FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1959
1959 - 0271.PDF
126 FLIGHT The Hawker Siddeley Year Subject of the largest civil-aircraft programme of the Group is the AW.650 Argosy. The first 650 was kept on the ground all last week by visibility rarely exceeding a hundred yards, combined with snow and ice A T the annual general meeting of the Hawker Siddeley GroupA\ in London last week Sir Thomas Sopwith, the chairman, JL JL opened his statement by disclosing that the Group wasclassified as the twelfth largest industrial concern outside the U.S.A. Assets had climbed to £200 million, sales stood at £250m,and total employment approached 100,000. The Hawker Siddeley share of Canadian net assets had byJuly 31, 1958, reached a value of £29m. Sir Thomas revealed that the original cost of this investment was £13m. This remarkablegrowth in value he attributed to his company's policy of ploughing back profits. (The size of the company's Canadian investment isshown by the fact that these companies employ about 40,000 and sold goods to the value of £137m, including £21m exports.) After having noted that the Canadian investment "no longerrequires steady infusions of capital from the U.K.," Sir Thomas proceeded to discount suggestions that the Group relied undulyupon bank loans, and added that "suitable steps to put the finances of the U.K. organization on a satisfactory long-term basis will betaken only at the appropriate time." The first step was likely to be a £15 million offei of convertible debentures. Understandably, the chairman's review covered an immensefield of activities. When he came to the aircraft side—prefacing his remarks by mentioning the merging of Hawker Siddeleyinterests into a single new aviation division—he briefly reviewed current contributions to the Royal Air Force and the air arms ofmany nations overseas, and went on to say that all the Group's aviation companies had maintained a high level of productionduring the year; they were still busy turning out Vulcans, Hunters, Shackletons and Javelins. The backlog was substantial."But," said *ir Thomas, "the present defence policy does raise many problems for the future. The aircraft industry is bound tocontract if the Government continues with its policy of concen- trating on guided missiles with the consequent run-down ofmanned aircraft. The Group, of course, has interests in the guided-missile field and already has a number of notable successesto its credit with the Armstrong Whitworth Seaslug for the Royal Navy and the rocket motor developed by Armstrong Siddeley topower the Black Knight [further described on p. 120]. In addition, the Avro stand-off bomb is actively being developed."Your Board is still of the opinion that manned aircraft will be required for military purposes for a number of years to comeand there is large and growing su*" ort for this view at the top level in informed military circles uoth in Europe and NorthAmerica." Turning to Canada and the Arrow, Sir Thomas said this aircrafthad exceeded expectations in performance, adding, "We are hope- ful that this will lead to additional production orders from theCanadian Government in due course. Our new Canadian engine, the Iroquois, is also developing very well indeed." After speaking of the civil and military versions of the Argosy,Sir Thomas added: "Looking to the future, we have a number of new projects in the design and development stage, including anovel form of vertical take-off close-support fighter from Hawkers" [mentioned on p. 2 of our January 2 issue].Referring to the Government's express wish to see the develop- ment of stronger units within the aircraft industry, he said thatHawker Siddeley had gone further than anyone else in meeting it. Not only had they merged all their aviation interests, but on theengine side the decision had been taken to merge Bristol Aero- Engines and Armstrong Siddeley Motors into a single company. SOVIET HARDWARE, U.S. PROJECT THE photographs below of the Russian solarsatellite launched on January 2 were released in Moscow last week. The main satellite container,which separated from the final stage of the launch- ing rocket at burn-out, is shown on the left. Thetall vertical spike carries "the terrestrial magnetic field meter and the lunar magnetic field detector,"and other instruments on the same half of the aluminium-magnesium alloy case were said to ESCAPE ROCKET PARACHUTE • \=—IL- ^• 40 YAW) JETS LANDING IMPACT BAG ROLL JET5 ) ; _ ENTRY HATCH \X ~^ ;f < \ JV A I —>- NOSE SHIELDV___/ \ RETRO ESCAPE -;: ••. -: ROCKETS include "two proton counters to detect thegas components of interplanetary sub- stances and two Piezo-electric meters forstudying meteoric particles." The photo- graph on the right shows the package,containing batteries, radio and scientific equipment, carried in the final stage of therocket. The drawing above indicates the con-figuration of the manned Earth satellite project which McDonnell Aircraft Corp.are developing for the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration.Known as Project Mercury, the satellite capsule will have a weight in orbit of about2,000 lb and will be fitted with an escape rocket for emergency separation of thecapsule from its launching vehicle— probably an Atlas ICBM. Electronicinstrumentation for the satellite, it has been announced, will be by Collins Radioand will include radio voice communica- tion, radio command system, telemetry,guidance and tracking systems and rescue beacon for locating the landing-point.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
