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Aviation History
1960
1960 - 2826.PDF
870 FLIGHT, 2 December New York Airways ••••-*"•,'•••*-.-.:•. -. -•••.-.-'-.• • .-..I-.-,..•'.•.• . Look Ahead DURING a recent one-day stay in New York, a Flightrepresentative interviewed Capt L. Carter, vice-presidentoperations of New York Airways, to find out what progress was being made towards IFR helicopter operations in the area.The Federal Aviation Agency is, of course, engaged on a sizeable programme of IFR flights in multi-engined helicopters withoutpassengers, running one scheduled flight each day in each direc- tion between Bridgeport, Idlewild and the FAA experimentalcentre at Atlantic City, a total distance of about 160 miles. Military crews are employed, the pilots being posted to theoperation for a few months at a time from the US Marines and Army. About 600hr have so far been flown and present weatherminima are 500ft and one mile, although every flight is made either in cloud or under the hood. New York Airways have virtually no contact with this officialoperation and are concentrating on routine passenger or charter operations in the New York area, although they did take part inthe first series of official Decca trials. When that contract expired the Decca receivers were removed from the Vertol 21s and over-hauled by Bendix Pacific, the American Decca agents. Three sets have since been installed once more and NYA are preparedto refit the remaining two Vertols as well. The purpose is to build up a maintenance organization and to familiarize pilots inpreparation for the introduction of five Vertol 107s, the first of which is due next April. All the 107s will have Decca. Present weather minima for the Vertol 21s are 1,000ft andthree miles, but minimum cruising heights actually vary between 700fit and 1,500ft, according to the route, because of safetyconsiderations for these single-engined machines. The 107s will be equipped for IFR flying and will initially be able to operate inminima of 500ft and one mile. A real reduction in minimum operating heights will be possible by virtue of the single-enginedcapability of the machine. The first step will be to reduce the height minima to the level where noise nuisance becomes thelimiting factor. Obstacle clearance near tall buildings is a lesser problem. Visibility is really the determining factor in makingapproaches and landings in poor weather, if en route flights can be made without visibility. The actual visual distance neededcould be defined by the distance required for transition from forward flight to the hover and the accuracy of the navigation aidused. Ideally, a transition to a suitable slow-approach speed would be made using the navigation aid, leaving only the finalpositioning and landing to be completed in visual contact with the ground. The navigation aid would also reduce the visibilityneeded for cruising flight where the minima are dictated by the ability of the pilot to follow a track accurately when he is cruising fast and able to see only the ground directly beneath him.NYA are already achieving an 80 per cent completion factor, 17 of the remaining 20 per cent of flights not completed beingaccounted for by weather. Only 3 per cent of flights are stopped by mechanical trouble. Twin engines should improve themechanical factor by 5 per cent. With an aid such as the Decca Navigator, a limited IFR operation might be run in visibilitydown to half-a-mile, but under fairly high ceilings. The com- pletion factor might then be raised to 95 per cent. The Vertol 107 will have duplicated stability augmentation; andan autopilot to maintain height and heading is being developed. The main flight instrument will be the Lear NAFLI globehorizon combining attitude and heading indication in a 4in dial. Sonic altimeters have been tried, but proved unreliable from100ft up to their maximum indication of 200ft. Greater height ranges are required. Vibration raised problems with radio alti-meters. The v.s.i. will be the Instrument Specialties Inc IVSI (instantaneous vertical speed indicator) which is a Kollsmancapsule instrument fitted with an accelerometer. This would in some cases be a more important instrument than the horizon.Ball rather than needle slip indication will be employed in the turn-and-bank indicator and may in fact be specified by the FAA. Fully automatic landing, Capt Carter said, was simply aquestion of rime and money. Navigation and flight control were straightforward: the critical problem was ATC, because heli-copters could not afford to become involved in fixed-wing traffic patterns. For NYA, Newark and Idlewild airports presented fewdifficulties for the Vertol 21s, but La Guardia was much smaller and there were the twin problems of fitting in with air andground movements of fixed-wing aircraft. Active runways had to be crossed, often through the slipstream of aircraft taking off orlanding—the Constellation left the most turbulent wake—and the landing area was often crossed by taxying aircraft. NYA had thesecond highest number of movements at La Guardia. With twin-rotor machines, cross-wind operation was not much trouble.Incidentally, the two simple rotor heads of the Vertol have so far proved easier to maintain than a single, large rotor. GeneralElectric have guaranteed fixed costs and will perform all main- tenance on the T58 turbines fitted in NYA's 107s—to some extentunder the stimulus of rivalry from other engines such as the Gazelle. For the more distant future NYA still have a financial interestin the Westland Rotodyne though there has been little contact between the companies of late. The big Vertol Chinook, carrying40 to 45 passengers and cruising at 165 to 170 m.p.h., is in prospect for 1964. 4 New York Airways has a fleet of five Vertol 2Js. one of which is seen, in the head- ing picture, being serviced at La Guardia. On the right is the heliport at West 30th Street, hard against the elevated roadway. The small terminal building is in the far right-hand corner. Night lighting is installed
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