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Aviation History
1957
1957 - 0818.PDF
824 FLIGHT, 21 June 1957 PROVED under Canadian conditions, this Blackburn Beverley has now returned to the U.K. for further development work. It is seen at Ottawa with, left to right, Clive Harrup, Bristol Aero Engine service representative; Godfrey Shove, Technical Sales Manager of Blackburn and General Aircraft; P/0. Karl Winstein, R.C.A.F., co-pilot; S/L R. H. "Buzz" Jansen, pilot; and Jack Langley, service representative, Blackburn. Elapsed time for the crossing from Goose Bay to Boscombe Down, with stops at Bluie, Keflavik and Prestwick, was 27 hr. FROM ALL QUARTERS . . . aviation products is spread over a dozen types of aircraft; inrespect of eight of these we are responsible for the engineering as well as the manufacture. Three of the aircraft are commercialtypes." Mr. North went on to say that some of this work had neces-sitated new flying facilities, and the company was now operating an additional airfield at Seighford, near Stafford, on Governmentlease; there seemed to be good prospects of operating to capacity there at least for the next year or so. They were also engagedon development work for the Ministry "which may well lead to a notable advance in aviation." In the five years to the end of the current financial year thecompany would have installed a quarter of a million pounds' worth of high-precision-engineering plant, some of which wouldbe employed on guided-missile components. The accounts for the year ended July 31, 1956, showed a profit,before taxation, of £461)828, an increase of more than £50,000 over the figure for the previous year. Hawk Fledged "P^EVELOPED and manufactured principally by the RaytheonU Manufacturing company, of Waltham, Mass., the Hawk is a trim surface-to-air missile system of the U.S. Army. Roughly16ft long, Hawk is unusual in having no boost motor. Control surfaces are hinged at the rear of the cropped delta cruciform ofwings. Chief purpose of Hawk is interception of aircraft at all levelsright down to the ground (where conventional radars are blind). Maximum range is about 45 miles, and the complete weaponsystem, with triple launcher (picture below) is fully air- transportable. Ballistic Firings DURING the past few weeks the test-firing of American ballis-tic missiles has got well into its stride, and two milestones of immense significance have now been passed: successful firingof an IRBM—the Army's Jupiter—"all the way," to a distance of some 1,500 statute miles, and the first launching of an ICBM,the Air Force Atlas. Dealing with the latter first, it is worth commenting that untilrecently there were many who doubted that an ICBM test vehicle could be launched before 1960. A history of Weapon System107A, which is producing both Atlas and Titan, was given in our issue of December 7 last. The many contractors, particularlyConvair-Astronautics and North American Rocketdyne, have done wonderfully well to get an Atlas off the launching pad bymid-1957. Actually the flight (picture below) lasted barely a minute, one boost motor seeming (from a newsreel) to blow up,followed by detonation of the main tanks. Nevertheless, so long as the instrumentation functions properly, this type of failure isfar more valuable than a completely successful flight. Jupiter, developed by the A.B.M.A. at Redstone, reached itsultimate range after two failures which both have been ascribed to fuel sloshing. Its competitor, the U.S.A.F. Thor, by Douglas,has failed twice in the air, and on the third try the propellants exploded before launching. DEFENCE AND OFFENCE are the respective functions of the U.S. Army's Hawk (left, below) and the U.S. Air Force's Atlas (right). The Atlas picture was taken during the unsuccessful first test firing on June 11. Both missiles are referred to in news items above.
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