FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1957
1957 - 0518.PDF
520 FLIGHT THE AERONAUTICAL BOOKSHELF . . . and less than two years later flew from Cairo in a Vernon trooptransport on a tour of British bases in Iraq. Even these adventures paled into insignificance compared' withhis decision to travel on the first civil airline service from Croydon to India by Imperial Airways D.H.66 in the winter of 1926-27,accompanied by his wife. The very detailed story of this pioneer flight recalls the leisure and pleasure of air travel at a time whenspeed and comfort were less, but when the pilot could divert to show his passengers the wonders of Ur of the Chaldees, and could"afford to unbend by displaying the various tricks and paces of the machine, sometimes upon three engines, sometimes upon two,sometimes only upon one." Perhaps there was less reason for enthusiasm over Serviceaviation in the 1920s, because air forces had to make do largely with war-surplus aircraft, to the extent that squadrons in Indiawere buying bits and pieces in the bazaars for patching up their obsolete equipment, and the airlines were struggling to find theirfeet. Yet these were the years in which the foundations were laid for future greatness, in Britain more than anywhere else inthe world. We read in Empire of the Air of the great part that the AirMinistry and Royal Air Force played in surveying and pioneer- ing the Empire air routes, in sponsoring the start of the light-plane movement and in winning the Schneider Trophy. The decision to form a special Directorate of Scientific Research wastaken in this period; so was the decision to equip R.A.F. aircrew with parachutes—not without heated objections from those whofeared pilots might be tempted to bale out unnecessarily in action; the aero-medical service had its beginnings in an enquiry as towhy and when accidents took place; and, perhaps most important of all, the Auxiliary Air Force and University Air Squadrons werebrought into being. Now that the Auxiliaries have been disbanded, it is impossibleto read Viscount Templewood's comments on their formation and achievements (see Flight, March 8, 1957, page 303) withoutqualms and regret; but the important fact is that they did their job well when it was most needed. In virtually all other respects,the Royal Air Force of today is modelled exactly on the White Paper of 1919, which was a far more realistic, enduring and pro-phetic document on air power than the more-publicized pronouncements of Douhet, Mitchell or anyone else. Significantly, Templewood's last act as Secretary of State in1929 was to have his wife lay the foundation stone of the R.A.F. College at Cranwell on which Trenchard had set such great store.The ceremony was "an act of bluff," in the best traditions of British military history, implying that construction was under way (when, in fact, it had not been authorized by Parliament) inorder to present the imminent Labour Government with a fait accompli; but the plan was duly accepted. These are highlights of a book that is worthwhile and, exceptfor the first few chapters, quite readable. Mis-spellings such as "Quantas" and "Dornier-Woll" are regrettable; but the 15-pageappendix giving a chronology of the principal British air events of 1917-1930 alone makes Empire of the Air worth having.J.W.R.T. " 'The Aeroplane' Directory of British Aviation" (1957edition). Temple Press, Ltd., Bowling Green Lane, London, E.C.I. Price 21s.T HIS annual publication ("a complete guide to aviationthroughout the British Commonwealth, its air forces, ministries, organizations, airlines, industries, flying clubs and aerodromes,together with a biographical section containing over 1,500 entries") appears this year with various modifications further toimprove its long-accepted value as a work of reference; notable among them is an expansion of the section devoted to aeronauticaltraining. OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED Gear Hobbing and Shaving, by A. Sykes, B.Sc, Wh.Ex.,M.I.Mech.E., M.I.P.E., M.S.A.E. David Brown Industries, Ltd., Huddersfield. Price 25 s. Famous Fighters of the Second World War, by William Green.Macdonald and Co. (Publishers), Ltd., 16 Maddox Street, London, W.I. Price 18s. Problems of Vision in Flight at High Altitude, Agardograph 13,by Thomas C. D. Whiteside. Butterworths Scientific Publica- tions, 88 Kingsway, London, W.C.2. Price 35 s. Radio Telemetry, by Myron H. Nichols and Lawrence L.Rauch. Chapman and Hall, 37 Essex Street, London, W.C.2. Price 96s.Physics in Meteorology, by A. C. Best. Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons, Ltd., Pitman House, Parker Street, London, W.C.2. Price18s. The Turn of the Tide, by Arthur Bryant. Collins, 14 St.James's Place, London, S.W.I. Price 30s. Global Strategy, by A.V-M. E. J. Kingston-McCloughry.Jonathan Cape, 30 Bedford Square, London, W.C.I. Price 18s. Battle Hymn, by Dean E. Hess. Peter Davies, Ltd., 38 BedfordSquare, London, W.C.I. Price 15s. The Science Book of Space Travel, by Harold Leland Goodwin.George G. Harrap and Co., Ltd., 182 High Holborn, London, W.C.1. Price 10s 6d. CATTLE CARGO IN recent months the freight manifests of Hunting-Clan'sAfricargo service have borne witness to the fact that air travel is being recognized by farmers in the Central AfricanFederation and in East Africa as a safe and simple method of transporting cattle across great distances on the African con-tinent, and to import new blood from the United Kingdom. One of the largest cattle airlifts to a farmer was recently undertaken by a Dakota of Hunting-Clan African Airways, based in Salisbury.On two chartered flights, eight heifers, one bull and three sheep were flown from Nairobi in Kenya to Mbeya in Tanganyika forMr. Leo Egan. The bull and the heifers were bred in Kenya, but the sheep were imported from the United Kingdom andhad arrived in Nairobi by the Africargo service the previous day. The animals travelled in pens specially designed by aHunting-Clan engineer and constructed by a Salis- bury company, and they arrived in excellentcondition. Asked what were the advantages of air-freighting his livestock, Mr. Egan replied thathe considered the danger of tsetse contamination encountered on a road journey was thus eliminated,as were the possibilities of delays. In the same week that a Rhodesian farmer sentsix sheep by Africargo service to Kenya a Jersey bull calf arrived in Salisbury from London, togetherwith twelve racing pigeons, and a wild cat was despatched from his native bush to an English zoo.Earlier in the month a miniature zoo, which included a leopard and two zebra among the large number ofanimals, reptiles and birds, left Lusaka by Hunting- Clan—a present to the Chester Zoo from theNorthern Rhodesian Government. So many dogs and cats travel on the Africargo service that theyhave become a regular feature of the load manifest of almost any aircraft on any day. A Red Poll bull (a.u.w. 1,400 Ib) being loaded on to Hunting-Clan African Airways Dakota at Nairobi for a chartered flight to Mbeya. Two Red Poll heifers and three Hampshire Down sheep travelled in the same aircraft. Six heifers had made the same journey during the previous week, s . J . —..^ jfe
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
