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Aviation History
1961
1961 - 0049.PDF
FLIGHT, 13 January 1961 SYSTEM SURVEY Eurocontrol Planning Body and Council AT a first meeting in Paris on December 20, the officers of thedirectorate of planning of Eurocontrol were elected, as follows: chairman, Pierre Nottet, director-general of the Belgian CivilAviation Administration; vice-chairman, Commodore J. W. Thijssen, deputy chief of the Netherlands Air Staff; secretary,Pierre Hamer, head of civil aviation in Luxemburg. The purpose of the directorate is to evaluate systems and procedures in readi-ness for the ratification of the convention by the participating nations, and will form the nucleus of the headquarters to beset up later in Brussels. A council was elected at the same meeting to form the basis ofthe experimental establishment to be set up later near Paris. Pierre Nottet was again elected chairman, with Maj Alfred Mieth, headof the West German military air traffic services, as vice-chairman. Treasurer is Gp Capt J. Veal, Director-General, AviationNavigational Services in the MoA; and secretary is L. Lansalot- Basou, chief engineer of the air navigation department of theFrench secretariat-general for civil aviation. The council appointed Rene Bulin, head of the French SGAC air navigationdepartment, to be director; and G. Broadbent, MoA deputy director (technical), and Fritz Hentschel, director of traffic controlin the German Ministry of Transport, to be deputy directors. An assistant director is to be appointed later. More Airways Radar in US A CONTRACT worth $5.2m has been placed by the Federal AviationAgency with Raytheon Co for additional ARSR-2 surveillance radars. This will bring the number of Raytheon radars coveringthe US airways to 52. Twelve military defence radars are also used for traffic control. The use of power tubes called amplitrons has increased rangeto 200 miles on transport aircraft and height cover to 60,000ft at shorter ranges. Circular polarization eliminates rain clutter andan improved MTI and video map systems are incorporated. The new aerial measures 25ft X 50ft, instead of 1 lft X 40ft, and givesbetter high-altitude cover at short ranges. The first of the ARSR-2s is to be delivered in January next year, but the siteshave yet to be determined. Signals will be brought to the traffic control centres by microwave link. 1961 Hopes for Electronics THE chairman of the Electronic Engineering Association, MrL. T. Hinton, stated in a New Year message that "in the face of severe and growing competition from other countries, exports ofelectronic equipment held steady at the 1959 record level; the Autoland system for aircraft was a major technical breakthrough,making for increased safety, while the labour figure in September (1960) showed an increase of five-and-a-half per cent over thecorresponding figure a year previously. The cutting of the guided weapons programme, the Outer Seven/Inner Six controversy,and the lack of stability in hire purchase and purchase-tax policy may all have been frustrating, annoying and harmful to somedegree, but I am sure that electronics—a vigorous and ever- growing industry—will shake off these troubles, and in 1961 willgo even faster and further." CSF Radar for Australia Two terminal radars with 4MW power and 150 miles' range havebeen ordered by the Australian Department of Civil Aviation from the French CSF company. They are to be installed atSydney, which handles all jet airline traffic coming to Australia, and at Adelaide, where a civil/military traffic problem is growingup because of the proximity of Woomera. The radars are to be delivered during next year. Further units may be ordered forairports at Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. This is the first major aviation electronics order to be obtained in Australia by a Frenchcompany. Considerable efforts are being made to obtain further orders, one example being the Cyrano fire-control for the Mirage.Cyrano is, of course, in competition with the Ferranti Airpass 2. Collision Avoidance "Some Years Off" IN an end-of-the-year statement, the Federal Aviation Agencylists some of the projects at present in hand, giving in particular some information on collision avoidance systems now understudy. James L. Anast, director of the FAA's research and development bureau, reported that while projects now under waynave shown "somewhat promising" results, the problems still to 47 International Telephone and Telegraph Corpora- tion's proposal for a three - dimensional dis- play for tracking air- craft, missiles, satellites or submarines. Flashing pinpoints of light are projected into the screen, which rotates rapidly; and the traces can be seen from all round and appear to move through the display be solved are such that "the availability of a successful airbornecollision prevention system cannot be foreseen for a few years yet." The most efficient means of providing safe separationbetween aircraft was still effective and reliable ATC. Three kinds of anti-collision system are being sought—collisionavoidance systems giving full protection; pilot warning instru- ments; and conspicuity enhancement. Work on the Bcndixco-operative CAS, using range and height information only derived from differentiation of direct ground-reflected trans-missions, coded for height, has confirmed predicted capability of the ranging technique. This system was first described in Flightfor February 27, 1959. A preliminary flight in December showed that threat prediction was possible and equipment is now beingdelivered to the FAA experimental centre for further trials. Collision avoidance with the Bendix system would be by changingheight rather than course. A flush aerial is being tested for suitability in collision-avoid-ance systems and simulator studies are under way to assess pilot performance and capability in see-and-be-seen flight. It has beenfound that the red-light beacons generally carried by aircraft perform very efficiently as infra-red beacons and it is thought thatan infra-red proximity detector could be made cheaply, and light enough, to be fitted even to light aircraft.In other fields, the FAA is still testing the first units of the Data Processing Central and several kinds of automatic ground-air-ground communications are being evaluated. Automatic acquisition of flight information by three-dimensional radar, radarbeaconry and telemetering techniques is being investigated. Work is also under way to determine the feasibility of simul-taneous ILS approaches to parallel runways in an effort to increase the capacity of airports. E.M.I, and Traffic Control A SEMI-AUTOMATIC traffic control system based on an Emidec 2400computer as information centre and master control is under development by E.M.I. Electronics Ltd. The computer canaccept flight-plan information and plot the progress of an aircraft, using data stored in its memory. Radar information can also befed into the computer and automatic warning of traffic conflicts or other essential information can be produced. This is one of the E.M.I, projects which will come within theprovince of AVM W. E. Oulton, who has retired after 32 years' service with the RAF and joined the company as director respon-sible for Ministry work. AVM Oulton helped set up the London air traffic control zone in 1946, was the first RAF director of theJoint Anti-Submarine School at Londonderry and was task-force commander for Operation Grapple, the nuclear-weapon tests. Computer-controlled Production BELL Helicopter Co is well advanced in converting its entirefactory management to computer control, using an IBM 650 data processer. They have already saved 50 per cent lead-time and$500,000 in stores buildings. The computer controls buying, receiving, storing, production,despatch, billing and manufacturing accounting and issues excep- tion reports whenever management action is required. Con-tractual, materials, labour, tooling, purchasing, factory and routing information is stored on memory drums and tapes. Amaster tooling file lists tools to be used in production of specific parts and reports the current location of the tools. The computercalculates the time required for each manufacturing operation and oroduces written instructions for the complete productionschedule for each helicopter. Bell have now ordered a faster IBM 1401 data-processing system to speed up the operation.
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