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Aviation History
1958
1958 - 0284.PDF
298 FLIGHT, 7 March 1958 trrssrr A big moment for Canadian Pacific:their first Bristol Britannia 314, on a quick pre-delivery visit to Vancouver from Bristol on February 22, is seen lined up for a ceremonial entry into C.P.A.Il's new Britannia hangar. Watching outside are some of the 3,500 airline staff and families present: in the background is a T.C.A. Argonaut, and across the other side of Vancouver International Airport the R.C.A.F. base. is By J. M. RAMSDEN ILLUSTRATED WITH "FLIGHT" PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR Vancouver-Return by C.P.A.L. Britannia Canadian Pacific Prepare for Their New Fleet INSIDE his new $1.4 million Britannia hangar at VancouverInternational Airport last week the president of CanadianPacific Airlines pressed a switch, and upon the instant the power-operated doors slid back to reveal his first Britannia 314.Immaculate in her red and white paint-scheme, and with the myriad rooflights of the hangar mirrored in her burnished bulk,C.P.A.L.'s new Empress-class airliner proudly made her entrance to the strains of Rule, Britannia! From where I stood I couldjust see the sousaphones of die local brass band bobbing above the intervening heads of 3,500 cheering C.P.A.L. employeesand their families. It was quite a moment for Mr. Grant McConachie, who wasdelightedly shaking hands widi everyone in reach—Air. Norman Crump, president of C.P.R.; Mr. Peter Masefield, managingdirector or Bristol Aircraft; Mr. Otto Safir, architect of the hangar; and the Mayor of Vancouver, and other civic dignitaries. One might almost say that this moment was the fulfilment ofGrant McConachie's long and unswerving championship of British transport aircraft. The Britannia concerned, CF-CZA, was thefirst of six 314s ordered by C.P.A.L., built on the Short Brothers and Harland "second-source" Britannia line at Belfast. Our flight from Bristol to Vancouver had been made expresslyto provide the ceremonial opening of C.P.A.L.'s new Britannia hangar with the appropriate panache. It was not a delivery flightor a route-proving flight; much work remains to be done before this aeroplane can be delivered—an event which Bristol hope, andC.P.A.L. expect, will take place on March 29. It was primarily a test-flight, with Shorts and Bristol men at work, and seniorC.P.A.L. crews under training. As a passenger, I was able to renew my experience of test-flyingin a commodious transport, an experience with its own special mixed brand of business and mateyness. No one minds if youpass the night curled up on die floor (it's warm near the floor- level warm-air grilles), play a foursome of pontoon on the flightspares pack, or help yourself from the galley's plentiful reservoir of orange juice. But you have to keep out of the way if someonewants to press a thermocouple on your window-frame; you have to keep quiet when a decibel-level reading is being taken nearby;you do not address yourself to die normally approachable manag- ing director of Bristol Aircraft when he is preoccupied with fuel-management calculations; and you do not loiter about the flight deck when it is crowded widi pilots, navigators and engineers.(At one period during die outward flight there were 11 people in die cockpit.) Upon this map, which shows very roughly the sort of transcontinental domestic services which C.P.A.L hope to operate, depends the possi- bility of further orders for British transport aircraft (see text). C.P.A.L.'s present domestic routes, which currently account for only about a fifth of their total business, are confined to Convair-operoted local services in the north-west. T.C.A. have had the monopoly of Canada's main domestic routes for more than 20 years. Such a flight presents boundless opportunities for learning andobserving. I was keenest to learn about die implications for C.P.A.L. of introducing die Britannia, and to gather the opinions ofdiat respected airline on die wider issues of die air transport busi- ness. But one cannot be aboard a Britannia for two non-stopjourneys of about 14 hours each widiout realizing diat die adver- tised claims for this airliner ("fastest, longest-range," etc.) aredie simple truth. You can get as emotional as you like about a brochure, but youcannot climb aboard one in Vancouver with 36 odiers and be sitting in your office in London 15 hours later. To have done just that, orto have flown non-stop from New York to Tel-Aviv in an El Al Britannia, is to have crossed the deceptively wide gap whichseparates promises from fulfilment. Perhaps, at one time, Bristol did not appreciate how wide diat gap was, or how daunting and per-verse die troubles en route could be. But diey do now; and they can show you in production a turbine airliner which works, which dieyguarantee will fly for 16 hours with an 18,000 lb payload at an average speed of 350 m.p.h., and which you can see, hear, touch andsmell. Sales-talk, perhaps; but it needs saying now and again in a world which seems prone to intoxication by die sniff of pigskinbrochure-bindings. Canadian Pacific decided to buy Britannias on October 20,1955, four and a half months after the inauguration of dieir trans- Arctic DC-6B service between Vancouver and Amsterdam, andone week after PanAm's order for 707s and DC-8s—the historic order which started the big-jet snowball rolling. C.P.A.L. were die pioneers of the over-the-top (not quitetranspolar) service, and they were going to make a big success of it. The choice of equipment, and its timing, was vital. We quotefrom a C.P.A.L. equipment study published when the Britannia order was placed: — "The only aircraft offered early in 1955 for delivery early in1957 were the piston-driven DC-7C and Lockheed's 1649A, and the Bristol Britannia turboprop 310. The Cornet 4 was also con-sidered, but later eliminated because delivery time was the critical factor." In odier words, it was a diree-cornered fight between two new MONTREAL i • • ^> /OTTAWA, ITO i
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