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Aviation History
1961
1961 - 0148.PDF
148 FLIGHT, 3 February 1961 Sport and Business . . . The business end of the extensive equipment in the J. C. Bam ford Dove is centred on the instrument panels. Above is the Decco Mk 8 flight log, and below are the Collins radio, and Sperry Gyropilot controls and flight instrumentation although they were keenly interested in operating an executiveaircraft, "no one approached us and no one tried to sell us anything."The Dove is at present based at Leicester East but will shortly be moved to Tatenhill, about ten miles south-east of Uttoxeter,where it will share Ind Coope's airfield with that company's executive Doves. Equipment in G-ARJB is superb; it has addedabout 80 per cent to the basic Dove 8 purchase price of £36,900. A more usual equipped price would be about £45,000. Radio-navigational equipment is to full airline standard. Mainand stand-by communications, VOR/ILS and marker beacon receiver are all Collins, the equipment specified being twin 17L-7Atransmitters with 680 channels at 50k/c spacing, 880-channel 51X2B receiver, 880-channel 51X2 stand-by com/nav receiver,344B-1 VOR converter, 51V-3 glide slope receiver and 51Z-2 marker beacon receiver. A Marconi AD722 lightweight ADF isinstalled and VOR or ADF bearing information is read off a Bendix RMI with ADF/VOR selector. The audio-system stationbox is Elliott ESB 31 A. In addition, the Bamford Dove is equipped with miniaturizedDecca Mk 8 with flight-log above the screen, Deccometers and lane-position indicator on the starboard side of the grey one-pieceinstrument panel; Sperry Gyropilot with height lock (the first installation with this addition); de-icing; and long-range fueltanks which extend the range to 1,100 st miles with reserves and reduced payload. All this special equipment is intended to make it feasible tooperate the aircraft on European airways with one pilot. The Dove will be flown for J. C. Bamford by Michael Sutton, who waspreviously with de Havilland in the drawing office and then as a production test pilot. Between accepting the aircraft inDecember and the handing-over ceremony last week he had flown G-ARJB 31hr by day and 17hr by night. In 17 days the machinehad been used on journeys covering 6,410 miles and in five days Bamford executives had had 44hr of overseas conference time infive different countries. "Flight" photographs THE YEAR 1960 was the most successful one in the history of theRAF Gliding and Soaring Association, whose members logged a total of 48,111 launches, 6,732 flying hours and over 15,000cross-country miles during the twelve-month period ending on October 31. The Association has over 2,200 members in 15 clubs,and operates a fleet of 85 training gliders and high-performance sailplanes. The clubs are located at Ballykelly (Northern Ireland);Leaning, Driffield and Finningley (Yorkshire); Swinderby (Lin- colnshire); Wattisham (Suffolk); Marham (Norfolk); Duxford(Cambridgeshire); Bicester (Oxfordshire); Wittering (Northants); Homchurch (Essex); Booker (Buckinghamshire); Andover (Hamp-shire); and Upavon and Colerne (Wiltshire). Last season's soaring achievements by RAFGSA pilots includedan Olympia 2b flight by Fit Lt G. J. Rondel which established new records for altitude (30,500ft) and gain of height (29,100ft);a gain of height of 25,900ft in an Olympia 2b by Pit Off I. W. Strachan and a flight to 21,500ft in a T-42 Eagle—the greatestheight reached by this type—by Fit Lt David Cretney. The Association's annual awards to ab initio members making out-standing progress in gliding were presented for 1960 to SAC H. S. Tee of the Wessex Club, Snr Tech D. F. Parry (WindrushersClub) and Cpl Tech M. Thomas (Moonrakers Club). Two new trophies for 1961 are the Bicester Cup donated by Mr G. H.Daniels for inter-station competition; and a trophy presented by Willis, Faber & Dumas Ltd, the Association's insurance brokers,for the club with the best safety record. THE PROBLEMS of controlling a manpowered aircraft in flightwill probably be greater than those of designing and building such a machine, according to Mr Lome Welch, glider pilot and Micro-cell development engineer. This was the theme of a lecture, Gliding and Manpowered Flight, given by Mr Welch before theManpowered Aircraft Group of the Royal Aeronautical Society on January 20. The paper considered in turn the possibility ofapplying manpower to existing gliders; thoughts on a number of configurations; and the process of flying a manpowered aircraft.Although a small improvement in performance could theoretic- ally be obtained by adding manpower to existing types of sailplane,the need to exert this power would detract from the pilot's con- centration on soaring so that the indicated benefit might not infact be obtained. The pilot would do better to stop pedalling, Mr Welch suggested, and to sit back and think. A "conventional" manpowered aircraft, the speaker continued,might be based on something like the RHJ-6 sailplane. But people had been much too conventional so far in their approach: newideas which ought to be considered included a two-man design with a one-man pod at each wingtip (and no central fuselage);and a "skimmer" type of wing-section giving stability in both pitch and roll without the need for controls. In more-orthodoxdesigns bodi three-control and two-control systems were possible, but inaccurate flying would mean a big increase in drag. In testing and flying manpowered aircraft, Mr Welch empha-sized, gliding experience could help. Because of the light struc- tures involved ground-handling would be important, and atrailer-type mobile hangar might be advisable. The low design factors associated with the weight limitation meant that flight-testing must be carried out near the ground—at less than about 15ft—in contrast to the normal glider procedure where as highan altitude as possible was preferred. For initial testing of a manpowered aircraft, Mr Welch recommended that a small power Experimental Soviet sailplane known as Kashuk, designed by A. Manotskov, features a pneumatic shock-absorbent wing suspen- sion. Wingtip movement is 4ft up and 4ft down, span is 55ft, ond the wings may be fixed at a required dihedral angle while in flight
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