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Aviation History
1960
1960 - 1441.PDF
2685 VOLUME 78 Editor-in-Chief MAURICE A. SMITH DFC Editor H. F. KING MBE FRIDAY 26 AUGUST 1S6O AIRCRAFT, SPACECRAFT, MISSILES •-. Official Organ of the Royal Aero Club First Aeronautical Weekly in the World Founded 1909 Technical Editor W. T. GUNSTON Production Editor ROY CASEY IN THIS ISSUE From All Quarters 286 Vickers' Hovercraft: First Details 28? Missiles and Space-flight 289 Had I but Wings... 293 Flight System Survey 297 Canadair CL-44-6 298 Jet Noise and Society 299 Airline Fares 303 Panamerama 304 US Election-year Policies 3O5 Straight and Level 3O7 Service Aviation 308 Air Commerce 309 Ladies' Day at Thruxton 314 Correspondence 315 The Industry 316 lilt* & Sen> Ltd, Dorset House, Stam-ford street, London SE1; telephone Waterloo 3333. Telegrams Flightpresseaist London. Annual subscriptions: imfTi/4 15s- Overseas £5. Canadaand USA $15.00. Second Class Mail privileges authorized at New York, NY.Branch Offices Coventry: 8-10 Corpora- tion Street; telephone Coventrv 25210.Birmingham: King Edward House, New Street, 2; telephone Midland 7191 Man-chester: 260 Deansgate, 3: telephone B ackfnars 4412 or Deansgate 3595.Glasgow: 62 Buchanan Street, C.I; tele- Phone Central 1265-6. N?r: Thomas Skinner & c° ?S*ers) Ud, 111 Broadway, 6;telephone Digby 9-1197. § *l\ * Sons Ltd- 196°- Permissioncan hP» U°f !"»8t»tionB and letterpress &™ fted only under written agree-f5xtract8 or comments uuTy be due acknowledgement Jet Noise and SocietyE NTITLED as above is an article in this issue (pages 299-302). We believe it has an uncommon significance, because it bears directly upon the life of great communities. The author concludes: "The public wants to know what is being done to protect family life from disruption by the greatest noise that our commercial civilization has ever produced, and to which society may not become tolerant, in the medical sense, as it did to the products of the Industrial Revolution." This argument for fuller information is not based solely on the "right to know" of a democratic nation (undeniable though that right is). It is in aviation's interest that an increasingly hostile public be vouchsafed, rather than have to seek— often without success—full information about the battle to control jet noise that is being waged on its behalf by the airlines and by the Ministry. Frank information may sometimes get distorted or misrepresented by the Press, to the disillusionment of its suppliers. But this is no argument for suppres- sion, which makes a subject "news" and leads to greater distortions. The goodwill engendered by frankness must in the long term outweigh the abuses of frankness—especially since a positive campaign of full information will inevitably assuage resentment among a public that feels it is being sacrificed to a privileged industry—and being deceived into the bargain. People who feel that they are being deceived will put up with far less noise than people to whom it is made evident that their interests are being cared for. Full information, the new Minister will find, will prove to be a valuable ally in the solution of a difficult social problem. It is an ally worth enlisting—in the public interest, and hence in the airlines' interest. One Man ApartA YEAR or two ago we wrote on this page about "the man apart"—the man of ideas, the genius. "He is hard to find," we said, "though he moves among us still. In him lies our highest hope for the future. The groups can never displace him. At best they may be the means of serving him." Just such a man is the chief scientist to Rolls-Royce Ltd, Dr A. A. Griffith, CBE, DEng, FRS, of whose retirement we learn with regret. It is said of him by a colleague, the company's technical director, that he was very little known to most people within Rolls-Royce; yet in the 21 years he spent with the company he exerted a great influence on its work. The name of Griffith may yet resound in aeronautical history, not so much, perhaps, for his 1926 proposal of an axial- compressor gas turbine for aircraft, nor yet for his memorandum of 1945 which was the basis of the world-renowned Avon. His greatest attainment may yet prove to be his concept of the revolutionary jet-lift principle for vertical take-off. He foretold this development as long ago as 1941, and it has now been realized in the Rolls-Royce Flying Bedstead and Short SCI. Thus Britain goes forward into the supersonic era with a unique experience founded on one man's ideas. They say at Rolls-Royce that Dr Griffith's staff had to mark the telephone cables with sheets of paper in order to prevent his walking into them in his concentration. Our own belief is that he was really able to see quite clearly where he was going. Given a few more men of his talent and disposition, the future of our industry and of the British nation would be assured.
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