nature we professed our unbounded sympathy and instant readiness to assist in his distress. And when he intimated that his embarrassment was of a dental, and not a sartorial nature, what a privilege it was on our part to ring for a steward. And how that good fellow must have blessed the day his fortune sent him into so gracious a calling. The Menace of Mozart Alas, it now appears that the serene dignity of air travel is already being menaced by catchpenny commercialism. The reactionary French, we learn, are seeking to insinuate their own notions of beauty and quiet in place of the gracious living at present offered at such personal sacrifice on the part of airline operators. Consider this insidious official bulletin concerning the Caravelle: "Each row of seats will be provided with a loudspeaker placed next to the aeration orifices, behind a gilt grid. The soundproof and exceptional acoustical qualities of the Caravelle will be exploited to the maximum, since the music of Mozart will be played during the voyages. The separation panels . . . will provide excellent surfaces for master- pieces of art to be hung on each side of the doors." One can envisage only too clearly some fifty decadent Frenchmen, seated unsociably only four-abreast in the bad old way, heady with Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, gazing enraptured upon a little gallery of Corots. Such retrogression of taste, such selfish preoccupation with mere animal comfort and sensory delight, will be resisted by all right-minded devotees of gracious living.
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