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Aviation History
1961
1961 - 0285.PDF
i LIGHT, 3 March 1961 orrespondence The Editor of "Flight" is not necessarily in agreement with the viewsexpressed by contspondents in these columns. Names and addresses of writers, not jor publication in detail, must in all cases accompany letters. I*UA's Jet Plans J SHOULD like to make two comments on the "British United'sJet Challenge" article in Flight of February 10. In the first place you make the unexceptionable statement that the Air Trans-port Licensing Board should be perfectly clear about facts and figures produced by airlines in support of applications for newroutes. I entirely agree—though none of us here has ever had the slightest doubt that the Board would, as part of its normalduties, investigate and analyse the figures supplied by us and other applicants. This brings me to my second point. When the Board comes toconsider figures supplied by us, we are confident it will find correct our assertion that "to carry out our plans in their entirety wouldinvolve no more than 20 per cent of the Corporations' estimated traffic growth for the years 1961-65."Our proposed jet fleet would, we hope, be fully operational and flying at a 60 per cent load factor in the year 1964-65. The pro-portion will then be the 20 per cent we mention, provided that the annual passenger increase of the Corporations is the anticipated14 per cent. Flight's calculations, given in the issue of February 10, are based on a cumulative total over the next four years. Nowonder the two figures are so very different. Our aim in making the statement which has led to this dis-agreement has been to show that our application will have no effect whatever on the existing traffic of the Corporations, andonly a small effect—one-fifth—on the Corporations' prospective growth up to the time our services become fully effective. London Wl F. A. LAKER, Executive Director, British United Airways Ltd AS you commented in your February 10 issue on the letter you- were good enough to publish from me, may I comment also? Surely you are not suggesting that it is to be deplored that BOACshould pool with the Commonwealth airlines you mention? I often read or hear of suggestions that the Commonwealth airlinesshould co-operate, even more closely than they do now, partly in order to meet the competition of, say, Air Union. It seems to methat the passengers as well as the Commonwealth carriers must benefit from arrangements which link the Commonwealthoperators and thus help to provide more adequate and better scheduled services for the public than would be possible if all theCommonwealth operators were in fierce competition with each other—perhaps uneconomically, too. Doubtless you are right in saying that BOAC's strongeststimulus comes from TWA and PanAm; but I have always gathered that such airlines as KLM, Air France and SAS, tomention only three, are also in severe competition with BOAC on various routes and give this Corporation "stimulus." As toBEA, my impression is that pooling arrangements they have with their European competitors have benefited the customers ratherthan causing disadvantages. I remain interested to know whether the independents intendto provide "stimulus" to the corporations only on those routes on which the independents are likely to make money and on whichthe corporations have spent much time and energy throughout the years in developing traffic—or whether they plan to applyfor permission to fly on routes on which it would be difficult to make a profit, even though it is in the national interest to have onsuch routes a British air service. London W13 A. L. WATSON The Third Instrument TN his article "The Third Instrument" in Flight, December 2,A Alastair Pugh concluded that a fully automatic fuel injection system is needed for light aircraft engines. Apparently Mr Pughis not familiar with the fully automatic gasoline fuel-injection system which has been available on a number of British aircraftengines for the last twelve years and is an outgrowth of the auto- matic system which has been fitted on all Rolls-Royce Merlinengines since 1945. The fully automatic speed-density S.U. series fuel injection system is currently fitted to the Blackburn CirrusBombardier engine, the de Havilland Gypsy Major 200, and some series of the Alvis Leonides Major. Simmonds Precision Products Inc, licensee for this system fromth S.U. Carburetter Co Ltd, have been manufacturing the S.U. series fuel injection system in the United States for use on air-cc.