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Aviation History
1957
1957 - 1381.PDF
ROYAL OCCASION: Honorary fellowship, the highest distinc- tion that the Royal Aeronautical Society can bestow. His Royal Highness Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands here accepts this honour from the president of the Society, Sir George Edwards, on Septem- ber 13, immediately before the Wilbur Wright lecture (re- ported on page 477). One section of the gloves mechanically pressurizes the back of thehand when partial pressure is selected in emergencies, while the other covers the fingers but leaves them entirely free.Present U.S.A.F. partial-pressure suits are reputed to allow very little mobility when not pressurized and to immobilize thewearer completely when they are. A special helmet has also been designed to go with the Convairsuit, offering wider visibility from the enlarged face-piece and having a ball-bearing joint at the neck which allows the wearera full 90 deg turn of the head in either direction under all con- ditions. The whole equipment floats the wearer face-upwards inthe water, even if he is unconscious. BLOWLAMP is the NATO name for this newly identified light bomber, in the class of the Douglas Skywarrior, and probably supersonic in a shallow dive. Wing-tip pods house undercarriage outriggers. The Queen's Canadian JourneyT HAT the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh will be flying inan American aircraft (a Douglas DC-7C of B.O.A.C.) when they leave on their visit to Canada and the U.S.A. next month iswidely deplored, especially in the Royal Air Force. Transport Command has now amassed about 6,000 flying hours on itsComet 2s, and mileage is mounting at the rate of some half-million a week. Anglo-American Retrospect HTHE technical session of the Sixth Anglo-American Aeronautical••• Conference (the first half of which is reviewed on pages 473 to 476) closed at Folkestone on September 12. Though 16 paperswere read in four days, attendance in the ballroom of the Hotel Metropole remained substantial throughout the lecture sessions.Delegates even found time for extra talks and demonstrations. Lest such large-scale absorption of technical information shouldlead to slight mental indigestion, the Royal Aeronautical Society had arranged a Conference reception after Monday's lectures anda dinner-dance to close the session; and the Mayor of Folkestone 471 gave an evening reception at the Hotel Metropole on September 11. Sir George Edwards, president of the R.Ae.S., summed up thelecture session for the Society (a task which he claimed was not really possible). He thought it had been a good conference;although papers had been read "cold," security restrictions had not made them narrow or dry. The discussions had ranged widely;people had "taken very little notice" of the subject, but used the papers as a catalyst on which to base further contributions. Themost encouraging feature had been that papers were mostly reports "by young chaps talking about work they had done with their ownfair hands, rather than superficial statements from a great height with a thinly disguised vein of sales talk." If there had been a discernible theme, Sir George continued, itwas one of money. Researches at this time more than at any other were dependent upon dollars and cents and pounds and pennies,and some useful work had had to be stopped. Sir George was applauded for his suggestion that—as most papers had been pub-lished three weeks before the conference opened—greater use should be made of pre-reading so that longer discussions couldbe held. Replying for the Institute of the Aeronautical Sciences, Mr.Mundy I. Peak said he had discussed with everyone both STOL and VTOL, and turboprops for long-range and short-range, andobserved that it was obvious "you are just confused here as we are in the U.S." A suggestion voiced during the Conference for asimilar occasion embracing more countries was taken up by Mr. Peale, who said that ten-nation talks arranged by the Inter-national Committee for Aeronautical Sciences (including the R.Ae.S. and I.A.S.) would be held in New York and then in France,and there was an international all-country proposal for a meeting to be held in Madrid next September. The I.A.S. is to act as asecretariat and the Council has approved the use of the Guggen- heim Fund for financial support. The first honorary president(present at the Folkestone conference) is Dr. Theodore von Karman. The seventh Anglo-American Conference is to be held in NewYork during October 1959. An invitation to the R.Ae.S. to attend was extended by Mr. Peale at the dinner on September 12 andaccepted by Sir George Edwards on behalf of the Society. Glider Pilots Selected FINAL seeding of British glider pilots for the 1958 WorldGliding Championships in Poland was announced last week by the British Gliding Association. The list is as follows:1, H. C. N. Goodhart; 2, A. J. Deane-Drummond; 3, P. A. Wills; 4, G. A. J. Goodhart; 5, D. H. G. Ince; 6, G. Stephenson; 7, F.Foster; 8, J. Williamson; 9, A. Gough. It is not known at present how many pilots from each country may enter for the champion-ships. Delays on the Routes SOME figures were given by B.O.A.C. last weekend about thefrequency of engine changes and the resultant irregularity of their Britannia services, particularly those to the Far East whereicing troubles are more likely to be encountered. In the 32 weeks since the Britannia 102 went into service on the South African andAustralian routes, there have been 49 unscheduled Proteus engine changes. Of these, 16 were the direct result of damage caused byengine icing, and the remaining 33 for unspecified causes. There have also been electrical system snags. The effect on services has been to delay seven per cent of allBritannia flights from London to Sydney between March 3 and July 20 by more than 24 hours, and three per cent by more than48 hours. On the return journey a quarter of the services were more than 24 hours late. Since July the position has slightlyimproved; Sydney to London flights have experienced lateness of over 24 hours on 19 per cent of the services and on 10 per centin the reverse direction. No flights on the South African route have been delayed by more than 24 hours since July. RECEIVING AWARDS from Sir George Edwards are some of the recipients of R.Ae.S. honours for 1957. They are (left to right) Mr. R. L. Lickley (British gold medal for outstanding practical contribution to aircraft design and development); Mr. Caradoc Williams (Wakefield gold medal for contributions to the development and use of radio aids to navigation); Mr. Charles Abell (British silver medal tor achievements in efficiency of airline operations); Mr. F. B. Greatrex (bronze medal for work on aero-engine noise reduction); and J/Tech. R. D. Trender (N. E. Rowe medal for lecture on "Parachutes and British ejector seats ). Prof. J. C. Hunsaker, awarded the Society's gold medal for aeronautical research, regrettably—unable to attend the presentation of awards in London on September 13. was—most "Flight" photographs
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