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Aviation History
1958
1958 - 0065.PDF
17 January 1958 67 DELIVERY PARADE tor the first of S3 Avro Aircraft CF-100 Mk 5s for the Royal Belgian Air Force, at Beauvechain last month. Consultants concerned with the order were Simina Intair, Ltd. tion in American airframes, as they have done with the 505 et seq.Will the VC.10 be lighter than its competitors? Owing to its later conception—and assuming that Vickers are able to invest insophisticated, and extremely expensive, tooling—it should be several per cent lighter than a 707 or DC-8 for a given route.! Attempts to work out relative figures for drag for the three aircraft •when all are flying at, say, 200,000 lb, is a massive exercise; theresult is inconclusive, the VC.10 wing profile being unknown, i Shortage of moment arm—resulting from the rearward powerplantilocation—has made the VC.lO's tail enormous. Fuselage volume Imust be well over 6,500 cu ft. Cross-section is clearly very similari—if not identical—to that of the Vanguard. Owing to its greater ilength the VC.10 can seat 108,135 or 152 in three typical configura-tions—implying two more seat-rows than the turboprop aircraft. ! Vickers have now been heavily committed to the VC.10 for[over a year. They must know by now just what it will do; and [it is worth noting that its first customer describes it as "potentially!a world-beater"—as it must be. B.O.A.C. have obviously decided to sink or swim with it, and to make it the backbone of their fleetsby 1965. On page 497 of our September 20 issue we published curves of B.O.A.C. traffic growth and capacity up to 1966-7, andJthis suggests that, with the Boeing 707-428s, the 55 VC.lOs will jmeet all the Corporation's needs. With only 35 VC.lOs there|would be a deficiency of 1,150m passenger-miles annually. I A further significant point is that the VC.10 programme is being^financed entirely by Vickers. In view of the protracted negotiations [concerning the B.E.A. jet transport (pages 69 and 94) it is note-Iworthy that Vickers are being permitted to handle the much bigger CIO without Ministerial pressure for a co-operative effort withother companies. Atlas No. 4 THE fourth XSM-65 Atlas was successfully fired over a range of•*• 608 miles at Patrick A.F.B. on January 10. No sustainer was fitted. A newspaper report states that the firing was delayed byDne day owing to the loss within the weapon of a metal pin yin in •diameter and 2Jin long; eventually Mr. Osbert Goldinger, anTemployee of either Rocketdyne or Gonvair, was lowered into the weapon wearing an oxygen mask and retrieved the pin in a fewminutes. Fairey's Happy Family "VI^EMBERS of the family" is how the distinguished guests-"-*-•• were described at a dinner for long-service employees of the Fairey Aviation Co., Ltd., held in London last Saturday. Andcertainly their ties with Fairey were close indeed. There was Admiral Sir Denis W. Boyd, now Principal of Ashridge College,but at one stage during the war the Captain of H.M.S. Illustrious; he commanded that carrier at the Battle of Taranto when herattacking forces of Fairey Swordfish destroyed, or disabled, half the Italian Fleet. From 1912 until his retirement in 1949, AdmiralBoyd was almost continuously associated with Naval aviation and with Fairey aeroplanes. Then there was Air Marshal Sir Bryan V.Reynolds (now A.O.C-in-C. Coastal Command) who, as a wing LONG-SERVICE RECOGNITION: Mr. G. W. Hall, Fairey chairman nd managing director, makes a presentation to Mr. Charles Mills— tho joined the company in 7925—as representative of 245 other long- rice employees (see news-item, "Fairey's Happy Family," above). commander, was based at the Fairey factories at Stockport andHayes at the beginning of the war as an M.A.P. overseer. The third guest was Mr. G. W. H. Gardner,, Director of R.A.E. Farn-borough, who was visiting Faireys for technical discussions of requirements more than 25 years ago. Arranged by the Fairey Long-Service Association, the dinnerwas attended by 408 employees who had been with the company for 25 years or more. Two hundred and forty-six of them receivedgold watches and testimonials from the company, the remainder haying received similar presentations from the late Sir RichardFairey when the first dinner was held in 1949. I.A.S. Honours AT the Institute of the Aeronautical Sciences' honors night**• dinner on January 28 the president of the Royal Aeronautical Society, Sir George Edwards, is to present the society's gold medalto the Institute's first president, Mr. Jerome C. Hunsaker. Mr. Hunsaker is Professor Emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Tech-nology, and was N.A.C.A. chairman from 1941 to 1956. He is to receive the award "for his contributions to aeronautical researchand education, including his inspired chairmanship of the N.A.C.A." Among others to be honoured at the dinner are Mr. Arthur E.Raymond, vice-president engineering of Douglas Aircraft and 1946 president of the I.A.S., who will receive the Daniel Guggen-heim Medal; and Mr. William Littlewood (vice-president, equip- ment research, American Airlines) and Herr B. K. O. Lundberg(director of the Aeronautical Research Institute of Sweden), who are to be given honorary fellowships. Maj. David G. Simons, theU.S.A.F. doctor who last August made a balloon ascent to over 100,000ft, is to be presented with the John J. Jeffries Award; anda new award for outstanding work in helicopter development is to be conferred on a person who will be identified at the dinner. Blackburn A.P.U.s for C L.44 THE Engine Division of Blackburn and General Aircraft, Ltd.,-*• are to supply the auxiliary power units for the Canadair CL.44 transport. Announcing this, the makers remark that the orderfollows the supply of Palouste units for ground-starter trolleys for the Orenda Iroquois turbojet, to be used in the Avro Arrow. Theyadd: "This latest dollar order is for Artouste 510 gas turbines which provide shaft horse power in addition to compressed airbleed, the former driving an alternator and the latter being em- ployed for pneumatic starting of the main engines and for airconditioning." The whole unit can be installed as a self-contained power pod 74in long and of 24in diameter. NATO Dinner at Cranfield HTHE value of co-operation between the NATO countries in the-•• field of guided-weapon development was stressed by Dr. R. Cockburn, Controller of Guided Weapons and Electronics, Min-istry of Supply, in a speech at the College of Aeronautics, Cran- field, on Friday last, January 10. The occasion was a dinner atwhich industry and Government representatives were able to meet the members of the second NATO guided missiles course at theCollege. Replying to the toast of the guests, Dr. Cockburn said he felttechnocracy was getting out of hand—science should contribute to the philosophy of living, not only produce material benefits, andthe scientist should spend more time explaining his philosophy to the rest of the community. Some of us were worried at the highproportion of national expenditure which went on defence, but there was an inevitable duty to conserve and protect our way oflife, and scientific effort in the field of defence did have a direct effect on the country's civil standards. The conception, development and production of guidedweapons, Dr. Cockburn said, demanded a long time and an
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