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Aviation History
1957
1957 - 0459.PDF
FIRST AERONAUTICAL WEEKLY IN THE WORLD FOUNDED 1909 ^ and AIRCRAFT ENGINEER No 2516 Vol71 FRIDAY 12 APRIL 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 II iff e 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 of Canada, Ltd. 67 Yonge Street Telephone • Empire 6-0873 New York 6, N.Y. Thomas Skinner and Co. (Publishers),Ltd. I11 Broadway Telephone • Digby 9-1197 SUBSCRIPTION RATES Home and Overseas • Twelve Months, £4 10s. U.S.A. and Canada, $14.00 in this issue 464 The Defence Statement 471 Flying Aids 472 The Changing NavigationPicture 476 High Calling 485 Autopilot to Flight-controlSystem 492 The Changing InstrumentPicture 494 Weather Radar 497 Radio Aid Instruments 499 Automatic Direction Finding Defence: the New ShapeI T is commonly said that Britain's defence policy, as outlined by the Minister of Defence in the White Paper abstracted on page 464, is being "streamlined." In professional parlance we should say that it is being area-ruled—and the term is apt, for it implies a pinching in of the waistline to enhance performance. Drastic reconstruction is involved, as when an existing airframe is subjected to the rule. Bomber Command's home-based Canberra force and the 2nd Tactical Air Force in Germany will be trimmed to about half their present size. Develop- ment of fighter types "more advanced than the P.I" will cease (with the possible exception, it may be supposed, of the Hawker private venture); and we shall not now have the Avro supersonic bomber. American medium-range ballistic rockets will save us time and money and will enable us to concentrate on "more advanced types"; and a ground-to-air missile system will "in due course" replace our fighter aircraft. There is implied confidence in later developments of the English Electric P.1B; and if rocket boost is still a requirement, even though SR.53 development may now be sterile, the R.A.F.'s final fighter will doubtless prove adaptable. Surprisingly, the Minister did not announce, as was widely expected, an expan- sion in Transport Command, though he did remark that, with the reduction in size of garrisons overseas, it was more than ever essential to be able to despatch reinforcements at short notice. With this object, he said, "a substantial fleet" of transport aircraft is being built up within the Command "to which a number of Britannias will later be added." But orders for ten Comets and thirteen Britannias —even when added to present obsolescent equipment—will hardly constitute "a substantial fleet," even though the work capacity of the new machines is much superior. The drastic diminution of physical resources detailed by the Minister does not, of course, connote a parallel reduction in our hitting power, for nuclear armament is becoming increasingly available—even for defensive guided missiles, the Minister said. It is our industrial stability, rather than our national security, that is imperilled; and pending such redeployment as may be possible, there must be real anxiety for more than one British company. Deserving SupportR ATHER ironically, the first donation to the scholarship fund set up by the Association of British Aero Clubs and Centres as part of their bold scheme to widen commercial-pilot training facilities arrived from far-away Kuwait —sent by Sheikh Abdullah Al Mubarak, that country's deputy ruler and president of aviation. To say this is not to denigrate the sheikh's generosity, which prompted so many similar thoughts that within hours of the scheme being announced its fund had risen (by promises, at any rate) to over £1,000. Irony creeps in when one compares the swift Oriental gesture of approval with the situation in this country—crying out for commercial pilots—as the M.T.C.A. registers an academic approval (accepting the syllabus of training "as outlining appropriate curricula for an approved course of training for the licence") and the A.B.A.C. registers itself under the Small Lotteries and Gaming Act to raise money for its scholarship fund by selling lottery tickets. Fortunately, the future production of British airline pilots will not depend on Sheikh Abdullah's generosity and the proceeds of club lotteries; most of the independent airline operators have promised contributions, and at the inaugural meeting (reported briefly in a news-item on p. 429 last week) representatives of the Corporations also expressed approval. It is to be hoped B.O.A.C. and B.E.A. will turn their approval into financial aid, and that the M.T.C.A. will lend practical support. For however much the A.B.A.C. may wish to avoid having a subsidy—and this, we gather, was the idea behind their lottery—their scheme is such an excellent one that it deserves the widest possible national support.
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