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Aviation History
1959
1959 - 0370.PDF
No. 2611 VOLUMjE 76 FRIDAY 6 FEBRUARY 1959 -.-••'•'"•'•' Editor-in-Chief MAURICE A. SMITH D.F.C. Editor H. F. Kl NO M.B.E. Technical Editor W. T. OU N3TON ' . > Ptoduction Editor ROY CASEY IN THIS IS8U E Missiles and Space-flight 179 Frank Bernard Halford, 1894-1955 183 Flying Fords 185 Rolls-Royce Reversers 187 Flight-testing the •~Mh:%:-.r^..' Vanguard 188 Eastern Routes Jet 190 Dart Overhaul by B.E.A 194 Secsyn 195 Illilt & Sont Ltd., Dorset House, Stam-ford Street, Ionrton, S.K.I; telephone „_• Waterloo 3333. Telegrams 1'lightpres••"-' Bedist London. Annual subscriptions: r Home £4 15s, Overseas £6. Canada '••> and U.S.A. $15.00. Second Class Mail.-' privileges authorized at New York, N.Y. Branch Offices Coventry: 8-10 Corpora-tion Street; telephone Coventry 25210. Birmingham: King Edward House, New_ Street, 2; telephone Midland 7191. Man- '••i Chester: 260 Deansgate, 3; telephone• Blackfriars 4412 or Deansgate 3595. Glasgow: 26B Renfleld Street, C.2;•#: telephone Central 1265. •J-* New York, N.Y.; Thomas Skinner & Co.(Publishers) Ltd., Ill Broadway, 6; telephone Digby 9-1197. © Iliffe <fe Sons Ltd., 1959. Permissionto reproduce illustrations and letterpress can be granted only under written agree-ment. Brief extracts or comments may be made with due acknowledgement. AIRCRAFT, SPACECRAFT, MISSILES Official Organ of the Royal Aero Club First Aeronautical Weekly in the World Founded 1909 The Writing on the Navaid Wall THERE are strong indications that the voting at the I.A.T.A. technicalpolicy-making meeting in Nice last month went heavily in favour of Vortac as the standard international short-range navigation aid—and did so without the formality of technical assessment of the requirements or of the proposed aid itself. I.A.T.A. has thus been led blindfolded into the American camp in readiness for the forthcoming I.C.A.O. Montreal meeting to decide on a new standard aid. It is universally recognized that any new aid which is adopted must primarily facilitate air traffic control; and an area-coverage aid as the effective means of achieving this aim was suggested after individual detailed studies by the I.C.A.O. Jet Operations Requirements Panel, the American Curtis committee, the Inter- national Federation of Airline Pilots' Associations, and the British M.T.C.A; But the Americans have flatly stated that Vortac will be installed in their own country whatever happens. The I.A.T.A. technical committee seems to have been persuaded to endorse this anomalous position. Vortac itself emerged from a historic dispute as a compromise for a new American common civil/military aid. The military had demanded standardiza- tion of Tacan, a new tactical beacon originally designed for operation from small ships and submarines, while the civil authorities clung mainly to VOR, which was already an international standard. Now Vortac (or, more precisely, its Tacan distance-measuring element) is being pushed hard as a new standard for the whole world—pending development of yet another aid sometime in the future. Distance measuring may help jet-airliner pilots to judge their let-down points, but it will not help them through the slower traffic at lower levels. It may allow reduction of longitudinal spacing on beacon-defined airways. But demonstration flights during the Vortac symposium last year clearly showed the extra com- , munications traffic involved; and communications can become a major bottle- neck. Questions about limitations to the capacity of Vortac are always answered in America with the magic word radar; but radar demands yet more communica- tions. The papers read at the symposium seemed to indicate that all the problems had been carefully weighed, and the international audiences were politely credulous. Now, while the unavoidably ponderous I.C.A.O. machinery moves slowly towards international agreement, there is a strong tendency to climb on the Vortac bandwagon simply in order to achieve some sort of result quickly. The reasoning goes that Vortac will in any case be necessary in the U.S.; that it can probably be implemented quickly; that the Americans seem to be solving the worst air traffic problem in the world with it; that just a few Vortac beacons might fill the bill until the final aid arrives; and that there will be plenty of Vortac going free. Only the first and last of these arguments stand up to close scrutiny, but the reasoning is being potently reinforced at every opportunity. Whether as a result of persuasion or dragooning, the reluctant and the doubters are being gathered into the Vortac fold. Decisions are being taken in spite of, or even in the face of, all the technical assessments. But they will provide no lasting solution to the pressing problem of controlling growing traffic; and that is, after all, the crucial question facing I.C.A.O. or any other civil aviation authority. The reported I.A.T.A. vote at Nice may be the writing on the wall. We can only hope that I.C.A.O. will not be forced to follow this unhappy example.
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