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Aviation History
1960
1960 - 1863.PDF
FLIGHT, 9 September 1960 431 forming a billowing white cloud of steam through a steel chimney(not an entirely popular operation with Patchway housewives on washing-day). Vivid purple flames can be seen through the circu-lar observation panel. Again, the Olympus with reheat is a tre- mendous sight on its ground run in the development enginetest-house, the long plume of its efflux forming diamond-pattern shock-waves. Bristol Siddeley are in the unique position of contributing toprojects by both big groups in the aircraft industry: with the advanced Olympus to the TSR.2, sponsored by the British AircraftCorporation; and with the BS.53 lift/thrust ducted fan engine to the P.I 127 vertical take-off fighter being built by Hawker Aircraft,with which the company is allied through the Hawker Siddeley Group. The former is believed to be the most powerful Britishmilitary powerplant in existence; the latter includes the revolu- tionary feature of moveable jet nozzles, so that all the power pro-duced can be used all the time, whether in vertical posture or for conventional forward flight. Patchway is only one of Bristol Siddeley's premises (their rocketdivision is at Ansty, Coventry), but it is here that the company's historical links are strongest, through their long family relationshipwith Bristol Aircraft at Filton. The aircraft company's works are on the other side of the airfield, with a helicopter rest rig dominat-ing the hill that stands between the factory and the city of Bristol. The long runway which was built for the Brabazon serves bothBristol Aircraft and Bristol Siddeley, providing both concerns with flying facilities "on the premises," unlike many companieswhich now have to trundle their aircraft by road to suitable test airfields. • * * It was by chance that my next visit after Bristol Siddeley shouldhave been to another great aero-engine company, Rolls-Royce, at their flight development establishment on Hucknall aerodromenorth of Nottingham. This was formerly an RAF airfield and in pre-war days, when it was a grass area, housed one of the auxiliarysquadrons. Now there is a long east-west runway (built by Rolls- Royce, which used to carry out test-flying at Tollerton), capableof handling V-bombers and Lightnings; but the surrounding countryside looks much the same: the coal-mining Nottingham-shire of D. H. Lawrence, with its pit-heads and slag-heaps, though the latter are gradually disappearing—for the hard-core, I was told,makes a useful contribution (once it has cooled off) to the under- surfacing of Britain's many current road-building projects. Away to the south-west of the airfield lie Ilkeston and Derby, the latterbeing Rolls-Royce headquarters, and a problem which the com- pany's test pilots have to face is that of industrial haze blowingover with the south-west wind. Hucknall has GCA to assist their return in unfavourable conditions. To the east and north-east thepilots have the advantage of an area untrammelled by airways, though with a great deal of RAF traffic from stations inLincolnshire. The test-bed aircraft at Hucknall give some idea of the develop-ment work being undertaken by the company. In one of the hangars were an Ambassador formerly used for type-testingTynes but now being readied to take the latest and most powerful version of the Darts, the RDa.lOs; a Lightning with the vividrainbow of thermal paint lines on the rear of its jet-pipes; an engineless Vulcan; the Tyne Ambassador G-ALZR which recentlycompleted l,600hr flying in six months (much of it undertaken in the Mediterranean area); and an Avro Ashton, looking pensivelyas if it, too, would like to have been a Cone of Silence film star. Out on the tarmac was a most interesting line-up of hard-working aeroplanes: a Meteor with under-wing fuel tanks, which form its main form of supply because an RB.108 VTO engine hasbeen installed under the fuselage; the Dart Dakota G-37-2 (can Douglas have ever visualized their transport being thus powered,way back in 1933?); and the Type Lincoln G-37-1, with water- spray grid mounted in front of its test-bed engine, water beingheated by a Palouste engine in the rear of the aircraft and fed through co-axial piping. A Javelin is also used for developmenttesting at Hucknall, and a Heron has recently been acquired for communications duties. Flight testing is only one aspect of work at Hucknall, the othermain functions of the establishment being the ground development and testing of engine installation features—including aerodynamic,thermodynamic and mechanical problems—and the design, manu- facture and development testing of complete power units. At oneend of the tarmac is a test rig for investigating ground erosion, moveable so that effects on four different types of surface can beexamined, and also for studying re-ingestion problems with VTO engines. Other facilities grouped at the north-east side of theairfield enable all aspects of engine installation to be examined under the most stringent conditions. There is, for example, aDerwent injector tunnel, and a Derwent blower rig used as a source for compressed air; a thrust measuring rig, used for varioustypes of swivelling thrust; a fire tunnel, giving speeds of up to 300 m.p.h. and designed to prove not that fires can be counteredbut that they do not occur (I was reminded of the legendary story PEOPLE IN THE INDUSTRY •S
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