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Aviation History
1957
1957 - 1293.PDF
PLIGHT, 6 September 1957 381 Above, the SC.l at the blower tunnel at Boscombe Down for canopy- jettisoning trials. Upper right, Tom Brooke-Smith entering the aircraft and, right, the gantry under which tethered-hovering trials are now beginning at Belfast. AT BELFAST NOW Short SC.l Progress AT a Press conference in London last week, Sir MatthewSlattery, chairman of Short Brothers and Harland, Ltd.,• stated that Government financial support for the SC.l VTO project had been drastically reduced. It had been originally plannedto complete two airframes, one for free-flight testing and the other for tethered-hovering trials. One set of five Rolls-Royce R.B.108engines was to be installed first in the free-flight aircraft and then in the other machine for first trials of the automatic hovering-control system. After that the engines would be put back into the "free" machine and translations would be started. Now, only one airframe is being completed and all work willbe done with this. Already, initial handling trials are complete and, according to Tom Brooke-Smith, Short's chief test pilot,the aircraft is much better to fly than had been expected. Control is mechanical, with the aid of geared tabs, and to these only oneslight adjustment has had to be made. The large dorsal fin which can now be seen on the aircraft was in fact added after wind-tunnel investigations before the first flight. Mr. Brooke-Smith expects no trouble in converting from horizontal to vertical flightand vice versa. The SC.l is now going into the gantry for hover- ing trials. These tests are likely to last six months instead of thetwo foreseen before Government support was reduced. Before flying the SC.l, Mr. Brooke-Smith completed a rapidhelicopter conversion course with S/L. Gellatly of Faireys; then he learnt to fly the Rolls-Royce Flying Bedstead, which he des-cribed as being akin to learning to ride a bicycle. It was a question of getting the knack of working with the automatichovering control. Sir Matthew Slattery stated that British aircraft research anddevelopment was "being done on a shoestring." This did not help with projects like the SC.l; and the Americans, at presentbehind us in this field, would soon catch us up. He saw several possible lines of application for VTO aircraft.They could operate with land forces in attack r61es, where they would need bases for supply and servicing, but no runways. Foraircraft carriers or other ships they also had obvious attractions. But mainly, VTO development was needed for a supersonic airlinerproject. A difficulty here was that no one would commit batches of 40 or 50 people to travelling in a supersonic airliner unless ithad behind it some three or four years of operational evaluation and experience. The Services were the ideal agency to supplythis experience. Sir Matthew spoke finally about Britannia production. Hiscompany had spent £2,000,000 in tooling up for this and was already in production. If an urgent order for an additional num-ber of Britannias was placed, Shorts already had the space and capacity to produce the first two in 15 months, but only becausethe materials were already on order. It would take a great deal longer than this to set up and start another Britannia productionsource; and it was therefore "not reasonable" for Mr. Howard Hughes "to come along and say he wants Britannias by June."It was difficult to imagine a company able or prepared to invest large sums in building aircraft like Britannias without orders. At£1,000,000 per aircraft, the sum involved was too large to risk without careful consideration. Equally, a supersonic VTO projectwould require some £20m to £40m to develop; and there were neither prospects of any Government assistance nor of orders foiproduction versions from the company doing the initial work. The SC.l was nevertheless directly related to supersonic airlinerprojects at present being considered. S.B.A.C. UNIVERSITY SCHOLARSHIPS TTNIVERSITY scholarships have been awarded by the S.B.A.C.^ for 1957 to the following candidates:— J. D. Brown and A. Rothwell (Fairey Aviation Co., Ltd.); R. Williams (Saunders-Roe, Ltd.); C. M. Darby (Rolls-Royce, Ltd.); J. M. McLean (Short Bros, and Harland, Ltd.); J. Counihan (Vickers-Arm-strongs Aircraft, Ltd., Weybridge); W. R. Chadwick and J. C. M. Thompson (A. V. Roe and Co., Ltd.); M. Millard (Blackburnand General Aircraft, Ltd.); and D. Bexley (Hawker Aircraft,Ltd.). They will go to the College of Aeronautics subject to accept-ance by its board of entry. Messrs. Brown, McLean, Counihan, Chadwick, Thompson, Millard and Bexley have already—it wasnoted at the S.B.A.C. selection committee meeting—been accepted by the College. The S.BA.C council has approved a selection committeerecommendation that the value of the S.B.A.C. university scholarship should be increased from £275 to £350 p.a.
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