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Aviation History
1961
1961 - 0195.PDF
PLIGHT, 10 February 1961 195 This large pile of boxes at Calgary represents 1,360 cu ft of TCA Vanguard's freight capacity. But TCA had not forgotten that the freight doors are on the starboard side: the position of the sun meant that this impressive illustration of the Vanguard's mixed traffic capability had to be specially posed for the camera The first of six Caravelle 6s ordered by Sabena was handed over at Toulouse on January 20, the day on which the aircraft seen here— Caravelle No 64 and the first Caravelle 6—made its first flight. During ths immediate future the aircraft will be based at Toulouse for crew training. A note on new Caravelle orders appears on page 796 A MATTER OF INTEREST AND CONCERN A DETAILED technical analysis to determine "the precisesignificance or size of the possible safety margin" in favour of JP.l (kerosine aviation fuel) has been ordered by the Minister ofAviation, Mr Peter Thorneycroft. The results will not necessarily be published. The Air Registration Board will continue to recom-mend for certification turbine aircraft using either kerosine or JP.4, as the latter "is perfectly safe during flying operations." Thesestatements were made by Earl Bathurst on behalf of the Govern- ment in a Lords debate last week on "Aviation Fuels and Safety." For the principal speaker, Lord Brabazon, it must have seemedthat the Minister of Aviation's decision was a culmination of his long battle to achieve recognition of the safety advantages ofkerosine in a ground accident where fuel is spilled; Lord Brabazon clearly has no doubt about the outcome on this issue of a dis-interested technical evaluation. The analysis may prove also to be an acid test by which the veracity of opposing statements in theJP.l-JP.4 controversy may afterwards be judged. In future years Lord Brabazon may be better known as the manwho insisted that the airlines use kerosine, than he is for being FLY 1—the holder of Britain's first aviator's certificate. Hisopening speech in the Lord's debate—quite un-Brabazonially moderate in tone—was a fine exposition of the arguments andcounter-arguments that he has made since first the fuel-safety controversy was raised."Today," said Lord Brabazon, "I am allowed to speak as a private person, and anybody who disagrees with me on what I amgoing to say is entitled to ask me: 'If you are on the Air Registra- tion Board, and if you consider a turbine-engined aircraft run-ning on petrol to be dangerous, why do you grant such an aircraft a certificate of airworthiness? I must make that point clear. Thebusiness of the board is to see that an aeroplane is airworthy in the air. We have the responsibility of proving that the aeroplanehandles correctly in the air. Beyond that we do not go. What happens in a crash is really outside our province, and the questionof the use of petrol in turbine-engined aircraft has never been raised on the Council itself. "The efficiency of the two fuels is about the same. Experts willsay that one has a little more heat value; on the other hand, it has not quite the range of the other. But in flight they are bothsatisfactory, and it is for that reason that the Air Registration Board is quite right in giving such aeroplanes a certificate ofairworthiness." Lord Brabazon went on to say that, irrespective of how ignitionfirst occurs, aeroplanes in minor accidents usually [sic] catch fire. We cannot get away from that fundamental fact." Quotingexamples of three recent accidents, he mentioned the Electra which crashed last December at La Guardia. "The tanks wereDur<r and the fluid caught fire. But it was kerosine; it did not bun, very quickly ... All 70 passengers and the five crew gotout, ;vith no casualties at all. We have the case of the Boeing 707 which swung off on coming down at London Airport. It did notcatc: fire, although the fire service there said that it was a marvel v- ncrt> as kerosine was pourine out of one of the engines.Nuvny-five passengers got out, and 12 of the crew." L""d Brabazon then quoted from a letter written by Mr Rush- den, one of the passengers in the DC-8 which crashed at New York on January 20. The letter read: — "Mr Mitchell and I were two of the British passengers in the MexicanAirlines DC-8 jet which crashed at Idlewild, and we are both utterly convinced that we owe our lives, as do all the other passengers, to thefact that this particular aircraft was powered by kerosine and not by JP.4 or any similarly volatile propellant." The oil companies were inclined to push airlines towards JP.4,said Lord Brabazon, "for the reason that out of a barrel of oil you get more JP.4 than kerosine." Offenders "—I name them and Iam not afraid to name them"—are Sabena, TWA, Trans-Canada and Pan-American." If passengers would ask whether they wereto be flown on petrol or kerosine, he went on, that would have a big effect upon the running of the airlines. It would be quite satis-factory if the Government were prepared to say that there is extra danger in using petrol instead of kerosine where fuel is spilt in aground accident. That statement would hang over the head of any operator using JP.4 and "it would indeed be a very unpleasantsituation to be faced with at any inquiry into a catastrophe concerning fire." Lord Ogmore said that the fuel position was largely oneof safety against availability. He had been trying to find out why some companies insisted on using JP.4 If it is so obvious to us,he asked, why is it not obvious to them that kerosine should be used. He thought it was hardly a question of price but of avail-ability. "Why are the oil companies not organizing this world- wide supply [of kerosine]? If it is just a question of saving moneyon their part... it would be worthy of our greatest condemnation." He had, he said, had the greatest difficulty in getting authoritativefacts on the subject. Insurance companies had not noted firm rules as to the difference between fuels in air safety. Lord Merrivale said that he also had found the same difficultyas Lord Ogmore in obtaining reactions from the fuel companies, although an American supplier had said in an article on thecharacteristics of aviation kerosine and JP.4: "The differences of particular interest to an airline are in the energy available fromthe fuel, the combustion quality of the fuel, its inherent cleanliness properties and the safety considerations associated with fiam-mability limits and with unusual ignition sources." Putting the Government point of view. Earl Bathurst saidthat the difference in prices between the two fuels was "really negligible" and that only in certain places was it more difficultto get one fuel than the other. An empirical study of accident cases "pointed to the probability that in certain cases wherepassengers have survived impact, JP.l has afforded a better chance of escape. This tentative conclusion must be tempered by the factthat the number of these accident cases is too small to provide convincing statistical evidence in favour of JP.l." He went onto say that this was a technical argument and that there are always two technicians with two different ideas. It should not be thoughtthat the case was as clear cut as possibly might be thought from the results of Lord Brabazon's dramatic experiments on television.But the Government had carefully considered the arguments, and on the limited evidence available, had concluded that there was aprima facie case that "under certain limited circumstances after
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