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Aviation History
1960
1960 - 0425.PDF
F'JGHT, 25 March I960 425 CJNARD AND "BRITISH EAGLE" 1AST Monday Eagle Aviation, hitherto the only one of Britain's• "big five" independents with no shipping interests behindtl- m, became part of the Cunard Steamship Company. Cunard an iounced "agreement in principle" to acquire a controllingir 'rest in the fcagle group of companies. Sir John Brocklebank, th shipping line's chairman, said his company was aiming to buy"r ore than a 50 per cent" interest in Eagle, who would trade under th'ar own identity with Cunard offices in Europe, the US andCanada augmenting their existing sales organizations. ft became known last week mat the Eagle holding company,Harold Bamberg Holdings, had increased its share capital to £lm, and had changed its name to iJritish Eagle International Airways.This is the name under which the Bermuda and Bahamas associates will henceforth trade; an application to the CAB has been appliedfor. There are no plans for the UK companies to trade under the new name. Eagle are well established in Bermuda and the Bahamas, with Viscounts serving Miami, New York, Washington and Montreal, and they have a 22-year-old application outstanding for London - Bermuda (Flight, January 29). Their acquisition of a Britannia "for evaluation" from Cubana (Flight last week) may have been with this route in mind. FIRST ARGOSY ORDER MORE information is now available about Trans Arabia Air-ways' decision to buy two Argosies, as reported in these pages last week. It is the first confirmed order for AWA's four-Dartfreighter-coach. An option on a third aircraft has been placed. The order is worth £l.lm and delivery will be made, accordingto the official statement, "later this year." Presumably formal acceptance will not be possible until completion of the certificationprogramme, now expected when route-proving is completed in June. It is believed that Trans Arabia will make a major contri-bution to the route-proving of the Argosy, and negotiations have, it is understood, been under way for an aircraft to be delivered tothem during May for this purpose. The general manager of Trans Arabia, Capt R. G. Gibson,reckons that the Argosy will cut turn-round time by 60 per cent, and he says that on all his airline's routes it will operate with amixed freight and passenger layout. "Our traffic is expanding rapidly," he says, "and the Argosy will offer air freight facilities toshippers of bulky cargo such as automobiles." BOAC COMET INCIDENTS - COON after last week's issue went to press it became known that^ the BOAC Comet 4 G-APDS, which was severely damaged at Madrid on the night of March 14, hit high ground beforelanding. BOAC are not yet prepared to disclose the cause or the circum-stances of the incident, but it is believed that the aircraft was in the circuit at Barajas Airport preparatory to landing on Runway23L (8,530ft). This calls for a right-hand circuit, and is not the main instrument runway, which is 33 (10,006ft). Whilst at adistance of about two miles from Runway 23 the aircraft struck the top of a ridge 345ft above airport level. Though the com-mander (Capt N. A. Mervyn-Smith) did not know this at the time, both main bogie wheel assemblies were torn off, as was the portpod tank. The incident occurred in darkness, so it is presumed that the tower was unable to report on the extent of the damage.The aircraft was then landed on Runway 33, alighting on the stubs of the main gear and the undamaged nosewheels. None ofthose on board, who included 24 in addition to the flight crew, suffered injury. It is believed that the aircraft is repairable,though it is severely damaged. This is the fourth incident to a BOAC Comet 4 in the landing orapproach phase in nine months. The last one occurred at Rome on December 23, when G-APDL was landed with its wheels retracted.This was attributed by BOAC to pilot error (Flight, March 4, page 323). The two other incidents, the circumstances and causesof which have never been disclosed by BOAC, were: (1) On June 9, 1959, G-APDA (Capt Han) overshot the runway atCalcutta Dum Dum, having hit a tree on its first approach, causing damage to the flaps. On the second approach the aircraft over-ranthe runway. There were no injuries. [Source: Lloyd's List.] (2) In the same month, on June 21, 1959, Comet 4 G-APDB(Capt J. A. Kelly) struck a 10ft steel jet-blast barrier while landing in daylight and perfect