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Aviation History
1958
1958 - 0014.PDF
14 FLIGHT Typical of a proving flight is the scene (left) in the 72-seat tourist cabin during the flight to New York. (Right) the 18-seat first class cabin; four berths fold into the roof. 6,000 MILES IN AN EL AL BRITANNIA . . . of our chances. We had found a 90 kt tailwind component forabout two hours during the night, and were now being steadily puffed along by a wind component of 30 to 40 kt. In an houror two we should receive London's six-hourly European met. forecast, and the moment of decision—to press on to Tel-Aviv,or to refuel at Rome—would come somewhere over France. For the time being, gallons-gone %>ersus distance-to-go looked promis-ing, and at 13.10 we began to ascend our next 2,000ft step to 31,000ft. The captain nicked us up on his S.E.P.2 autopilot,maintaining the A.S.I, to within 5 kt of the new (lower) target speed which, according to El Al's cruising charts, apparentlyworked out at 205 kt for the particular weight, height and outside temperature conditions prevailing. TTie point at which one starts die next step is, I was told, verycritical: a couple of knots too soon or too late, as the A.S.I, creeps up with decreasing weight at constant height, and quite aserious effect on economy results. The actual technique of the climb is also very critical: El Al have tried many methods,including just simply allowing the aircraft's momentum to carry it up. But as the nose went up the speed dropped and dragincreased, and diis was tried only twice in proving flights. Tech- niques ar:, of course, still being refined and streamlined, and alarge document known as the Green Book, which contains cruising tables, charts and recommended practices for all routes and con-ditions, constitutes El Al's operational bible. El Al have worked all diis out for themselves in the course of paper operations goingback to September 1955, and in proving flights since last Septem- ber when their first aircraft was delivered. I was allowed to lookat the Green Book, but not to make notes from it. My impression of this document was that it appeared to be an exceedingly work-manlike effort to get the most out of the Britannia, its two funda- mental precepts being to extract the most value from every poundof fuel, and to make things as simple as possible for the crew. "Seventeen years as a practising navigator," remarked JedWilliams, "have tended to make me avoid fancy techniques, how- ever good they may be in theory." They had no "prima donnasor special wizards" in El Al. Full realization of the detail of El Al's performance work For the record flight to Tel-Aviv 11 rows of tourist seats were removed, as shown here, because full pressure-refuelled tankage could not be obtained at New York. dawned on me when I noticed in the Green Book detailedBritannia charts for the 200-mile London-Paris sector. At least three different operational techniques were considered, the con-clusion being that block time and fuel consumed were much of a muchness, the approach techniques being likely to waste moremoney than this or that kind of cruise. I asked about the extent of Bristol's support, and whether itwas not unusual for an airline—particularly one as small as El Al —to be expected to do so much basic performance work. It wasunusual, I gathered, but Bristol had provided them with a Tel-Aviv-based performance engineer, and had very quicklylearnt that a theoretical cruising grid, say, was not always sufficient in airline practice. Of the rest of Bristol's technical support, Iwas later told by Mr. Palgi that it has been "of the highest possible order." I asked why El Al's scheduled London-New York times werefaster than B.O.A.C.'s (10 hr 50 min westbound, compared with 12 hr, and 8 hr 30 min eastbound, compared with 9 hr 50 min).I never really got a conclusive answer to "that loaded question," as a Bristol representative described it, so I expect that the truthlies somewhere between a little optimism on one side and a little cautiousness on the other. I know that both airlines have beenout to break the Atlantic "four-minute-mile"—New York- London in eight hours—and El Al actually got within threeminutes of it on a proving flight on December 7. But a good deal of nonsense has been spoken and written about the trans-atlantic Britannia rivalry between El Al and B.O.A.C. It has been said that the Israeli airline was all-out to beat the BritishCorporation in the introduction of transatlantic Britannia ser- vices. This is not so, though it may have appeared to be so.A storm in a teacup was caused by a $3,400 full-page El Al advertisement in the Herald Tribune of December 6. (Thepresident of Aeronaves de Mexico, whose Britannia 302s were at that time due into New York on December 16, was so impressedthat he asked to reproduce it at Acronaves' expense in Mexico City newspapers.) The advertisement showed a photograph ofthe sea, with the heading: "Starting December 23 the Atlantic Will Be 20 Per Cent Smaller," and the caption: "Watch for theinauguration of the first jet-prop service across. the Atlantic, introducing the Bristol Britannia." At this time B.O.A.C. had stated that their Britannia services El Al carry one stewardess and three stewards on Britannia services. Until now El Al have not offered first-class service, but they are learn- ing very quickly about the scale of the competition in this kind of business, and are offering a high standard of service.
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