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Aviation History
1960
1960 - 0345.PDF
JGHT, 11 March 1960 345 Straight nd Level DO you know what this week'sStraight and Level photographdepicts? Yes, it's a sort of fan. And it is also a monument. Specifically, it is the aft-fan augmentor of die Metro- Vick F.3 gas turbine of 1945—a pretty historic piece of British aeronautical hardware. It was photographed the other day at the offices of Power Jets (Research and Development) Ltd; and I find that the new aft-fan engines for America's fastest airliners are licence- built under the Power Jets patent. So don't believe it when you hear that America's jet-debt to Great Britain was paid off years ago. As you might suppose, this type of two-tier aft-fan was another invention of Sir Frank Whittle's, and an example was actually fitted to a Whittle engine before the war ended. When I add that a similar scheme was intended for the supersonic Miles M.52, designed in 1943, you will find yourself wondering, as I am, how many years of British aeronautical progress were eaten up by the locusts of irresolution and apathy. • The terms of reference of Britain's proposed new air transport licensing board do not require the board to take into account the public interest. This curious omission, noted in -Flight for February 26, was mentioned during the second reading of the licensing bill in the Commons on March 2 by John Rankin, MP, to whom we should all be obliged. Government regulation should have in mind, above all things, the protection of the public interest. The protection of an airline (or whatever is being regu- lated) should be determined in the light of the public interest. This may or may not require the protection of the airline; but do let's put first things first. In this context I recommend to all those who are now re-shaping the des- tiny of British air transport the follow- ing enlightened remarks. They are attributed by Time to Pete Quesada, chief of the US Federal Aviation Agency: — "The whole philosophy of Govern- ment regulation is to protect the public's interest. But history finds that the public is silent; the public sits there and just hopes that the agency that it set up will take care of its interest." • Notice in the office of Tex Johnston, Boeing's chief of flight test: "One test flight is worth 100,000 expert opinions." Well may you wonder whether, in Boeing's aerodynamics department, the visitor is invited to believe that one expert opinion is worth 100,000 test nights. • If the proposed ballistic missile ?arly warning station at Fylingdales, Yorkshire, is anything like the giant detection radars at Clear and Thule, it will look along a 30 deg segment of great circle into the USSR. This would embrace the entire Communist land mass; but it doesn't need a genius to see that it will be useless against something chucked up from a submarine in the Atlantic. There are many other questions that need answering. Should Britain pay £8m towards a warning system that won't actually help us very much? ("Cheerio, chaps," and all that). Is it all so secret, or was it described in this journal on January 29? Why can't it be made to swivel in all directions? Will it affect TV reception? Good gracious! —TV reception. This is serious. Ancient British monument—see first item • Can you decide from an interview, even a very thorough interview, whether a man will make a good pilot? This important question—important because the training of pilots is very expensive —was answered by a contributor to Flight of February 26. It may be repe- tition, but repetition does lend re- emphasis to a good point: — "It is a known fact, incontestably estab-lished during nearly half a century of flying training, that aptitude to fly and commandan aeroplane is one of the most difficult of all human accomplishments to predict onthe ground. The complex combination of personal qualities needed is such that thereis no simple yardstick by which they can be measured during an interview or test.It is not, unfortunately, just a straight- forward question of assessing manualdexterity, co-ordination, or speed of re- actions. . . . All that we know for certainis that aptitude for piloting an aeroplane is an ingredient of character. . . . There isno significant correlation between this aptitude and those other personal qualitieswhich can be assessed on the ground." • The other day a colleague, flying in an airliner from Paris to London, stood in the cockpit and watched three extremely busy pilots managing the air- ways procedure, tuning their radios, making their calls, climbing, cruising for a few minutes at 15,000ft then descend- ing over the Epsom stack on to 28L. The weather was gin clear with a visibility of at least 30 miles. It occurred to him that incessant manipulation of two ADF and VOR receivers, ILS and marker receiver seemed ridiculous when the crew could, if they had time to look out of the window, see the whole of Kent and Sussex, the Thames estuary and the south coast of England spread out below like a map. I would be the first to deplore the skimping of mandatory procedures. But are pilots perhaps becoming the servants of radio aids? • Unlike the Daily Clanger, whose angle on British aviation is always in terms of supersonic British wonder jets etc, the Daily Express ran a front-page headline story the other day on the homely subject of a 56min flight in a propeller airliner. Repeat—a front-page story. The headline was: "THE WORLD BEATER—It's faster than jets on short journeys." And it was about the Van- guard, the aircraft "that can become the sky bus of the world ... a plane to inspire a vision of an age of mass air travel . . "Her running costs are low," the story went on. "So low, say Vickers, the makers, that she could slash European fares by up to a half. . . . On short routes the jet-prop's point-to-point operation can be quicker than the fast pure jet, which is forced to climb much higher. . . . Not for several years will the pure jets be able to match the Vanguard type of economy on short- haul routes." This was not a warmed-over handout published by a trade paper, but a signed article on the front page of one of Britain's most news-conscious popular dailies. I am afraid that it upset my old friend Sir Charles Boost, supersonic speed champion, very much indeed. • It is Government policy to support a supersonic airliner. Good: no one advocates that our technology should henceforth mark time. But though there will be a demand for supersonic transports, they won't bring costs down. There will be a much bigger demand for low-cost air transports. What is the Government doing to create the conditions in which this demand can flourish? Support of supersonics is only half a policy. Gracious Living Dept • "Also recently installed in the Club is an electric oven. This can be used for heating pies, soup etc. It is also hoped that it will discourage people from boil- ing soup in the electric kettle."— Armstrong Siddeley Flying Club news- letter. ROGER BACON
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