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Aviation History
1959
1959 - 0492.PDF
No. 2613 VOLUME 75 .i . . . . • FRIDAY 20 FEBRUARY 1959 Editor-in-Chief MAURICE A. 8MITH D.F.C. Editor | . H. F. KINO M.B.E. ' Technical Editor W. T. OU NSTON Production Editor ROY CASEY N THIS I8SU E From All Quarters 238 Britannics on Order 24O Air Commerce 241 Missiles and Space-flight 245 Service Aviation 248 Flying: Aids Special Feature 249-272 Sports and Business 273 Straight and Level 274 Correspondence 275 The Industry 276 Iliffe & Sons Ltd., Dorset House, Stam-ford Street, London. S.E.I; telephone Waterloo 3333. Telegrams FUghtpresSedist London. Annual subscriptions: Home £4 15s. Overseas £5. Canadaand 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, NewStreet, 2; telephone Midland 7101. Man- Chester: 260 Deansgate, 3: telephoneBlackfriars 4412 or Deansgate 3595. Glasgow: 26B Kenfleld Street, C.2;telephone Central 1265. New York, N.Y.: Thomas Skinner & Co.(Publishers) Ltd., Ill Broadway. 6: telephone Digby 9-1197. © Hiffe & 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, MIS8ILES Official organ of the Royal Aero Club First Aeronautical Weekly in the World Founded 190S The New DefenceA T fitful intervals the pieces that will finally compose the jigsaw of the New Defence are falling (or being joggled and squeezed) into place; and the White Paper Progress of the Five-Year Defence Plan shows how the picture is being filled in. Selection of the pieces has sometimes appeared indecisive and dilatory to the point of exasperation, and recent weeks have aroused new irritations and misgivings while allaying others. For example, although an order for NA.39s has been placed on behalf of the Royal Navy, some disappointment has been voiced that this Blackburn strike/reconnaissance aircraft should not have been ordered for the R.A.F. also. To those who have advocated its acceptance in preference to the Vickers-Armstrongs/English Electric/Bristol Siddeley TSR.2 the Air Minister has explained that take-off and landing characteristics of the proposed land-based version would have been inferior to those of the TSR.2; that navigation aids would have been less adequate; that the aircraft would have cost a great deal in research and development; and that in any case it could not have been available any earlier. A suggestion that a small number of NA.39s might have been supplied to the R.A.F. for familiarization with "a new concept of air warfare" was met with a declaration by the Minister of Defence (not, it seems, precisely to the point) that it would "hopelessly delay things" if we were to wait for production of a certain number of these machines before going ahead with the TSR.2. Their aspirations being thus frustrated (though prospects for export orders remain), the enterprising team at Brough sustained the crushing of another hope— irreparably in this instance—by last week's decision that the Short Britannic, and not the Blackburn B.107A, would be the new strategic freighter for R.A.F. Trans- port Command. In Northern Ireland there were cheers from both sides of their House of Commons when the news was given out that the contract had gone to Short and Harland at Belfast. Thus, a company with a private sorrow (that the AW.660 tactical freighter should have finally prevailed in a field where the Short PD.16 was once a strong contender) is rewarded and revivified by a contract for a freighter in a different class. Such are the permutations of the New Defence. As we have seen, the corner of the jigsaw that will be made up of manned aeroplanes is already taking form. Whether a place may yet be found for VTO strike aircraft of the Hawker P. 1127 class, or for STOL colonial machines of the type proposed in this column the other week; whether big new helicopters will find their own niche; whether there will be new types for Coastal Command and for specific Army tasks—all these engaging possibilities, we must suppose, will be deliberated in due (or overdue) time. As for the missile complex, this has itself been more firmly interlocked by the White Paper. Having reviewed the ballistic rocket programme, the Government have concluded that Blue Streak is the type of missile best suited to British needs, and development is therefore proceeding. Thors are being deployed by the R.A.F. "for training purposes"; full-scale trials of the Bloodhound (not a rocket, this one, Mr. Sandys, as you describe it) have been under way during the past year, and Bloodhounds and Thunderbirds are becoming operational. Thus, in so far as it deals with Service equipment, the White Paper is much in the nature of a reaffirmation and a confirmation. One disclosure, minor in itself, but having a definite interest and significance, is that the TSR.2 will be capable of carrying air-to-air missiles. Who was it who said that the P.I would be the R.A.F.'s last manned fighter?
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