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Aviation History
1961
1961 - 0227.PDF
N c 2 7 1 1 VOLUME 79 FRIDAY 24 FEBRUARY 1961 Editor-in-Chief MAURICE A. SMITH OFC Editor H . F . KING MBE Technical Editor W. T. GUNSTON Air Transport Editor J. M. RAMSDEN Production Editor ROY CASEY Managing Director H. N. PRIAULX MBE IN THIS ISSUE From All Quarters 228 Services Estimates 229 Lightning1 Squadron 230 Missiles and Spaceflight 232 Olympian Heights 233 Flight System Survey (special feature) 237 Service Aviation 255 Air Commerce 256 Straight and Level 261 Sport and Business 262 Correspondence 264 Hill* Transport Publications Ltd, DorsetHouse, Stamford Street, London SE1; telephone Waterloo 3:133. TelegramsFlightpres London SKI. Annual sub- scriptions: Home £4 15s. Overseas £5.Canada and USA $15.00. Second Class Mail privileges authorized at NewYork, NY. Branch Offices Coventry: 8-10 Corpora-tion Street; telephone Coventry 25210. Birmingham: King Edward House, NewStreet, 2; telephone Midland 7191. Man- chester : 260 Deansjjate 3; telephoneBlackfriars 4412 or Deansgate 3595. Glasgow: 62 Buchanan Street Cl; tele-phone Central 1265-6. New York, NY : Thomas Skinner & Co(Publishers) Ltd, 111 Broadway 6; telephone Digby 9-1197.© Iliffe Transport Publications Ltd, 1961. Permission to reproduce illustra-tions and letterpress can be granted only under written agreement. Brief extractsor comments may be made with due acknowledgement. AIRCRAFT, SPACECRAFT, MISSILES Official Organ of the Royal Aero Club First Aeronautical Weekly in the World Founded 1909 The Next DecadeI N ten years time the world is likely to be a very different place. The rising power of China is in itself a factor that has called for three references in the first five paragraphs of this year's Report on Defence. Yet in a technical, as distinct from a political, sense this document represents—as one national newspaper has termed it—"Defence as Before." A similar label may well be applied to successive editions over the next ten years. "We expect that our main contribution to the Western deterrent over the next decade will be provided by weapons carried in aircraft," declares the Minister of Defence—a declaration that may be construed as a shade complacent when it is considered that the entire revolutionary and colossal Polaris weapon system was conceived, developed and deployed in something like four years. Yet time, and the introduction of progressively more effective stand-off weapons, may yet vindicate the Minister's view, lengthy though it is. The Navy, too, is looking some ten years ahead. An improved version of the Seaslug guided weapon is being developed, states the First Lord of the Admiralty, "with even greater range and speed to deal with the types of aircraft likely to be encountered during the latter part of this decade." It might reasonably be asked whether, after the elapse of so many years, manned aircraft of any type at all will be menacing the Royal Navy; yet the prudence of developing the existing and effective weapon which is Seaslug is not lightly to be questioned in present circumstances. Meanwhile, the Samos 2 military reconnaissance satellite is already in orbit. Ten years hence its successors may be looking in on a very different picture of world armaments from that envisaged in Report on Defence 1961. 2 + 2 Still Makes 4A HELICOPTER without stabilization or rotor-speed control is a fascinating creature to fly: all the time, at any speed, it wants to wander and diverge. At the hover the pilot is juggling engine power, collective-pitch and yaw pedals, and he has a number of trapping performance limits to avoid. Many an engaging hour can be whiled away learning and then practising the art, and there is a special sense of achievement when it all works out right. After a time it becomes second nature, like riding a horse or a motor cycle. But in cloud a helicopter with conventional instruments becomes a different creature again. It is difficult and tiring to fly at ideal speed and well-nigh impossible at any other speed; and conventional fixed-wing director instruments do not really help. It is necessary to start to solve the blind-flying problem on a clean sheet of paper. The control requirements are different; stabilization must be provided— either as an automatic system or through the instruments; and five factors must be controlled—pitch, roll and yaw attitude, vertical movement (collective pitch) and transmission speed or power. New radio aids are also needed. But to be noted down on that clean sheet of paper is a mass of experience in electronics and control technique. Once is has been decided that the answer must be four, two and two will make it in the same old way, even though it has to be written backwards or in italics. It is a question of deciding just what the pilots and the operators need and by which combination of equipment they wish to obtain it. The special review of helicopter all-weather operation, which begins on page 237, serves to illustrate this point. British companies, together with BEA and Mo A, have done excellent development work. The pity is that no multi- engined civil helicopter is available in Britain for commencing operational trials —still less an actual poor-weather passenger service.
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