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Aviation History
1960
1960 - 0576.PDF
576 FLIGHT, 22 April 1960 Reports that Mr Kruschev would buy 12 Caravelles were later dampened by explanations that the condition was that France should buy Tu-104s. Here the Russian leader's pilot samples the pride of the French industry for himself. For a sample of East-West cockpit demonstration in reverse, see page 557 AIR COMMERCE . . . t GOODBYE BOAC ARGONAUTS YXfHEN BOAC Argonaut G-ALHG Aurora landed at London* ' on April 8, the commander, Capt E. N. Wright, completed the last scheduled BOAC passenger service to be operated by thistype of aircraft. Canadair DC-4Ms, of which 22 were delivered to BOAC, wentinto BOAC service in August 1949. Altogether they carried 870,000 passengers and flew nearly 107 million miles. Now all ofthe remaining 20 have been sold—except one, which will be retained for the training of apprentices. Purchasers of BOACArgonauts are Overseas Aviation, 9; Royal Rhodesian Air Force, 4; EAAC, 3; Aden Airways, 3. SUPPORT FOR THE SUPER BROUSSARDT WO new important steps have just been taken in the develop-ment of the MH.260 Super Broussard, Max Holste's twin- turboprop 30-seater feederliner. A number of airlines, in Australiaand New Zealand for instance, are considering it seriously as a DC-3 replacement. The French Minister of Transport, Robert Buron, has agreedto assist in the financing of the MH.262 Super Broussard. This new version will have the same general configuration as the 260,including Turbomcca Bastan 960 b.h.p, turboprops, but it will be pressurized. The MH.262 will be available for delivery in 1961.M. Buron has authorized Max Holste to work with Nord-Aviation in the production of the aircraft. SHARING HIS EXPERIENCE TWICE as many pilots undershoot the runway as overshoot it.Following a serious number of landing accidents when the F-100 first entered USAF squadron service, and after visits tosquadrons by test pilots had not achieved results, a film was made on how to land the F-100. During the following six months thelanding accident rate dropped by 71 per cent. This information was given by Maj Gen J. D. Caldara, who is responsible forUSAF flight safety, at a recent press conference in London. The general was in Europe making his annual tour of USAF bases.His remarks will be of interest to all those concerned with air transport safety. On collisions, Gen Caldara noted that 1959 had been better forUSAF aircraft than 1958. The application of fluorescent paint to all T-33s operating in one training area was followed by a67 per cent reduction in mid-air collisions over the following six months. Nevertheless, a collision-warning device was a necessityand the Federal Aviation Agency had now realized this after first planning to rely on ground control for collision protection. Groundcontrol involved additional possibilities of human error and alti- metry was too inaccurate to form a_ basis for reliable verticalseparation. Introduction of electronic collision-warning equip- ment was strongly opposed by the AOPA, who spoke for privateand business owners, but it was their safety which was involved and they were themselves responsible for some near misses. Thegeneral said that the day of the "ham and eggs" private pilot was past. Airspace could not be cordoned off in levels, because alltypes of aircraft had to climb and descend. On cockpit presentations, Gen Caldara said that he could seeno reason why the pilot should not have a television-like picture of the ground and neighbouring aircraft, regardless of visibility,in place of the standard instruments which had remained virtually unchanged for 20 years. Supersonic airliners would not neces-sarily be less safe than present airliners, but they would absolutely require adequate air traffic control and accurate weather forecast-ing. Within five years the Federal Aviation Agency planned to have in operation a semi-automatic traffic control centre capableof handling the traffic then expected. On navigation aids, the general said that the VOR channelspectrum was virtually saturated already. There were too few channels and the cross-pointer instrument was more difficult to usethan a pictorial presentation. The straight-in let-down was neces- sary for jet transports and direct radar surveillance would berequired. The F-104 accident rate had been good considering how far theaircraft had been ahead of its time. It was flying at M2 in 1957 and in the general's opinion was a pleasant machine to fly. Forevery operational squadron which had suffered an accident, two more had not. In a jet aircraft, only jet experience counted fromthe safety point of view. No amount of piston-engined experience could help a pilot in trouble in a jet. If a pilot was going to fly jetaircraft, he must fly them often. The USAF KC-135s had suffered no accidents or incidentssimilar to those encountered by civil 707s. No undercarriage trouble had been experienced, despite the fact that the KC-I35undercarriage was lighter and had to bear greater weights. INDEPENDENT SIX-POOL TVTO surprise to readers of Flight will have been the announce-J-^ ment last week that six British independent airlines have been holding what are described as "very tentative discussions" aboutthe possibilities of pooling their resources. The idea was first publicly mooted by Gp Capt Wilcock, MP, chairman of DerbyAviation, in an interview with Frank Beswick in Flight, February 19, and the issue was raised again by C. J. Stevens^managing director of BKS, on page 482 of Flight, April 8. Gp Capt Wilcock is reported to be chairing the exploratory committee.The airlines involved are most of the scheduled service operators not affected by recent amalgamations—BKS Air Transport,Cambrian Airways, Derby Aviation, East Anglian Flying Services (Channel Airways) and Jersey Airlines. Co-operative effort does not extend to financial mergers and eachof the six will for the moment retain its identity and indepen- dence; the new grouping is seen as a means of exploiting servicesboth on European routes and domestically within the British Isles —an area which we recently tried to show (April 8, 1960) is notparticularly well supplied with regular, all-the-year-round air services. Between them the six provide quite good regional cover-age (in the airline order given above spheres of influence are: the north-east; Wales and the west country; midlands; south-east; andsouth) and a joint scheduled capacity of about 90 per cent of the independents' domestic total. Not included are Silver City, whose future plans for developinga north-west European network are still uncertain, and two other small scheduled operators—North-South Airlines and Don EveralLCo-operation can be expected to extend to joint maintenance, aircraft interchange, ticketing and handling, but the report thata fleet of 50 Avro 748s (three of which are to be purchased by BKS) or Dart Heralds would be ordered seems premature. Poolingof resources is intended eventually to make possible the purchase of new equipment, not as a means of exploiting it. CAPITAL'S DAY OF RECKONING TPHE timing of Vickers' demand to Capital Airlines for repay--1- ment "within three days" of £4.3m outstanding on their Viscount debts was significant: it came shortly after Capital'srequest to the CAB for a £4.6m subsidy (Flight last week). With "extreme reluctance" the chairman of Vickers-Armstrongs, SirCharles Dunphie, told the president of Capital, David Baker, that "foreclosure proceedings" on the entire fleet [57 Viscounts, aswell as its Constellations, DC-4s and DC-3s, all of which are mortgaged to Vickers] had been started. Capital ordered 40 Viscounts in June 1954 and a further 20 inDecember 1954. Deliveries began in June of 1955. Total cost was about £24 million, financed by Vickers and Rolls-Royce,credit being reportedly guaranteed to the extent of 80 per cent by the Export Credits Guarantee Department. The agreement calledfor proceeds from the sale of equipment (which Capital has never been able to sell) to be set against debts, and for Capital's networth to be not less than $10m. The contract has been re- negotiated a number of times in favour of Capital, with"moriatoria" on repayments being granted. Because the airline could not enter into new capital commitments without Vickers'assent, the orders for seven Convair 88OMs and five Lockheed Electras included an arrangement whereby the US firms wouldhelp Capital to pay off its Viscount debts. This failed because of Capital's deteriorating financial position.But Capital has lost more than £2m since 1956, and almost that
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