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Aviation History
1959
1959 - 1840.PDF
No. 2632 VOLUME 76 FRIDAY 21 AUGUST 1S59 Editor-in-Chief MAURICE A. 8MITH D.F.C. -..'"•"• Editor H. F. KINO M.B.E. V" Technical Editor W . T. GUN8TON Production Editor R O Y C A 8 E Y I N TH 18 188 U E What Price Piston Airliners? 38 Argosy Progress Report 41 Registering the Famous 42 Tu-114 Rossiya 43 Le Bourget Vol Au Vent 46 The A.R.B. Report 49 The Bleriot Race 52 National Air Races, 1969 54 AIRCRAFT, SPACECRAFT, MISSILES Official Organ of the Royal Aero Club First Aeronautical Weekly in the World Founded 1909 Army or R.A.F. ? ON what basis should a dividing line be drawn between R.A.F. and Armyoperation of aircraft? Should it be on gross weight (at present the Army Air Corps cannot operate fixed-wing types weighing over 4,000 lb), or function, i.e., tactical support of ground forces? A new squadron, which is to support the internal-security brigade at present based in East Africa, has just been formed— by the R.A.F. Its establishment is recorded on pages 34-35 of this issue, and we wish it well, with its Twin Pioneers, in Kenya. The number it bears, 21, is a historic and famous one and without doubt the four aircraft and their crews of the new squadron will wear it proudly. Yet, though the R.A.F. tackles thoroughly and efficiently anything it is asked to do, and can co-operate well with the Army, is not this the very sort of job the Army Air Corps should be doing? There is a firm requirement for the A.A.C. to be supplied with single-engined aircraft larger than those it operates at present, and possibly of more than the 4,000 lb limit. Whence these will come—whether, in fact, they will be British aircraft—has yet to be decided. While the Ministry of Supply places orders, direction of policy is the responsibility of the Ministry of Defence. If it has an Army Air Corps under its control, should the Corps not be deployed in close-support work of the type required in Kenya? The security brigade could then work as one complete Army unit, without the extra complications of inter-Service planning. Or is the R.A.F. jealous of the Army doing any more flying? The Ministry should decide which course will provide the best and most economic solution. Iliffe & Sons Ltd., Dorset House, Stam-ford Street, London, S.E.I; telephone Waterloo 3333. Telegrams FlightpresSedist London. Annual subscriptions: Home £4 15s, Overseas £5. Canadaand U.S.A. $15.00. Seoond 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 7191. Man- chester: 260 Deansgate, 3; telephoneBlackfriars 4412 or Deanagate 3595. Glasgow: 26B Eenfleld Street, C.2;telephone Central 1265. New York, N.Y.: Thomas Skinner & Co.(Publishers) Ltd., Ill Broadway, 6; telephone Digby 9-1197. © Iliffe & 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. Forty Years of Air Commerce I EXT Tuesday, August 25, may fairly be regarded as the fortieth anniversary of the start of properly organized scheduled air transport; but there will always be argument about the exact date, because there are many claimants to the title of the world's first airline operator. Most authorities now agree that the London-Paris scheduled daily passenger service opened by George Holt Thomas's pioneer company, Aircraft Transport and Travel Ltd., on August 25, 1919, has perhaps the best claim to priority. The service was organized and operated in such a way (and then sustained for a sufficient length of time) to be quite outstanding amongst a mass of tentative and experimental services of which contemporary records abound. The difficulty in sorting out these early claims is that, although numerous services were planned (and some of them were actually started, with much associated publicity), few indeed survived for any length of time; and from existing records it is particularly difficult to establish with any certainty the regularity of operation achieved or the extent to which plans were realized. But the fact remains that most of the services tabulated on page 59 of this issue were genuine scheduled operations for the periods shown. It is mainly for this reason that they deserve to be remembered as the true beginnings of the world's air transport industry.
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