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Aviation History
1960
1960 - 0951.PDF
NO 2678 VOLUME 78 FRIDAY 8 JULY 1960 Editor-in-Chief MAURICE A. SMITH ore Editor H . F. KING MBE Technical Editor W. T. GUNSTON Production Editor ROY CASEY IN THIS ISSUE From All Quarters 32 Missiles and Space-flight 35 Service Aviation 36 Air Commerce 37 Straight and Level 42 Military Aircraft of the World 43-74 Coventry this Weekend 75 Correspondence 76 •liffe & Sons Ltd, Dorset House, Stam-ford Street, London SE1: telephone Waterloo 3333. Telegrams FlightpresiScdist London. Annual tnilwcrlptioiiK: Home £4 15s. Overseas £!>. Canadaand USA $15.00. Second Class Mail privileges authorized at New York, NY. Branch Offices Coventry: 8-10 Corpora-tion Street: telephone Coventry 25210. Hii mingham: King Edward House, NewStreet. 2; telephone Midland 7191. Man- chester : 260 Deansgate, 3: telephoneUlackfriars 4412 or Deansgate 3595. (ilasaow • 62 Buchanan Street, C.I; tele-phone Central 1265-6. New York. NY: Thomas Skinner & Co(Publishers) Ltd, 111 Broadway, 6; telephone Digby 9-1197. © lliffe <& Sons LW, 1960. Permissionto reproduce illustrations and letterpress can be granted only under written agree-ment. Briefextracts or comments may be made with due acknowledgement. AIRCRAFT, SPACECRAFT, MISSILES Official Organ of the Royal Aero Club First Aeronautical Weekly in the World Founded 1909 The Big LiftS O much has lately been written about VTOL, especially in connection with the Short SCI, that one could almost be forgiven for envisaging this technique as something that will become a commercial proposition only in the fullness of time. The fact is, of course, that in the heavy-lift helicopters represented by the Westland Westminster and Sikorsky S-60 we already have the tools wherewith to set about a job that could cause a minor—perhaps even a major—revolution in bulk transport. The prospect holds a unique fascination, for sounding more loudly day by day are the respective challenges of air-cushion vehicles, hydrofoils, monorails and other novel means of locomotion. Just as packaging seems to be the trend in many aspects of modern life, with the object of simplifying, expediting and protecting, so it is seen also as the natural partner of the heavy-lift helicopter, now considered in its commercial form, as distinct from the military crane/transporter. The idea of the pod, package, pannier, or nacelle, having a skeletal helicopter carrier vehicle, is not by any means a new one; but its practical possibilities have only recently been realized. The delightful story of Mr Igor Sikorsky's literally breathtaking perambulations round the underslung platform of an S-60 preparatory to the fitting of a pod was recounted in an article in our "Helicopters of the World" special number dated May 27 last. Already a 20-passenger "people pod" is in use on the S-60 and Mr Sikorsky sees "a big future" for such containers. One of his pet ideas, and one that cannot be dismissed any more readily than can his enduring achievements, is the use of the pod helicopter not only as a transport between a city centre and a supersonic airliner waiting at a runway's end, but as a crane for lifting a supersonic airliner from a rooftop platform in a city and launching it on its way. For the more immediate future, however, it will be people, luggage, freight and cars that will form the cargoes for the great aerial tugs. < - , The Car Case Our present thought (stimulated by the news of a Blackburn project on page 38) is the "car case"—as the design office will already be calling it, in their professional parlance. (Suggesting, incidentally, the adoption of "carcase" as a new aero/auto term before "autopod" is allowed to gain currency.) Com- mercially, the significance of the project is the rapid picking-up and setting-down of 90 passengers and 18 cars, or 250 passengers, in a pre-loaded nacelle. A speed of 170 m.p.h. might be maintained for 100-350 miles; the tug might cost £400,000 in production and the pod £50,000. The status of the project remains for the present indeterminate; but the continuing interest of the Hawker Siddeley Group (which now controls the Blackburn company) adds greatly to the possibility of our seeing a new family of British transport vehicles, developed specifically for the type of short-range heavy-lift operations which have seen their first successful commercial exploitation across the English Channel. All this, as we have indicated, remains for the present a little nebulous. But there is nothing nebulous—however skeletal the actual vehicle might appear—in Westland's private venture into the heavy-lift field with their two Westminster prototypes; and we may be sure that the new transport technique that has lately gained publicity in connection with the Blackburn project has not passed unconsidered in the project office at Yeovil. As distinct from the Rotodyne VTOL airliner, with its sustained cruising speed of 200 m.p.h. or more, the West- minster and its possible derivatives are heavy-lift helicopters in the true sense.
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