visibility at New York International Air-port. Damage was caused to the flaps and undercarriage but the aircraft landed safely and there were no injuries. [Source: Lloyd'sList.] In no case, it is understood, were the incidents attributable to any malfunctioning of the aircraft or engines. BREVITIES TCA is offering as a package sale its 21 North Stars, spares andground equipment. Empressa Aerovias Venezolanas have ordered a Convair 880 for delivery late next year. The airline is 30 per cent owned by PanAm. A new record for IATA clearing house transactions was established in 1959, when turnover for the year was over £360m. Ansett-ANA are reported to have taken an option on the first sixSuper Broussards to come ofl the production line. It is reported from Cairo that the United Arab Republic intends toopen routes from Cairo to Ghana and to South America from May 1. Aer Lingus services have been sharply curtailed by a dispute involv-ing 120 pilots. Some of the services have been flown by executive pilots and aircraft have also been chartered from other companies. Icelandic Airlines, which since 1952 has operated DC-4s on cut-rateservices between New York and Europe over Iceland, is reported to have bought two DC-6Bs from Pan American. , A two-day symposium on Helicopters—Their Capabilities andEconomics is to be held at the Polytechnic, Regent Street, London, on Friday and Saturday, April 8 and 9. The fee is 3gns and individualor group enrolment is invited. Undergoing trials by PanAm at Miami is this Lockheed palet- tized cargo loading system with the un- happy name of Jet PAAk. Seven can be installed in an Intercontinen- tal Boeing 707 and 4'A tons of freight can be loaded in under ten minutes. The weight penalty is about 1,2701b Continental Airlines are negotiating to purchase a fifth Boeing 707-124. Lufthansa's jet services started on March 17 with the first of theirBoeing 707-420 flights to New York from Hamburg via Frankfurt. East African Airways made a provisional operating profit of £34,000in 1959. Japan's Civil Aviation Bureau has given tentative approval to AllNippon Airways for the purchase of three Fokker Friendships. Delivery would be in the spring of 1961. Boeing 72OBs and 12OBs are to have normal thrust-reversers in thetailpipes of their Pratt & Whitney Turbofans plus a device to reverse the cold exhaust of the fan. No further details have yet been issued. BEA's Viscounts are to operate regular daily scheduled services intoSpeke for the first time from April 1. They will be used on the Liver- pool - Isle of Man and Liverpool - Belfast routes, on which the corpora-tion is offering nearly 50 per cent greater capacity this year. BEA's DC-3s are being progressively sold and none should be leftin service by 1962. According to Lord Douglas, BEA's chairman, they are fetching prices of between £17,000 and £23,000. This is the firsttime that either corporation has quoted a price for its used aircraft. A New Zealand delegation is to visit Paris in order to negotiate a newair agreement with France; the existing arrangement expires in July. The conference will discuss the rights of TEAL to fly into Papeete inFrench Tahiti and French rights to operate into Auckland. The FAA has issued its first annual report. In it the administrator,E. R. Quesada, says that the Federal Aviation Act—after a year of operation—has been shown to be "basically sound in concept andworkable in practice." The report is published by the US Government Printing Office, Washington 25, DC, price 30 cents. The administrator has also been quoted as saying recently that experi-ence with jets and some turboprops showed differences between certifi- cation standards and actual operating performance—"take-off andlanding distances in flight manuals [are] not being achieved and greater- than-expected operating speeds . . . [are] forcing operators to introducearbitrary margins to cater for these differences." An Arab airline was one of the projects approved at the meeting inCairo earlier this month of the economic council of the Arab League. According to a report in The Times, capital will be £17m, and theproject will be considered by a committee which will report to the May meeting of the council. Together with other matters approved at themeeting (including the establishment of an Arab common market "within ten years") the proposed Arab airline will now be consideredby the various governments. • . .
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