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Aviation History
1959
1959 - 1321.PDF
646 FLIGHT Straight and Level THE discussion of a lecture is oftenmore illuminating than the lectureitself. Sometimes, of course, a ghastly silence greets the invitation to ask questions—though even this is illuminating. In general, however, the discussion discloses two things: (1) The real character of the lecturer, who cannot very well answer questions from notes prepared by his P.R.O. (2) The mood and feeling of aviation's Ordinary Worried Blokes in the audience. What do recent discussions disclose of the present thoughts of these O.W.B.S? Take, for example, the most recent series of lectures. One, by Mr. Donald W. Douglas, Jnr., at the RAe.S., was about the American aircraft industry. The others—at Southampton before the Institution of Production Engineers—were about the British air- craft industry. Scarcely one of the many questions asked by O.W.Bs. at these lectures con- cerned anything except air transport. • I think that this, from the B£.A.Magazine, deserves a hear-hear: — "At a special party at Grosvenor Houseon March 19 Lord Douglas had his '10- year Badge' pinned on him by AnthonyMil ward, chief executive. Members of the board of B.E.A. and heads of departmentspresent at the reception revealed the fact that almost all of them had spent at leastten years with the Corporation. Deputy chairman Sir John Keeling, Mr. Mil ward,commercial director P. C. F. Lawton, flight ops. director Captain Jimmy James,financial director Lorimer Weir, traffic director Edwin Whimeld, and board mem-ber Sir Patrick Dollan—all have 13 years service apiece, and Messrs. Beverley,Shenstone, chief engineer, Henry Marking, secretary, and board member A. C. Pinghave each completed a decade. ... "There is little doubt that this fine recordof uninterrupted management, in these days of continual Civil Service changes, hascontributed immensely to the remarkable development of B.E.A. which, almostuniquely, has succeeded in becoming a great and successful Corporation but stillremains a 'family*- firm." • In Washington on April 22 Mr. H. A. Wassenbergh, the deputy chief of K.L.M.'s foreign relations department, was reported by Reuter to have spoken of "the long-standing refusal of the United Kingdom to allow American air- liners to land in Hong Kong." Since I am as touchy as every other Briton on this issue, might I remind Mr. Wassenbergh that Pan American have had rights at Hong Kong, which they link with Tokyo, since 1947? Much more worthy of the Dutch was the recent newspaper cartoon depicting a very British couple, obviously in Singapore, being served tiffin by a Malay servant. The caption read: — "Can't we kick them out of Scbiphol too, dear?" • Mr. D. P. Davies, chief pilot of theA.R.B., chatting to two of my colleagues at a reception in London: — "We flew some pre-war aeroplanes again recently and we were pretty horri- fied at the way they behaved. Of course, you can get used to anything, but I wouldn't pass them out now. "You just don't realize how straight- forward large modern aeroplanes are to fly. A Britannia, a Viscount or a Comet work just like the book. I'd say that a pupil pilot—given sufficient courage— could manage a successful circuit and landing in a Comet. Certainly he would need less delicacy of touch and real fly- ing ability than I found necessary to put a Proctor down in a crosswind . . ." A 4 4 Venus. Deification of beauty and love. Brightest star of the firmament. The astro- naut's target for tomorrow—to study whose vital statistics M. Audouin Dollfuss recently had himself borne aloft by 104 balloons. He landed (hapless wight) in a field of cows. But if you saw the Glynis Johns film you will remember that Venus was a very beautiful cow indeed. I am not sure, though, that it was altogether seemly for M. Dollfuss to wear his hearts quite so overtly on his sleeve INVALIDS The condition of Sir Charles Boost,who was taken 'ill after reading the report of the Supersonic Air Trans-port Committee, is said to be "as satis- factory as can be expected." A spokes-man for the Imperial British Airmen's Hospital says: "Sir Charles was badlyshocked, and has been advised by his doctors to rest." • Most Service aircrew nowadays carry knives on their sleeves to stab a dinghy or lifejacket if it should inflate at the wrong moment in the air. Such a practice has only relatively recently become de rigueur although the threat has always existed and several lives have been lost because of it. A colleague was told by a wily flying instructor always to fly with something like a sharpened screwdriver to use variously for stabbing, prodding or even screwdriving, as the emergency might demand. Because a lounge-suit does not take kindly to screwdrivers and civil aircraft are generally demanding, he now carries an ordinary nail file (Wool- worth's, 4d). While touring France recently in Flight's Gemini, he had occasion to screw up a cowling panel which was loose and then had to remove two plugs which had oiled up. All but the actual removal of the plugs he accomplished with his nail-file. During almost 15 .hours' flying over more than 1,600 nautical miles he had only one other job to do—unfastening the oil-tank filler covers. He used the nail-file for that one, too. This is the sort of reliability and accessibility I like to see. But on some American aircraft you don't need any tools at all to check, drain or refill the oil sump—and certainly none to remove the cowlings. But you still need some- thing to take a stab at your lifejacket. • Looking through lists of U.S. Air Force contracts I frequently come across the item "Blue Streak and emergency spare parts"—generally awarded to Douglas Aircraft. I hardly think that this has any bearing on our own long- range ballistic missile of that name, but now I find that the Sperry Gyroscope Co., at their main plant at Great Neck, Long Island, have just received a $332,896 award involving Project Black Knight. Would the Minister make a statement? • Did you see in Flight recently that fascinating photograph of B.O.A.C.'s London Airport headquarters? It was taken from nine miles up, and you could almost read the numbers on the aero- planes. One thing in particular fascinated me —the emptiness of the visitors' car park. Never once have I or any Flight col- league ever found even one empty space on our regular visits. My statistical adviser calculates that, from recent counts of the cars in all the parks, each B.OA.C. staff-member has three visi- tors each day. Assuming, of course, that all the cars in the visitors' car park belong to visitors. ROGER BACON -v
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