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Aviation History
1957
1957 - 0845.PDF
21 June 1957 851 BREVITIES OMPANIA Cubana de Aviacion—who recently announcedtheir order for two Britannia 310s—have also ordered two Bodng 707s and taken an option on a third. Delivery is scheduledfor March and June 1960 and the value of the order is nearly £4m. * * * A record total of more than £45m was transacted by I.A.T.A.'s Clearing House in London in the first quarter of the year. > * * * Aer Lingus have increased their order for F.27 Friendships fromfive to seven. Delivery will be between October 1958 and the summer of 1959. * * *It is reported that AVENSA—Aerovias Venezolanas—have purchased five Fairchild-built Friendships for delivery betweenApril and October 1958. * * * The East German Lufthansa started 11-14 domestic serviceson June 16 between East Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig, Erfurt and Barth. * * * Orders for aircraft catering equipment made by G.E.C. havebeen placed by T.W.A., Flying Tiger Line, Northeast Airlines and by all Britannia operators. Included in this business are dollarorders of $28m. The U.S.S.R. have also ordered similar equip- ment. * * *London's new airport terminal at Cromwell Road, states the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation, will be open before theend of this year. Thanks to the new Cromwell Road extension, road time to the airport "should not be much more than halfan hour." Aquilo's Solent service to the mountainous shores of eastern Lake of Geneva is a natural; there is no other way to fly. This compelling photograph was taken shortly after the direct weekly service from Southampton to Montreux was inaugurated on June I. AERODROME OWNERS DISCUSS HELIPORTS PROBLEMS associated with making provision for future inter-city helicopter services were discussed at a meeting of theAerodrome Owners Association in London last week. In the chair was Alderman R. W. Marshall of Blackpool, and a panel ofexperts, including Mr. J. Naomi, chief of the Sabena helicopter department and Mr. Van der Hoek, manager of Rotterdam Heli-port, was present to answer a list of prepared questions. Though the panel's replies did not reveal any outstandinglynew thoughts as far as helicopter operations were concerned, there were significant indications of the serious considerationbeing given to this new medium of transportation by local authorities all over the United Kingdom whose representativeswere present. Some informative details of Sabena's scheduled helicopteroperations were given at the outset by Mr. Naomi and Mr. Van der Hoek for the benefit of borough engineers whose employerswere contemplating the establishment of heliports. Mr. Naomi said that Sabena had found the only successful way to operatehelicopters on inter-city services was to obtain the co-operation of the municipal authorities. It was useless to operate from a heliportat any distance from a city centre, as this simply did not encourage the passenger traffic. If a landing site at a city centre was notavailable, then Sabena would not serve that particular town. They had completed some 35,000 hours on scheduled services, andalthough they were forced to use single-engined helicopters for the time being, they felt the experience they were gaining was invalu-able. The routes were so arranged that the machines were always within reach of an emergency landing ground. They had experi-enced a total of fifteen forced landings due to engine failure, three of which had been inside built-up areas, but in no case had anypassengers been hurt. Frequency of operation was most import- ant. At least three schedules per day of any one route was theabsolute minimum needed to ensure any degree of success, and for this reason it was better to operate smaller helicopters moreoften than to use larger machines at the expense of frequency. When twin-engined helicopters were available, Sabena hoped toinaugurate a cross-channel service into the heart of London. Mr. Van der Hoek said that the initial investment in the Rotter-dam Heliport had been in the region of £39,000 and a total of approximately £150,000 had been spent on its development.Annual running costs were about £5,000. No landing fees were charged at the present juncture, but if such a measure were intro-duced, and rent charged for office accommodation, the annual income from the heliport in its present form should be about £700.A roof-top heliport might prove more economical if it were properly planned from the outset. MR G. W. STALLIBRASS, for the M.T.C.A., said that the cost of oneproject for a roof-top heliport above a proposed new airways terminal building in London has been estimated at £1,200,000, and had beenabandoned for that reason. The Ministry had surveyed, and were still surveying, a large number of possible helicopter sites in London. Town councils were strongly advised that they should at least reservea site within their city limits for future use as a heliport, so that they would not be left out when the future scheduled services began. Thecase of the original routing of railways could be cited as an example: many towns had failed to progress normally because they had refusedrailway facilities. MR. T. J. OWEN, Town Clerk of Nottingham, strongly criticized theplanning of B.E.A.'s experimental helicopter passenger service between Birmingham, Leicester and Nottingham, and his observations weregreeted in a manner that left no doubt there were many who shared his views. Although the Corporation had announced the withdrawal ofthe service because of inadequate passenger response, Mr. Owen felt that a fair test had never been made. The service had not operated into thecentre of Birmingham and had offered a frequency of only one schedule per day. It was hardly surprising that potential passengers had not foundit convenient. In defence of B.E.A., W/C. R. A. C. BRIE said that the best had been done with the limited number of helicopters they hadavailable. They had gained much essential technical and operational experience from their experimental services in different paits of thecountry, and they hoped to make good use of this knowledge later, when twin-engined helicopters were available. A vehement attack was made by MR. A. E. BRISTOW (Bristow Heli-copters, Ltd.) on the practice of allowing only the "chosen instrument" to engage in helicopter passenger operations. Independent operatorsshould be given more opportunity of showing what they could do. There was no reason why scheduled passenger operations should not beginnow in this country with present single-engined equipment. The problems of noise reduction were explained at some length byMR. P. V. HOARE of Westland Aircraft. Substantial reductions had been made in the harsh engine exhaust note by the use of silencers, butblade noise was nearly as loud as the engine and could not be reduced; however blade noise was by no means such an objectionable sound.MR. VAN DER HOEK mentioned that although Sabena were operating standard machines without silencers, there had never been a single com-plaint about noise from residents around Rotterdam Heliport during the years it has been in use. The panel was urged by one speaker from Liverpool to make a generalrecommendation to the effect that the time was now opportune for a second report from the Interdepartmental Helicopter Committee for theguidance of town councils throughout the country on matters concern- ing the establishment of heliports. Since the first report, some yearsago, much development had taken place and local authorities would appreciate having the latest information on which to base their futurepolicies. After a good deal of general discussion on this point, it was agreed that the matter should be included on the agenda for early dis-cussion by the A.O.A. and it was suggested that it might be advantageous to hold joint discussions with the Helicopter Association on the subject. Other members of the panel who made contributions were Mr. C. T. D.Hosegood of Bristol Aircraft, Mr. K. Reed of Saunders-Roe and Mr. J. B. P. Williamson of Helicopter Services. In proposing a vote ofthanks to all the panel members, the vice-chairman of A.O.A., Mr. Charles Newton of Northampton, made particular mention of thevaluable contributions by Mr. Naomi and Mr. Van der Hoek, who had both travelled over from Brussels especially for the occasion.
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