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Aviation History
1957
1957 - 1577.PDF
FIRST AERONAUTICAL WEEKLY IN THE WORLD FOUNDED 1909 <^^ and AIRCRAFT ENGINEER No 2545 Vol 72 FRIDAY 1 NOVEMBER 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.I Telephone • Waterloo 3333 Telegrams • Flightpres Sedist London BRANCH OFFICES Coventry 8-10 Corporation Street Telephone • Coventry 5210 Birmingham King Edward House, New Street, 2 Telephone • Midland 7191 (7 lines) Manchester 260 Deansgate, 2 Telephone • Blackfriars 4412 (3 lines) Deansgate 3595 (2 lines) Glasgow 26B Renfield Street, C.2 Telephone • Central 1265 (2 lines) Toronto, Ontario Thomas Skinner of Canada, Ltd. 67 Yonge Street, 1 Telephone • Empire 6-0873 New York, N.Y. Thomas Skinner and Co. (Publishers), Ltd. 111 Broadway, 6 Telephone • Digby 9-1197 ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION Home £4 15s Od, overseas £5 Os Od. Canada and U.S.A. $15.00. Entered as second-class matter at Post Office, New York, N.Y. in this issue 666 All Quarters 668 Under the Cedar Tree 669 Civil Aviation 671 Service Aviation 672 Correspondence 673-724 Commercial Aircraft: Air- liners of the World Water-Based Air LogisticsF LYING-BOATS—a species of marine aircraft that once flourished in these islands—have been built over the years for transport, patrol, reconnaissance, bombing, mine-laying, and even as fighters and tank-landing craft. In recent times they have been adapted as flight-refuelling tankers; and one of the very latest (for they are far from moribund in other lands) is a jet "commuting ship." Of all their possible applications, that of military airlift, either for limited or global warfare, is potentially the most rewarding. The case is presented by Mr. Guy Mallery, project engineer of the Martin company, whose four-jet 600-m.p.h. SeaMaster minelayer is in limited production for the U.S. Navy. Current strategic and tactical doctrines, Mr. Mallery points out, demand unprecedented speed of reaction to enemy attack. Strategic reserves must be transferred to combat theatres in a matter of hours rather than weeks, and new types of weapons and weapons carriers, together with helicopters, must be rushed to the atomic battlefield. In this knowledge the ground forces have been at pains to reduce the size and weight of their equipment; but Mr. Mallery argues that the emphasis should be on satisfying the needs of those forces for their special fighting tools and not on com- promising the tools so that they can fit into the limited dimensions of today's trans- port aircraft. His contention is a difficult one to refute; and his advocacy of the flying-boat—having in mind the possibilities of designing it to any size, regardless of the availability or suitability of terminal land facilities—has a supporter in the U.S. Army's Chief of Transportation, who has delivered himself of a sentiment not unheard in these islands a few years ago. "We are interested in water-borne aircraft," he said, "because we operate in areas where no runways or hangars are available. Water-borne aircraft land where the Lord has provided for us . . ." Encouraged by the joint blessings of Providence and the U.S. Army, the Martin engineer comes forward with an offer of an eight- or ten-jet leviathan—the SeaMistress—displacing something between 200 and 300 tons, carrying 400 troops, or three light tanks, or a fully equipped infantry company with vehicles and three days' rations. Refuelling would be possible in flight or at sea. Getting aMhe Trouble These impressive capabilities must, of course, be related to facilities existing in possible trouble-spots—Turkey, for instance, where the destruction of only three airfields could preclude the fulfilment of strategic commitments by land-based machines, but where some two thousand miles of coastal waters and more than a score of usable interior lakes would be available to marine aircraft. In terms of time and movement it has been calculated that if trouble developed in the Middle East a period of 45 days would be required for the sea transport of three fully equipped army divisions from the United States to the scene of action. In the same period more than 900 land-based aircraft—provided by the Military Air Transport Service and the commercial airlines—could lift only two divisions —and those without their heavier equipment. But in a mere 15 days or so, about a hundred fast, heavy flying-boats could, it is suggested, move the entire three divisions plus all their equipment. As for cost, this would clearly have to be borne jointly by all three Services; and in terms of economics an actual British example is cited by Mr. Mallery. "It is interesting to note," he says, "that in 1953, a Select Committee in the British Parliament, set up to study costs of air transport. . . reported that, in the case of troop movements to Egypt, the cost on military troopships amounted to $85.50 per soldier as against only $62.50 per soldier on chartered aircraft." We hear from our friends at Martin that Mr. Mallery and several of his col- leagues are presenting their case in a continuing series of briefings to military and industrial leaders, Government departments and Congressional representatives; and we believe that they would be rendering a service to Britain if they were to present the full text of their thesis to the Ministry of Defence Amphibious Warfare Department, Whitehall, London (copy to the Treasury at the same address).
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