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Aviation History
1957
1957 - 0417.PDF
FLIGHT, 29 March 1957 419 THE INDUSTRY D.H. Results "pINANCIAL results in the de Havilland group of companies•*• for the year ended September 30, 1956, issued last week, show a net surplus, after provision for all charges except U.K. andoverseas taxation, of £3,846,338 (1955, £2,570,954). Taxation absorbs £2,190,767 (1955, £1,579,276). de Havilland Holdings, Ltd., state that the increased surplushas, to a considerable extent, been due to the excellent results of the Canadian subsidiary company. A dividend of 1\ per cent on the Ordinary stock is recommended. English Electric Report OPEAKING about the aviation activities of the English Electric*•* group at the company's annual general meeting on March 14, the chairman. Sir George H. Nelson, said that over 750 Canberrashad been built in this country, more than 350 under licence in the U.S.A. and a further number in Australia. Intensive develop-ment of the P.I had proceeded during the year and had resulted in a considerable production order for early delivery. Throughout the past year English Electric work on guidedweapons had made excellent progress, and through the years the strongest of foundations had been laid. The company was spend-ing further large sums of money on research equipment applic- able to both aircraft and guided-weapon design. During the pastyear work had begun on new high-speed wind tunnels. Of aircraft electrical equipment, Sir George said that during1956 the most advanced high-altitude chamber and dynamometer laboratories for research into and testing of such auxiliaries hadbeen brought into full operation. Referring to the products of D. Napier and Son, the chairmanremarked that the Eland turboprop had passed its type-test during the year and continued to build up essential flying experi-ence in three aircraft converted for that purpose—a Varsity, an Elizabethan and a Convair 340. Very satisfactory progress hadbeen made with the company's latest engine, the free-turbine Gazelle for helicopters. This had been selected by the RoyalNavy to power the Westland Wessex and by the R.A.F. for the Bristol 192. Reviewing the work of Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Co.,Ltd. (another member of the English Electric group), Sir George said that their pilot-operated communications equipment hadbeen ordered for Bristol Britannias, and the company had been entrusted by B.O.A.C. with the preparation of a radio systemfor Comet 4s. Sir George mentioned finally that Marconi A.D.F. and radarequipment had been installed on numerous airfields. Making Photographic History 'T'HIS year's annual dinner and dance of the Williamson Manu--1 facturing Co., Ltd., in London on March 15, held a special significance for the chairman, Mr. C. M. Williamson, C.B.E.,F.R.P.S., for (to quote his own jocular remark) he was "entering upon the first year of his second half-century" with the companyfounded by his father in 1886. Looking fit and well after recovery from a recent illness, Mr.Williamson told his audience—the firm's employees (whose indi- vidual length of service, incidentally, averaged over 20 years)—that, with the Willesden factory newly extended, the business was now entering upon a new era of keen competition. He believedthat aerial cameras had reached the ultimate limits of com- plexity and weight, and that simplification of design and "theadding of more lightness" was now the real objective. He recalled his experiments in World War I, when "we wentdown to the coast in a single-engined biplane and if we were lucky came back with fifteen photographs taken from 2,000ft." Today,he went on, two of the company's specialists, Ian Hunter (develop- ment engineer) and Murray Taylor (flight observer) would godown to the coast—the Mediterranean coast—and return with thousands of exposures from several miles high—"the finest airpictures made by any photographers in the world." In some of them, he added, it was possible to count the links in a ship's anchorchain. Mr. J. E. Odle, F.R.G.S. (joint managing director) said that inview of the present uncertainties of aircraft development it was good to know that aerial photography remained a priority require-ment; an air commodore had just been appointed to take charge of such work in the R.A.F. [an allusion to the establishment ofthe new Central Reconnaissance Establishment, under the com- mand of A. Cdre. D. S. Radford]. Incidentally, added Mr. Odle,the company's "non-aviation" orders stood at a healthy level. In conversation later with Mr. Williamson, we induced himto say more about the early days. Fascinated by photography since boyhood—at the age of 12 he had assisted William Friese- Green, the pioneer cinematographer—he made his first successfulexperiments in aerial photography from a Vickers Gun Bus at Farnborough in 1915. He subsequently developed the first auto-matic film camera, the Williamson F.I. Plate cameras were used during the 1914-18 war, but shortly afterwards the Air Ministrywent over to film, and the F.I was adopted as the prototype for the series of automatic film cameras which followed. At a laterperiod in his work Mr. Williamson made a series of experimental photographic flights, in an Avro Avian, with the famous F. P.Raynham, who died in 1954. Radioactive Inspection STE products from uranium fission at Calder Hall atomicpower station are highly radioactive and can be put to indus- trial or medical use. For example, radiation emitted by caesium137 can be used like that from an X-ray machine ••for the inspection of cast- j^ ings and welds; and such gl applications are made wpracticable with radio- graphic units of the type Equipment made by Nuclear Engineering, Ltd., for the remote handling of radio- active materials. built by Nuclear Engineer-ing, Ltd., Greenwich Metal Works, London,S.E.7. One advantage of this form of inspection isthat since radiation is emitted continuously in alldirections, a large number of different objects can be examined simultaneously, thus saving production cost and time.The geometrical dimensions of a typical source are of the order of £in, and its penetrating power roughly the same as that froma one-million-volt X-ray tube. It is suitable for the inspection of ferrous materials in the |in to 4in thickness range. In the Interests of Service TN 1949 the service managers of seven leading British airframe•*• and engine firms co-operated at the suggestion of Mr. W. P. Calvert, at that time service manager of Rolls-Royce, to form anassociation whose aim was to take care of the interests of British service engineers in the field—with particular reference to theirallowances, income tax, medical problems, and so forth. This group, the Association of Aero Service Managers, has hadMr. Calvert as its chairman since that time. He has now been appointed manager of die Rolls-Royce Australian company (seeFlight, January 25), and at a meeting in London last week the Association gave a small luncheon in his honour and presented himwith an engraved silver salver. To succeed him as chairman the Association unanimously elected Mr. S. H. Sharp, service managerof the de Havilland Engine Company. Automatic Warnings by Telephone AN "Auto Call Telealarm Repeater Unit" which gives warning,over existing G.P.O. telephone lines, of a fault or breakdown in an essential service on unattended premises, has been developedby the Auto Call Co., Ltd., Security House, 40-42 Parker Street, Kingsway, London, W.C.2. The device, operated by a 12-volt battery, repeats a recordedmessage for a period of four minutes, then closes down; if the line is engaged, it waits four minutes before making another call. Itcan make four such calls at four-minute intervals; and the designers believe it unlikely that with such an operating cycle, covering28 minutes, a message would fail to get through. Mr. H. R. Haynes THE Microcell group of companies recently announced "withdeep regret" the death of Mr. Henry Richard Haynes, A.F.R.Ae.S., their chief projects designer. Mr. Haynes, who was 57, spent his whole working life in theaircraft industry. He received his training at the Royal Aircraft Factory, Farnborough, from 1913 to 1918 and in the latter yearbecame a junior draughtsman with W. G. Tarrant and Son, Ltd., Byfleet (who at this period were building the 131ft-span Tarranttriplane). Thereafter he held appointments with Vickers and Fairey, and was subsequently associated with W. G. Carter in thedesign of the Short Crusader seaplane. In 1928 Mr. Haynes joined Handley Page, Ltd., as a seniordraughtsman, later becoming an assistant designer; between then
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