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Aviation History
1957
1957 - 0636.PDF
640 FLIGHT THE INDUSTRY Napier-PacAero Agreement TTNDER a recent ten-year agreement, PacAero Inc., of Santa*-' Monica, California, have acquired the right to manufacture and sell the Napier Spraymat electrical system of de-icing in theUnited States. Napier are to supply the drawings, reports, technical informationand assistance needed to enable PacAero to establish manufactur- ing and servicing facilities, while for their part the Americancompany will make available to Napier details of refinements and improvements which may result from development processesapplied to the system. Glass-Plastic Airliner Seat A GLASS-REINFORCED polyester plastic has been used—for the first time, it is believed—to form the complete basic structure of an airline seat. Microcell, Ltd., have produced theprototype of a two-place seat for high-density layouts which, for a total weight of 42 lb, has a basic structure-weight of a little under18i lb. This compares with weights of 60 lb and 33 lb for conventional equivalent seats. The main structure of the new Microcell seat is made up ofglass reinforced plastic mouldings bonded together and, in places, riveted for additional security. Designed under M.o.S, sponsor-ship, the seat has passed tests for forward-facing installation and is stated to have shown good energy absorption characteristics,having successfully withstood 10.8g forward load. Prototype Microcell seating. Additional advantages claimed for the Microcell seat includeease of production, fewer parts of the basic structure, a weight saving of 10 to 15 per cent over previous structures, and lowerproduction costs. It is hoped to test the new seat operationally in the near future. Microcell, Ltd., 56 Kingsway, London, W.C.2,are the makers. Shorts' Apprentice Prizegiving YX7HEN the Short Brothers and Harland apprentices' prize-" giving was held recently at Belfast the chairman, Rear Admiral Sir Matthew Slattery, extended a special welcome to Mr. C. P. T.Lipscomb, who had only recently relinquished his position as a director. His career, said Sir Matthew, was an outstandingexample of the opportunity offered by apprenticeship in industry; after serving his at Woolwich Arsenal and working for a period atthe Coventry ordnance factory, Mr. Lipscomb had joined Shorts in 1914 and (except for a period from 1916 to 1921 at the airshipworks, Bedford) had been with the company ever since. Sir Matthew said he wished to stress two points which wouldhave special impact on Shorts' arrangements for apprentice train- ing. One was the Government's request to all employers inNorthern Ireland to allow any boy between 16 and 18 to go te technical school on day-release if he wished to. This had in somecases resulted in these schools becoming overloaded. Facilities for taking the necessary courses for City and Guilds examinationswere worsening and Shorts might have to consider making special arrangements to ensure that the 700 boys always in training with the company had adequate facilities for their technical education.His second point was that if the school-leaving age were raised to 16, boys who came to the company would have to go straightinto apprenticeship if they were to complete their training by 21. Shorts liked to have them for six months before apprenticeship,to judge their aptitude, and would try to find a solution to this problem. One answer would be to extend apprenticeship to theage of 21i; another, by national agreement to reduce its period from five to four-and-a-half years; a third, for Shorts' trainingscheme to be recognized as the equivalent of a technical school, so that boys could come to the company at 15£ instead of 16. Mr. Lipscomb in his address said that an apprentice today had"unlimited opportunity" in whatever branch of engineering he chose to follow. The growth of interest in science and mathe-matics among grammar school boys was an encouraging sign, and the increasing complexity of aircraft design had created newdemands for highly skilled personnel. He did not see any grounds for fear in the advent of guided missiles since any modern aircraftcompany was adequately equipped to manufacture either piloted aircraft or missiles and, for many years to come, the latter wouldprobably only replace fighter and intercepter types and (at a later date) heavy bombers. In his report on progress during 1956 the apprentice supervisor,Mr. F. C. Kirkpatrick, said that 79 apprentices had qualified for indentures; the total number (not including those apprenticesattending the University for full-time studies) of those attending day-release and evening classes was 533; the intake of apprenticeswas 165 and at the end of 1956, 2,000 applications had been received for this number of vacancies. Prizes were presented by Mrs. Lipscomb, and among thewinners W. T. Anderson gained a special award as th« best all-round third-year apprentice. Simmonds Aerocessories Changes A DDITIONS to their Board, and the formation of a new sub-•**• sidiary company, were recently announced by Simmonds Aerocessories, Ltd. Mr. G. E. Bache becomes executive directorand general manager and the following have been appointed executive directors: Messrs. S. H. Goss (general sales manager); C. J. Williams (works manager); P. Pehrson (export sales man-ager); A. Beard (production adviser and methods engineer) and J. Burnell (chief mechanical engineer).The new subsidiary, Firth Cleveland Instruments, Ltd., at Treforest, Glam., adjoining the existing Simmonds factory, is tomanufacture and market instruments formerly produced by Simmonds Aerocessories and will also take over from the parentcompany developments in instrumentation for aircraft and other applications. Mr. C. W. Hayward is chairman, and the followinghave been appointed members of the Board: Messrs. L. G. Oxford and E. S. Mead (joint managing directors); F. R. Allen (executivedirector and general manager); and S. H. Goss, P. Pehrson and D. Broadbent (executive directors). IN BRIEF A contract has been placed with the spray packaging divisionof R. A. Brand and Co., Ltd., for the supply of a large number of Texikoon re-usable plastic covers to the R.A.A.F.* * * Mr. Derek J. Upcott has been appointed Far East technicalrepresentative of D. Napier and Son, Ltd., and was due to leave for Singapore by air on May 7.* * * Mr. J. Cuthbert Robinson, chairman of Thomas Robinson andSon, Ltd., Rochdale, has been elected president of the Machine Tool Trades Association for 1957-58, in succession to Mr. H. P Potts. * * * Relinquishing his appointment as public relations officer toVickers-Armstrongs (Aircraft), Ltd., Mr. John Gunn is returning to his native Australia, where he has formed his own firm of publicrelations consultants, John Gunn Associates, in Sydney. * * * Spitfire Mitchell Memorial Fund Scholarships have beenawarded by the University of Southampton for 1957 to David Richard Harris of Vickers-Armstrongs (Aircraft), Ltd., Wey-bridge, and David John Martin Williams of Vickers-Armstrongs (Aircraft), Ltd., Hursley Park. * * * • .' •"...•: The annual accounts of Titanine, Ltd., show a post-war recordfor the business, with a net profit of £39,109 after full provision for taxation. The chairman, Admiral Sir Lionel Preston, reports thatthe demand for their aircraft finishes increased during the year, "especially in the direction of internal protective schemes forpassenger aircraft." His statement also refers to negotiations, now nearing completion, for a new site for a synthetic-resins factoryat Welwyn Garden City.
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