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Aviation History
1959
1959 - 1941.PDF
88 FLIGHT Straight and ve I THE best article written about theHovercraft to date was easily "ARevolution in Transport," pub- lished in The Sunday Times. It was by Mr. C. S. Cockerell, inventor of the Hovercraft. Technically, the most significant ex- tract was perhaps: "The basic theory behind the Hovercraft is that a heavy craft can be supported, near the ground, on a cushion of air that is produced by a thrust much less than the total weight of the craft." The author went on: — "If I doubled the diameter of the craft I also needed to double the thrust of the containing air—but I could then quad- ruple the total area and the weight. From this it can be seen that one of the most important characteristics of the Hovercraft is that its efficiency—that is, the weight that can be lifted for each horse-power—increases with size." * * * Non-technically, an incidental side- light on the author rather appealed to me: — "In 1950 I ended 15 very happy years as an electronics engineer ... and turned to boat building as a profession. My wife and children moved into a caravan, and I climbed into a pair of overalls and a completely different life. It was a very real pleasure finding at last that I was doing something that the non-technical world could understand. Building boats seems much more definite than invent- ing new sorts of 'black boxes' in the depths of the electronics industry." • I can reveal that next week the closure of London Airport will be announced by Mr. Hugh Strangeways, Minister of Planes. The reasons given will be (1) "Con- tinued heavy expenditure on the airport is not, by and large, in the light of present circumstances, justified"; and (2) "The airport does not conveniently fit into the air traffic control pattern for Greater London." The question of suitable alternative accommodation for operators will be "kept under active review." • Few people in British aviation will have derived much pleasure from read- ing about the Boeing 707's troubles. Instead, a sort of sympathetic fellow- feeling goes out, untainted with patron- age. And I feel sure that allowances will be made for the exuberant, almost glee- ful, headlining—reminiscent of early Comet and Britannia days—of even the most trivial 707 incidents (for example, the recent failure of a ground-power truck at New York). The pinnacle of fatuity was reached when a newspaper for quite Top People ran the head- line, "B.O.A.C. NOT TO CANCEL BOEING 707s." Yet I must confess, unwillingly, to some small satisfaction that the world is being made aware of the fact that troubles are not endemic to British aircraft. • The Western Seaboard Chapter of the American Fall-out and Nose-cone Recovery Society held their fall meet yesterday. Convention section chairman Bluff Z. Body said, "Presently, as of now timewize, we are predicating our future mission program posture cap- ability on the concept that what goes up must come down." He added: — "All meetsters must acceptivate in a systemized promotion to unphase launchings of hardware into orbit." The 84,776 members present voted to procure a 2,000,000-ton destruct mag- net to de-orbitize existing satellites, while their Free World radio station ICBMX chanted "down to Earth, down to Earth, down to Earth . . ." • Did you read H. R. Broadbent's article on jet noise in Flight for August 14? I have always felt that present-day scientific methods of noise measurement satisfy neither the scien- tist nor—and these are the people most affected—the general public. Mr. Broadbent proposes the use of the "noy," a unit which (referred to as "N") seems to offer, at last, a sensible measure of noise as opposed to sound. The crux of his thesis, I thought, was that while "perceived noise levels" for jet and propeller aircraft at a distance of 1,000ft range respectively from 121 to 107 (take-off power), the noisiness figures range from 274 to 104. In other words, the figures quoted by airport authorities to airport residents conceal the fact, acknowledged by most reason- able people, that in the vicinity of air- ports the jet can be twice as noisy as the piston airliner. • * • When, last October, the Port of New York Authority were laying down the law about noise to jet operators, it was pointed out by these operators that com- munities like Los Angeles had got used to jets and had accepted their noise. Now, I see, complaints from residents living east of Los Angeles International Airport have got to the point where they are threatening legal action "if some- thing isn't done." Meanwhile, the authorities at New York are receiving "more complaints than we can handle." CORRECTION We are asked by Sir Charles Boost topoint out that he did not, as reported, des- cribe the Planes Minister as "an inferiorGrade C sub-moron who needs a well- aimed kick in the teeth." His actual wordswere "an inferior Grade B sub-moron who needs a well-aimed kick in the teeth." Weregret any misleading impression that this mis-quotation may have caused. Aeroplanes come and aeroplanes are dumped, but defence goes on for ever. And, for the U.S. aircraft industry—whose military pro- ducts dominate the power-politics of the entire world—business goes on for ever. But will it be for ever? Do these pictures of F-84Gs and B-36Js junked for the melting pot presage, as the political ice melts, junked Thors, Atlases and Titans? Then, I suppose, the only members of society who will feel grateful to the U.S. aircraft industry will be the scrap-metal merchants • "Infrared-seeking Firestone (sic) by de Havilland is carried by Hawker Hunter in this recently released photo- graph"—So announces one of our most respected American contemporaries in the missile field. As a matter of fact, this all-British rubber missile has long been the envy of the Americans; once fired, it homes unerringly on to its target and can pull quite tight turns without skidding, even in wet or icy conditions. • You would have thought, wouldn't you, that an operator like Ethiopian Air- lines might well be typical of the many national airline luxuries that small un- developed nations can ill afford? I am astonished to learn that little Ethiopian has shown a profit for five years running without a penny of government subsidy. This is not so much a credit to T.W.A., which man- ages Ethiopian, as to a government en- lightened enough to have put its national airline in the hands of a big- league professional. I hope that Ghana Airways and Nigerian Airways, and others under B.O.A.C's tutelage, will in years to come enjoy a prosperity com- parable with Ethiopian's. • "And what do you expect to find when our American space boys reach the Moon, General?" "Russians." ROGER BACON
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