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Aviation History
1957
1957 - 1580.PDF
668 FLIGHT, 1 November 1957 Under the Cedar Tree Beirut's five modern airport buildings must soon be extended or modified to cope with the expansion of Lebanon traffic. There are now a thousand aircraft movements a month at this busy terminal. Middle East Airlines Spreads its Wings By A. T. PUGH AT the eastern end of the Mediterranean, where the mainlandt\ of Turkey overhangs the island of Cyprus and branches of L JL the Egyptian Nile thrust their way through the Delta intothe sea, lies the flank of coastline of the Biblical lands. In the cockpit of the countries accredited with the genesis of civilization(Damascus is reputed to be the oldest town in the world) tiny, prosperous Lebanon boasts a political stability not always enjoyedby its Syrian, Israeli and Turkish neighbours. Long ago, the traditional economy of the district was the exportfrom the ancient ports of Tyre and Sidon of cedar trees gathered from the slopes and mountains around Mount Lebanon; and thecivilization and culture of the country were expressed by the temples of the Phoenician city of Baalbeck, in the plain betweenmountain ranges that was the granary of the Roman armies. The outward signs of a modern economy, which is largely basedon banking and commerce, are a capital that is as cosmopolitan as any in the world and a fine airport serving the needs of the 34 air-lines which use Beirut. Viscount services, with stops at Rome, Zurich and Athens, have put the Lebanon a comfortable 12 hoursfrom London, as I recently had the opportunity of discovering for myself on a sample Middle East Airlines flight between L.A.P.and Beirut International Airport. A short stop at Athens—in the dark little more than a collectionof lights and one more international airport selling national souvenirs in the transit lounge—gave me an insight into the deter-mination of Mr. Onassis to make Olympic Airways a first-class airline; and all the indications, from the turn-out of the DC-3s and6s to the size ani smartness of the ground installations, are that Olympic will be ready for their DC-8s when these are deliveredin 1960. From Athens to Beirut is 1,146 miles, and after 2 hr 30 min wearrived over the lights of the town stretching far up into the hills. Mediterranean lights have, I think, a distinctive appearance quiteunlike either the lights of British towns, which are white or sodium- yellow and sometimes softened by mist, or the harsh intensity ofAmerican coloured lighting. They are smaller and yellower, with multi-coloured neon signs around the hotel and night club areasand unexplained coloured pinpoints in the hills. Surprisingly enough, since Beirut International Airport (thelocals copy our own abbreviating processes to refer to it as B.I.A.) has only been unserviceable through bad weather for three hoursin the last seven years, we were stood-off for ten minutes; but with 34 airlines using the airport and a thousand movements a month,traffic intensity can become very considerable. Because of the facilities and communications available at Beirut, and the stabilityof conditions in the area (rather like Switzerland, three-language Lebanon is valuable to itself and its neighbours as a non-partisan State), more and more airlines are using the airport. Both Beirutand Damascus give flight information on request, although neither is actually a Flight Information Centre (the nearest one, which isto be opened very shortly, is at Nicosia in Cyprus). B.I.A.'s fair weather (there have never been any diversions and the cloudbasehas never been less than 500ft), gives it a claim to become the F.I.C. for this area and the matter will be among those discussed at theI.C.A.O. EuMed meeting in Paris next year. Facilities and equipment, as the airport personnel were veryready to show, are rapidly being expanded; V.O.R. is being installed and radar will be added later. By summer next year theteletype service should include a direct link with London. In the matter of runways B.I.A. is adequately equipped for presentneeds, and plans are already well advanced for extension of the north-south runway to 9,000ft (and eventually 19,168ft) and theNE/SW runway to 10,500ft. A 1956 American mission to the Lebanon which proposed the method of runway extensionsestimated that 9,400ft would be sufficient for a fully-loaded DC-8 at standard temperature, and that the 10,500ft available on theNE/SW runway would be sufficient at maximum listed tempera- ture—a forecast which seems optimistic when Beirut's maximumtemperatures of about ISA +27 deg C are considered. (These maxima are, however, of short duration.) Any first-time visitor to Beirut must inevitably be surprised atthe contrasts the town presents. The predominant languages are Arabic and French, the cars large and mostly American (my taxiwas a Cadillac Eldorado, but one night outside my hotel bedroom— air-conditioned and with American-style private bathroom—therewere a Jaguar 2.4, a Mercedes-Benz 300 SL and an Alfa-Romeo Guilletta Sprint); the streets are narrow and constantly blastedby the horns of passing drivers. The robed and veiled rub amicable shoulders with the suited and the hatted, and in pokeyshops in narrow alleys, where coffee is sometimes offered by the proprietor, there would be the largest size deep-freeze as well. Inthe cool of the hills, contrasts are even more marked; I was sur- prised to find myself drinking thick sweet Turkish coffee, smokinga hookah—and listening to rock 'n' roll. Later, when I had an opportunity of meeting Mr. FouadChader, the director of Civil Aviation, and heard from him some- thing of the Lebanese plans for civil aviation, I asked him aboutthe economy that made such extensions possible. Through an interpreter, he replied by an anecdote. "Quite recently," he said,"we employed a very eminent Dutch economist to study our national livelihood, and make a report and recommendations tokeep us from the perils of inflation, slumps and national debt (we have none at the moment). He studied us for three months and (Continued on page 670) The rapid growth of Middle East Airlines has largely been due to the Viscount. Below is one of their 754s, finished in red-and-white with a green cedar tree. During July, M.E.A. achieved utilizations of 9.5 hr per aircraft day and increased the passenger-carrying on their Beirut-Dhahram route in the first eight months of Viscount service by 78 per cent. On the right is M.E.A.'s chairman and managing director, Sheik Najib Alamuddin. He is a member of the I.A.T.A. executive.
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