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Aviation History
1961
1961 - 0120.PDF
120 FLIGHT, 21 January 1961 Furnishing and Finishing... material is suitable for actual load-bearing applications; one suchis its use in escape chutes. Mallite EGB-4 panels, manufactured by William Mallinsonand Sons Ltd, Thames Road, Crayford, Kent, have successfully met the challenge of the stiletto heel, which fashion pundits nowtell us, happily, is on its way out. First used for replacing worn- out floors in DC-3 and Viking aircraft, in which the floor panelsthemselves rather than longitudinal seat rails took the seat load, these lightweight panels have balsa cores (sometimes birch-rein-forced) with Durestos or light alloy facings. Mallinson report progress in the past year in the application of these panels ratherthan in material development. Mallite flooring is available for Viscount 800s and over 20 have been so re-floored. The balsacore, acting as an insulant, renders the same material suitable for the construction of meal boxes and Mallite EGB-4 is widelyused in galley applications. Ferodo Ltd, Chapel-en-le-Frith, Stockport, manufacture par-ticularly hard-wearing stair-treads which are rarely seen inside airliners, but often pass unnoticed on the airstairs leading to them.In freighter aircraft, however, this material is used to provide a non-slip floor surface and is fitted to walls to act as preventivebumper strips. Suitable methods of attachment include adhesive, Passenger seat-light, ventilation and loudspeaker-system panel (plastic moulded exterior) tor Comets, by W. Henshall & Sons (Addlestone) Ltd pop-riveting and self-tapping screws. Aluminium-alloy tread-plate, incidentally, is one of the many products of Alcan Industries Ltd, of Banbury, Oxon. Decorative panelling is the speciality of Bakelite Ltd, 13-18Grosvenor Gardens, London SW1, whose Warerite is now widely used as facing panels and for working surfaces. Visually, Wareritepanels fall into two categories. There are those that can be immediately identified by special patterns and designs, such asthe Warerite "special pictorial" panels of aerostats and ancient fixed-wing aircraft which greet the passenger entering the first-class door of BEA's Viscounts, and those which blend unobtru- sively with their surroundings and appear as natural wood.Examples of the latter are those which face the bar units in BOAC's Britannias, where they replace polished wood. This samegrained design, Prima Vera, has been used for surfacing meal trays. Warerite itself consists of a melamine coating bonded to almostany type of metallic surface. There is cigarette-proof Warerite which has a thin sheet of aluminium foil, to dissipate the heatover a wide area and so prevent damage if a lighted cigarette is placed upon it. Warerite is also available bonded to lead—buthardly for aircraft applications. In aircraft it is usually bonded to aluminium and its makers emphasize that it should be regardedas a metal rather than as a plastic, and cut and shaped in the same way as light alloys are worked. Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd, Plastics Division, Black FanRoad, Welwyn Garden City, Herts, supply the raw materials for many manufacturers of aircraft interior fitments, in the form ofsheet plastics. It is instructive to look at a current production aeroplane, the Vickers Vanguard, to see how widely used theyare. The windows each consist of two sheets of |in Perspex acrylic sheet. Each has a surround pressed from %'m Darvic white010 p.v.c. sheet. The passenger facility panels (steward call- button, reading lights, switches and what-have-you) are pressedfrom this same material, by Arrow Plastics Ltd, for the General Electric Co, which supplies the complete fitting. Moving aft, Darvic is seen again in the toilets. The whole of thelavatory surrounds, including the lavatory seat, are pressed from it, together with the wash-basin, its surround and the paper toweland toilet paper holders. The uses of these ubiquitous plastics, as with BNS nylon yarns, are too diverse to fit neatly under any oneheading in this furnishing review. Fuselage linings are usually neatly quilted thermal and soundinsulation materials sewn into decorative sheets, with square or diamond patterns. What is in the quilts, and what the fabric isthat is quilted, is the customer's concern; but Airpak Ltd, 19 Berkeley Street, London Wl, offer them a speedy quilting servicefor insulating materials. The company operate multi-needle quilt- ing plant at Overton, Hants, where this type of work is done, andwhere Airpak's own insulating material, Tropal, is made. Among the vast range of aircraft finishes and protective coat-ings marketed by Cellon Ltd, Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey, are many specially for interior use. These are fire-resistant andinclude Non-Flam Lacquers for wood panelling. Specialized cleaners for use on the interior and exteriors ofaircraft are made by Valay Industries Ltd, Davis Road, dressing- ton, Surrey. The cleanliness of aircraft is as important, and asgreat a problem, as with any other public transport vehicle. Among the range of Valay cleaners, which are marketed underthe trade-name Jove, is Aeroval, which effectively removes stains, and soiling from all materials commonly used for interior trimming—leather, leathercloth, p.v.c, and so on. Aeroval is non-inflam- mable and non-toxic and so can be used in unventilated spaceswith safety. Marketed in cartons of four one-gallon cans, Aeroval, says the maker, "gives a sky-high finish at a down-to-earth cost." FOR SAFETY'S SAKE An important though largely hidden part of an airliner's interiorin the future will be the emergency oxygen supplies for passengers, which become a mandatory requirement under regu-lations to be enforced this year. Here the experience gained by British Oxygen Aviation Services Ltd, Bridgewater House, StJames's, London SW1, in the provision of liquid oxygen systems for military aircraft will be an invaluable advantage to the com-pany. Liquid oxygen (lox), as almost everybody knows, has made possible very large savings in weight and space over the oldgaseous oxygen systems. Safety is also enhanced, as liquid oxygen is stored at low pressures. The first transport aircraft the com-pany will equip with a lox system is the military Argosy, which will have a 25-litre oxygen convenor to supply gaseous oxygen atthe right temperature and pressure for passengers either in an emergency, or for those who find the normal pressurization ratherthin. Later will follow a system for the Short Belfast, employing two such convertors.Likely to be the first civil airliner with such a system is the Vickers VC10, for which Normalair Ltd, Yeovil, Somerset, havedeveloped a 30-litre oxygen convertor. The crew's supply is safeguarded from the demands of the passengers by the provisionof two separate supply lines controlled by pressure-operated valves. After the liquid level falls below reserve level, thepassengers' line is shut off; but it is still possible for the crew to Nylon emergency escape chute for BEA Comets (Latex Upholstery Ltd)
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