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Aviation History
1960
1960 - 0793.PDF
FLIGHT, 10 June 1960 801 Straight and Level I OFTEN wonder whether theamount of time, effort and moneythat so many firms expend on house magazines is really worthwhile. I am sure, for example, that Scruggs Heritage, produced six times monthly by Boost High Gloss Images Ltd for Super Scruggsdyne Grouponics Ltd, is pure vanity—a glass in which the firm itself marvels at its own image. I hasten to declare a Flight interest here—our readers' interest, too. I lack enthusiasm for these wasteful conceits (unless one possesses a Thinx BED- STEAD reading simulator one never has time to read them anyway) because they inevitably divert a firm's public relations effort away from attending to the needs of the press. My views seem to be shared by Eric Mensforth, chairman of Westland, the world's largest helicopter manufac- turer. He says: "A quarterly magazine such as the projected Westland Gazette will be in- adequate to the task of covering all our intentions for our new wide range of helicopters to the tempo of current events, and we have therefore decided not to proceed with it. Instead, when- ever they are ready and appropriate, we shall send technical and general brochures, relying on the technical and general press to tell the day-to-day story of general achievement." • Great-grandad's idea of a giant air- craft was Jules Verne's Clipper of the Clouds. (That's it on the left, tackling an ASR job.) Great-grandad really believed that when aerial ships arrived they would be able to take off vertically, hover at will, go swarming gently down the Grand Canyon or round the crater of Vesuvius, and, as we see, occasionally stop and rescue shipwrecked mariners. Has the wonderful dream been shat- tered irrevocably? Not if we can believe the Bell Helicopter Corporation. They have sent me the picture on the right, showing a 300ft-long, 500,0001b, 200 m.p.h.-plus, atomic-powered VTOL transport. Bell believe that it could be built. And Bell have built more com- mercial helicopters than all the other US manufacturers combined. • Blue Steel Mk 2, I read in a news- paper, "has two top-secret ramjet engines which boost it outside the earth's atmosphere, where it continues rather like a Sputnik for hundreds of miles until its pre-set electronic brains cause it to dive on to the target. In all those particulars it is identical with Skybolt." • The voice of the great Brab, sooften booming away about some- thing ("any airline operator who usespetrol when he can use paraffin ought to be had up for manslaughter"; "super-sonic airliners are a lot of nonsense," etc) was absent from the House ofLords throughout the passage of the Civil Aviation (Licensing) Bill. I waslooking forward to some swinging Brabazonian swipes at the new legisla-tion. No such luck. • Announcing board changes follow-ing the selection of the British Aircraft Corporation team, English Electric listthe merging firms as English Electric, Vickers and Bristol. In their announce-ment, Vickers list them as Vickers, English Electric and Bristol. I am now eagerly awaiting a thirdpermutation from Bristol. Perhaps the new BAC chairman, Lord Portal (who,according to The Financial Times, is to be "the impartial umpire") will decidethe protocol of precedence. • At last! The answer to the used-aircraft problem. Papuan Air Transport, so I read inTrans - Australia Airlines' magazine Trans-Air, advertised in the local paperthat they had no further use for an Avro Anson. They said it was airworthy,having flown the previous day, and they offered it free to the first person toremove it from Jackson's Airport. It was snapped up by a club whichintends to install it in a children's play- ground. What fun the Papuan picca-ninnies will have, especially if the old Annie is still airworthy. • And talking about Avro products,the firm will no doubt be interested to hear of a new type of Shackleton, aJostler Shackleton, which appeared in a recent Air Ministry handout. Enquiries round Flight's office re-vealed no knowledge of this aircraft. But an inquiry at source provided enlighten-ment. What had been hand-written was "another Shackleton"; what came outwas the interpretation of an imaginative typist. A pity. Jostler has a medieval ring about it, smacking of the tilt-yard andtournament, and sons well with four Griffons. • "It must not be forgotten that thepurpose of transport is to serve the com- munity in the widest sense—that publicinterest transcends private interest, that public accountability has to be marriedto individual enterprise, and that 'full information' is the best guarantee ofsound intentions."—Peter Masefield. It seems to me that Masefield is notonly eligible for the chairmanship of BOAC. He is also eligible for the chairof the new Air Transport Licensing Board. He can hardly be both—but inthe opinion of many people it would be sad if he were neither. • The Flight Safety Foundationrecently had a meeting at which it was observed that the USAF no longer plansto use red light in the cockpit. Instead "dim" white light will be used, permit-ting—among other things—aeronautical mapmakers to use red as an additionalcolour. Most interesting. The meeting went on to discuss mapsin general, and in particular the pilots' old problem—akin to the classic one ofthe one-armed paperhanger—of how to spread maps out in a busy, crowdedcockpit. I especially liked the remark, contributed by Capt Bob Buck of TWA:"We are like musicians trying to read a musical score with no place to put themusic." • "I have had enough of American jetplanes. I am sick of them. You know all about the one that flew over ourcountry—the US espionage plane. Then I come to Paris ... and the noise of thoseAmerican Air Force jet planes taking off and landing at Orly, they ruined mysleep."—Nikita Krushchev, quoted by Aviation Week. ROGER BACON Jules Verne rings a Bell (see second story)
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