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Aviation History
1957
1957 - 1089.PDF
FIRST AERONAUTICAL WEEKLY IN THE WORLD FOUNDED 1909 and AIRCRAFT ENGINEER No 2533 Vol 72 FRIDAY 9 AUGU ST 1 957 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 Iliffe and Sons Ltd. Dorset House Stamford Street London, S.E.1 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. Telephone • Digby 9-1197 SUBSCRIPTION RATES Home and Overseas • Twelve Months, £4 10s. U.S.A. and Canada, $14.00 in this issue 182 Aeroflot 187 Britannia's Floating Floor and Freight Lift 188 National Gliding Champion- ships 191 Rotodyne 198 Prototype P.I 199 Leaves from a Log-Book— Part 2 Tight Little IslandI N a free society the Government planner is automatically an aunt sally, and rightly so, since he (or she) is spending our money. Thus before the planners start spending a further estimated £17 million on a London Airport which has already cost us £26 million, it is as well to examine their motives. Last Thursday, the London Airport Development Committee, appointed in October 1955 by the Minister of Civil Aviation, published its recommendations. These are summarized on page 201. Sir Eric Millbourn, die committee's dis- tinguished chairman, proposes radical and costly changes; and in view of the plain facts of future air traffic expansion it is difficult to see how the Minister can avoid sanctioning the expenditure in principle. The fact has to be faced that any layout with a central island terminal is basically inflexible. It is difficult to extend the island's frontiers without encroaching upon valuable runways, and road or rail access from the outside world requires costly burrowing. For better or for worse, L.A.P. has such a layout, and therefore the space on its island must be used wisely and economically. Yet the Millbourn report proposes to put all the airport's eggs in the one central basket, eliminating No. 4 runway and threatening its No. 6 parallel. As it happens, owing to prevailing winds, neither runway is much used. But it seems a pity to suggest, without fully disclosing the reasons, that the northern area be abandoned and die long-haulers transplanted to the central island. L.A.P. Central's frontiers are fixed, and—to look beyond 1970, even further ahead than the Millbourn report—they may well be unable to contain even the future terri- torial claims of short-haul traffic (which accounts for 85 per cent of the airport's total). The case against the long-term development of L.A.P. North needs to be more convincingly stated. Finally, and curiously, the Millbourn report makes but passing reference to the proposed rail link from London (this is to be the subject of another report). Unless the rail link is treated urgently as an inherent part of the whole problem we shall have paralytic congestion between London and its airport—for all its facilities. Man to ManO NCE in a while we experience a particular feeling of pleasure in printing an article which we know to be not just a scoop in our own line of business, but a significant contribution to technical or industrial knowledge. And if the significance is international we are not merely pleased—we are satisfied. This week, then, we are satisfied, because Clive Jenkins' account of Aeroflot, the first instalment of which begins on page 182, is a solid nugget of information which we can be sure will quickly become currency in every country of the world —including the U.S.S.R. itself. For just as executives, technicians and students of the Western world will be eager to learn how their jobs are done in the vast and mightily expanding Aeroflot organization, so will the Russians be anxious to read in cold print the impressions and opinions of a British delegation. The sheer immensity of Aeroflot is summed up by Mr. Jenkins in a few, but weighty, words: "Everything civil that is done in the air by the Soviet Union is done by Aeroflot. It has the status of a Ministry and undertakes all those func- tions which would, in Great Britain, be shared between the M.T.C.A., B.E.A., B.O.A.C., the independent operators, the Air Transport Advisory Council and the contractors who build the airports. To this comparison may be added the aircraft-purchasing and financing powers of the Ministry of Supply." Especially remarkable was the candour of Soviet officials in discussing their operations and their problems. Thus, of the Tu-104's engines: " .. . there were 400 modifications to the combustion chamber. However, they were done, and the 104 can now take off and climb on one engine, although her all-up weight is more than 70 metric tons." This is man-to-man talk; and Flight is happy to place it on record. '; ,
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