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Aviation History
1960
1960 - 2251.PDF
FLIGHT, 7 October 1960 Straight n d LeveI I MUCH admired the Air Ministry'sfine recruiting spread in Flight ofSeptember 23, incorporating a pic- ture showing "a Vulcan of 617 Sqn overGolden Gate, San Francisco." I do think the wing commander oughtto have a quiet word with the navigator of that Vulcan, though, because thebridge in the picture is the one between San Francisco and Oakland. The GoldenGate, and its bridge, are several miles to the west, where the bay opens up intothe Pacific Ocean. But then, 617's speciality is dams. • There is an "unconfirmed rumour,"as I noted in Flight the week before last, that Mr Howard Hughes would like MrEisenhower to join the TWA board on completion of his term as President. There are many stories about thelegendary Mr Hughes. Unpredictable, remote, controversial, and notoriouslypublicity-shunning, he is the sort of person who could extend such an invita-tion without causing offence. But I can't help wondering whetherthe office of Presidency of the United States isn't a cinch compared with thejob of working for the bewildering Mr Hughes. • A Russian duck-hunter, spotting atarget 100ft up, shot it down. It turned out to be an aeroplane, and he was jailedat Smolensk for eight years. It was, so the local report has it, the close seasonfor duck-shooting. • "Largest single-engined aircraft everbuilt" is the claim advanced by Black- burn for their mighty Cubaroo of 1924.The claim appears in The Blackburn Story 1909-1959, which went on sale toBlackburn workers last weekend; and much as I dislike crabbing the workers'enjoyment of this attractive little book- let, I feel I really must explode thiswidely held belief. Certainly the Cubaroo was a whopper,with its wing span of 88ft. But the Russian ANT-25 of the late 'thirties (toname only one of the big single-engined We air attaches don't have as cushy a time as you might think, comrades. The par- ties are mostly dull and the parades—like this Canadian inter- national air show here in Toronto—are rather a bore. We've seen Sabres and CF— 100s. And F-104s. Thinks : Wonder where the Bomarc emplacements are monoplanes builtbetween the wars) had a wing spreadof over 111ft. And what about thenotorious U-2? The latest figureI have quotes a span of 90ft. But I do be-lieve the Cubaroo to have been thetallest single-en- gined aircraft of alltime. The pilot sat nearly 20ft in theair, behind the monster 1,000 h.p. Napier Cub engine from which the air-craft took its curious name. • And while I'm about it I may as welldispose of another Blackburn claim and get the whole thing over. They describe their Airedale of 1926as the "first monoplane built in Britain for naval purposes." Sorry, Blackburn,it wasn't. The Airedale was antedated by the Handley Page H.P.21 of 1923/24.This little fighter was supplied to the US Navy as "Class VF Shipboard"—and, incidentally, had a speed range of 49 m.p.h. to 147 m.p.h. on 230 h.p. • In an arrangement with Eastern AirLines the Mexican airline Aeronaves is to take early delivery of a DC-8. Likeall such associations entered into by US airlines,'the approval of the Civil Aero-nautics Board—custodian of the public interest—has first to be obtained. In this case approval has been given by the CAB—though, to quote the Board, "the agreement reflects a degree of pooling of services and facilities which the Board normally would find objec- tionable as between competing carriers because of possible restraints on com- petition."I wish we had, or were likely to have, a public body whose duty it was tochallenge the rather flabby let's-pool- everything policy of our airline industry. • Mr and Mrs Peter Ahrens and theirfour children, a Swedish family, have just flown from Stockholm to Sydney in a Rapide. Mr Ahrens, flight engineer and pilot, flew the Rapide himself, total cost being about £100 each,"We wanted to emigrate to Australia," Mr Ahrens told a reporter in Darwin,"but the fares frightened us." • "In my country it is the customwhen a guest admires anything to pre- sent the object of his admiration to him.I think that your airport at Copenhagen is one of the most magnificent jet air-ports in the world."—Sheikh Najib Alamuddin, at a dinner given by theDanish Government for IATA. • The following is an extract, guaran-teed genuine, from my mailbag : — "Hoping that you will be kind enoughto consider the inclusion of my humble contribution [a photograph] in yourmost excellent section of a most excel- lent and widely read magazine, and tocome through with a reproduction fee, because I need the money.—Yours, etc." • In a letter on page 595 LordBrabazon, chairman of the ARB, breathes more fire about the fire hazardsof JP.4 (gasoline-type) fuels compared with kerosine. Brab said last July that the use of JP.4was "disgraceful," and that unless the airlines concerned mended their wayswithin a few months he would name them.The airlines are nevertheless prepar- ing to extend the use of JP.4; and MrKnut Hagrup, chairman of IATA's tech- nical committee, says in effect that criticsof JP.4 don't know what they are talking about. Lord Brabazon, as you can read foryourself in this issue, expresses himself "astonished," and he challenges the JP.4protagonists to what could be a highly inflammable competition—fromthe location of which, if ever the contest takes place, R. Bacon will stand wellclear. • Definition of the jet age: breakfastin Karachi, lunch in Beirut, dinner in London, baggage in Bangkok. ROGER BACON
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