-led ordnance engines for approximately eight years, during w'-ich period more than 20,000 systems have been manufactured. Ir addition, we have been in production for several years of two 289 different versions of this system for use on Lycoming aircraftengines being fitted on a production basis to the Aero Commander 680F and the Beech Twin-Bonanza and Queen Air. The systemsupplied to Beech is fully automatic, based on the speed density metering principle, and includes compensation for exhaust backpressure variation as mentioned by Mr Pugh in his article. The 580-series system for Aero Design is completely automatic andin addition provides a manually controlled mixture-control and fuel cut-off provision. Although Continental do not currently usethis system on their aircraft engines, they are intimately familiar with it, having used it on all of their aircooled gasoline tankengines. Now that Rolls-Royce plan to manufacture Continental aircraftengines, presumably they will be able to turn to their regular source for automatic piston-engine fuel-metering systems, namelythe S.U. Carburetter Co, and obtain a fully automatic gasoline fuel-injection system for these Continental engines, with all of theadvantages which gasoline injection provides on the aircraft engine. We are pleased to see that the British Press is alert to theadvantages to be gained from automatic fuel-injection systems. Completely automatic gasoline fuel-injection systems to satisfy therequirements expressed by Mr Pugh are already in existence and immediately available to any and all aircraft engine manufacturers.Tarrytown; NY SIMMONDS PRECISION PRODUCTS INC,Geoffrey R. Simmonds [Alastair Pugh comments: "Mr Geoffrey Simmonds' letter is mostwelcome, although for him to say that I advocate fully automatic fuel- injection for light aircraft engines is not quite correct. I gave equalweight to compromise possibilities in which some type of mixture-setting lever and instrument were required, the only proviso being that settingshould be obvious and that the solution be 'cheap and simple.' If fully automatic systems can be made cheaply enough and simply enough tobe suitable for all light aeroplanes, and not only the more powerful types that Mr Simmonds mentions, they should be welcomed. Butthey are not fitted now, and from what I have seen of fully automatic, beat-as-they-sweep-as-they-clean fuel-injection carburetters (on an adja-cent drawing-board, Mr Simmonds) I conclude that something less complex is needed. "Since writing 'The Third Instrument' I have come to favour forsmaller engines a system which includes automatic altitude compensa- tion only and in which the other variables are measured and piped to arich-weak indication on an instrument. The mixture lever would then be used merely to zero the reading."—Ed.] Why Explore Space?I AM a rather puzzled reader of your worthy magazine, andwondered if some of your other readers could give me advice. A main topic in Flight lately has been that of spaceflight. ButI fail to see, with the world getting more complicated each year, that travel into space is at all necessary or practical. It is presumablythe result of man's desire to know and pursue things, combined with a spirit of adventure. Eventually, this could bring the worldto a disastrous end. I am very interested in new discoveries, but there should also bea sense of proportion. Why is it necessary to keep half the wor'd in poverty, while the big countries spend millions of poundson space activities? Even if all this money were not spent on spaceflight, it wouldpresumably go towards other "scientific" discoveries and not towards relieving the world's poverty. Is this not selfishnessrather than science, and is it not a most depressing prospect? Why do the big nations refuse to use their means and theirauthority along more humanitarian lines? Manchester 16 DIANA SINGLETON Do-It-Yourself Escape (3) THE Danish biplane seen by Mr D. Hattersley Smith at Turn-house in 1944 ("Do-It-Yourself Escape (2)," Correspondence, February 3) is no doubt the Gipsy Moth OY-DEH in which Lt PerPerch flew to Britain on October 19, 1942. Before the war Perch operated a flying school, but this wasforced to close down when Denmark was occupied by Germany on April 9, 1940. Perch then began to work for the Germans,to the amazement and anger of his friends. His purpose was, however, to collect information about German military installa-tions, and when he escaped he brought with him plans of German fortifications in Jutland.I don't know where he landed, except that it was near the English-Scottish border. To his great disappointment Perch wasnot allowed to enter the Royal Air Force and spent the remaining war years as a private in the Royal Engineers. After the war, the Gipsy Moth returned to Denmark, and itwas much flown in the years up to the mid 1950s. It was then left in the open at Sonderborg aerodrome, where it slowly rottedaway. The remains were finally broken up last year. What a shame! It oucht to have been preserved for inclusion in anaviation museum. The above-mentioned Gipsy Moth was not the only Danishaircraft to escape during the war, for on June 21, 1941, two
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