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Aviation History
1958
1958 - 0154.PDF
160 FLIGHT, 31 January 1958 CIVIL AVIATION . . . BREVITIES OTARTING on May 5, Silver City are to operate six routes^ out of Woolsington airport, Newcastle-on-Tyne. Amsterdam, Dusseldorf, Brussels via Yeadon, Hamburg, Blackpool and the Isleof Man will be served by 36 seater DC-3s. * * * An El Al Britannia broke its own London - New York record on January 24 with a flight of 9 hr 52 min. * * * Air-India International has introduced an intermediate trafficstop at Djakarta on its Bombay-Sydney service. * * * An order for micro-wave link radar installations worth about£1.18m has been placed by the C.A.A. with the Collins Radio Company. * * *' The M.T.C.A. announce that the last EuMed H.F. radio-telegraphy air-ground communication channels will be withdrawn on March 8. * * * The Boeing 707-80 prototype has been flying with one Prattand Whitney JT4 and a new JT3G-4 in addition to its two original J57P-3s. The second production aircraft should be rolled out nextweek. * * * K.L.M. expect an increase in traffic to follow die introduction of third-class fares in April. It is likely that the airline's options on four DC-7Cs and two L.1049Hs will be exercised. All six aircraft are scheduled for delivery in 1958. On the right is Mr. Charles W.Butler, the American industrial design consultant, who has justopened a London office at 18 Cavendish Square. CharlesButler Associates, Inc., have designed the interiors of theViscount for T.C.A., Continental and Capital, and have also styledinteriors for Northeast's Britan- nias and Capital's Comets.* * * It has been suggested to thecourt of inquiry into the dis- appearance of the PanAm Strato-cruiser, Romance of the Skies, that the crew and some of thepassengers may have been over- come by carbon monoxide fumesfrom burning film in the hold. Mr. Charles Butler Mr. Thomas S. Banes has been appointed Director of AirNavigation Bureau and an Assistant Secretary General of I.C.A.O. Mr. Banes, who has been on the staff of I.C.A.O. since its inception,replaces A.V-M. Alan Ferrier, retiring after eight years with I.C.A.O. * * * Mr. Derek Lambert has been appointed assistant generalmanager (development) of Vickers-Armstrongs (Aircraft), Ltd. He will be aided by senior development assistants Mr. N. A.Barfield and Mr. C. Hamshaw-Thomas. Vickers have alsoappointed as assistant sales managers Mr. H. C. W. Sharp (Middle and FarEast), Mr. A. C. Page (Europe and Africa) and Mr. D. Sykes (N. America). BRITISH EUROPEAN AIRWAYS AND VTOL (continued from page 138) One toilet, easily installed or removed, shall be provided withapproximately 12 sq ft of floor space. A single pantry for serving light refreshments shall be fitted in such a way that it can bereadily removed and additional seats introduced as an alternative. A good view out of the aircraft should be possible for themajority of the passengers. The payload accommodation should be so designed that freightcan be carried in the whole or part of the cabin without damage to furnishings. This will require either: (a) that seats can befolded up against the wall; or (b) that seats can be removed rapidly, furnishings being protected from damage by freight, etc., duringloading by readily removable panels. The freight/mail/registered baggage compartment shall havea minimum usable gross volume of at least 6 cu ft per seat of the standard layout, and by means of movable bulkheads it shall bepossible to expand this volume rapidly at the expense of passenger accommodation, provision being made for the protection of fur-nishings in the portion of the passenger cabin thereby taken into the freight compartment. When the whole or part of the cabin isused for the carriage of freight, means of rapidly lashing down the freight shall be provided. In addition, means of confiningsmall packages and/or mail bags within removable separate cells shall be provided. Consideration should be given to detachablecargo pods. Engine overhaul life should be at least 360 flying hours and thetransmission system (if applicable) at least 240 flying hours at the commencement of operations, with the prospect of rapid increaseduring the service life of the aircraft to at least 1,000 hours. Accessibility of major components should be such that it ispossible to withdraw such components without withdrawing other major components. No controls or working parts which requireexamination shall be put in positions where they cannot be examined or from which they cannot be readily removed. Inparticular, the interior of all gearboxes shall be capable of inspec- tion without disturbing the gear assembly. Services and accessories of one type (e.g., electrics, hydraulics)shall be so grouped that engineers of different trades can simul- taneously work on the aircraft without mutual interference.The interval between successive maintenance operations shall not be less than 15 flying hours. The interval between successivemaintenance operations involving the removal of power-transmis- sion components for overhaul lives of such components shall bemultiples of 120 flying hours, i.e., the overhaul lives of such com- ponents shall be multiples of 120 flying hours. The ease ofremoval and replacement of components shall be such that each maintenance operation of this type shall not involve the aircraftin a period of planned unserviceability in excess of 24 working hours. In particular, the time taken to change a power unit shallnot exceed three hours. Comment: "Flight" asked Mr. G. S. Hislop, deputy chief engineer ofthe Fairey Aviation Company, Ltd., makers of the Rotodyne, to comment on B.E.A.'s VTOL study. He writes as follows:— "This is undoubtedly an attempt by B.E.A. to look ahead intothe realms of vertical take-off even beyond the helicopter—or any of its variants employing a large lifting rotor. If one examines itvery carefully the requirements are in almost all circumstances • very closely identical to those of the large transport helicopter asoriginally enunciated by B.E.A. in 1951 and subsequently brought up to date by the I.A.T.A. Helicopter Committee. The majordifference between the helicopter specification and this new VTOL requirement is that the cruising speed has been raised fromnot less than 130 kt in the original specification to not less than 300 kt, a very big step indeed. "It is notable that nowhere in the specification is the desiredoperating cost stated. This is a pity, because one suspects that the real aim of the higher speed is an endeavour to reduce the operat-ing costs to a lower level than those predicted for the large trans- port helicopter. It would have helped had the desired objective ofoperating cost been stated. It is true that a cruising speed of 300 kt would be very useful in its own right, and would enable a VTOLaircraft to compete very effectively with fixed-wing aircraft over ranges of 400 n.m. or maybe even farther; but this wouldseriously affect the required payload/range characteristic as set forth. For the stated 200 n.m., a cruising speed of 300 kt wouldresult in a time saving of about 30 minutes overall as compared with that likely to be achieved by, say, the Rotodyne cruising at150 kt. The margin is appreciable it is true, but it is small com- pared with the savings of which the large helicopter is potentiallycapable as compared with fixed-wing machines. The higher cruising speed needs to be matched to a longer range if it is to befully exploited. "However, the exercise should force the VTOL aircraftdesigners to consider very seriously the implications of their par- ticular configurations in respect, say, of meeting the engine-failedcase from the point of view of control, the high performance standard demanded on a warm day in this case, the magnitude ofthe reserve fuel to be carried, the mechanical reliability of their power system, and the problem of ensuring satisfactory lives forthe major components, especially those of the powerplant and lifting systems. "A realistic design made to these several yardsticks will showthat a vertical-lift air-transport aircraft, other than the helicopter and its immediate derivatives, is quite a long way off. It will con-firm that the helicopter, which at the moment is apparently rather unfashionable, is the only likely vehicle which can provide thenecessary performance and safety standards for airline use with the economy essential for such operations.''
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