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Aviation History
1961
1961 - 0312.PDF
320 FLIGHT, 10 March 196! CORRESPONDENCE . . . broad field, including for example, provision to train an ade-quate force of technologists and engineers over the next 10-15 years on a permanent replacement basis; to review the size andscope of the industry, including all accessory and material sources; to produce sound and adequate research programmes at leaston a ten-year basis; and to decide exactly where we stand and what our future interests should be on military, transport, civiland private aircraft, missiles and space activity. If this were achieved (and it is quite possible to do it, withsufficient priority, enthusiasm and drive in seven to eight months) we should then, for the first time since the war, be on firm groundas to what is within our resources to tackle on a financial, time and scope basis. We should, in fact, be in a position to know if wecould give any attention to a supersonic transport at all. If we could, the time factor might be such that we could not permit our-selves to be involved with just any proposal, but, instead, with a conception in which there is most scope for development andpossible business return. In the last decade I have spent a good deal of my time with theup and coming generation of young Britons interested in the air, including a broad cross-section embracing both apprentices andpost-graduates. By and large they are good stuff although we are still desperately short of fully qualified men and have not yetreceived our fair and necessary share of the best available brains in the country. It has fallen to my lot to endeavour to explainour present position in the air and to do my utmost to inspire them with the great opportunities within their grasp and that theposition is bound to improve. If I was one of them today, I should hang on for a bit, becauseBritain is obviously the best country in the world to work in, and we still possess the basic assets to take our full part in the air; butI must admit I should be extremely disturbed, realizing that up to the present, no realistic effort has been made to go to the rootof the trouble and eliminate the canker which is preventing us getting on quickly and thus re-establishing our faith in Britain'sair power in the broadest sense. One hears so often from serious executives both in the aero-nautical world as well as in other engineering fields: "These long-term views are all very well, but I have got to keep my shopsoccupied for the next two or three years and endeavour to make a profit." This short-term outlook of compromise and patchingworked all right before the war but today is entirely outmoded. Its failure was first shown up in the aircraft industry because ithas the highest and most complex discipline; but eventually, owing to the tremendous step-up in technological tempo, it willapply to all our industrial effort. It has already caught up with us in the shipbuilding, motor and machine-tool industries. Thewhole country is suffering from lack of long-term planning and research. Political expediency puts off facing facts and getting down toa genuine start, believing it will cost huge sums of money, whereas in fact it will save money and, what is more, get positive results.The young technologist feels there is too much emphasis put on money, from the board room to the man on the shop floor, andhe has something here. Of course, there must be the profit motif. It is the keystone ofthe arch, but with a properly planned economy for the air and a dedicated team, profits will look after themselves to a very largeextent. Cape Town ROY FEDDEN Lonely Tribute "pVERY day thousands of commuters travel from south-east-'—' Essex to London by rail, passing the field between Rayleigh and Wickford on the Southend-Liverpool St line, where a uniquelink [see photograph, previous page] with World War One is visible on the starboard side when London-bound. Over the years I have read in local papers and county maga-zines various reports indicating (a) that a member of the RFC is buried here, where he fell, and (b) that the pilot who fell isburied in Rayleigh churchyard. I thought readers would like to know the truth, which may help to settle arguments in the railwaycarriages (and I've overheard a few myself). Tramping across the muddy fields from the road at Shotgate(Rayleigh - Wickford A129) I was able to photograph the alleged "grave" where the well-kept plot and recently painted propellerindicates that "This spot is sacred to the memory of Capt Henry Clifford Stroud, NRE and RFC. Killed in Action atmidnight, March 7th, 1918. Faithful until death. None of the locals was able to confirm if, in fact, Stroud wasburied there and I was again told that he was lying in Rayleigh churchyard. I checked every grave there without success andthen remembered seeing some War Graves Commission head- stones in Rochford churchyard. Sure enough, there, in the centreof an area in which five RFC/RAF officers are buried, is the family grave of the Strouds, with a stone propeller on the slab and CapStroud's details added to the other names of those interred Inside the parish church, only a few yards from the Southenr;Municipal Airport boundary, where pilots like "Al" Deere too off in 1940, is yet another link with Capt Stroud, a memoricplaque on the north wall of the old church, placed there by h parents. Perhaps other readers can add something to this lonely tributin the Essex fields? Leigh-on-Sea, Essex LESLIE HUNT, Fit Lt Cody and "Colonel" acknowledging all the academic arguments abouwhether Cody was a colonel—or wasn't—wouldn't it be much nicer to leave it that we all knew him as Colonel Cody and thjreigning monarch supported the fiction? For heaven's sake lti sleeping dogs lie or colonels R.I.P. Thames Ditton, Surrey BASIL CLARKE Hands off Phineas TN an old copy of Flight (July 22, 1960) Roger Bacon has shotA down another cherished illusion. A whole generation of bovs has grown to manhood convinced that the Spandau guns were asmuch a part of the First World War as Baron von Richthofen and Billy Bishop.Who can forget the stirring stories in Triumph, Wizard, Rover and Champion that included whole paragraphs of rat-tat-tat-tatsattributed to these deadly guns? I must insist, sir, that some things remain inviolate. Next thing,Roger will be telling us Phineas Pinkham never existed. Quebec, Canada JACK BAILIE Don't-mind-noise Dept. IN my opinion Mr John Connell is way off the mark. He seemsto think he has countless secret sympathizers all over the country, ready to leap to the defence of his cause. When the peace of this district was somewhat upset some whileago (along with many local inhabitants), the newspaper offices were inundated with complaints about the activities of the B-47s.There was even an article on the subject in our school magazine. The newspaper ones were mainly to the effect that "little Johnnywas so upset. He was off his food for days." Well, it seems that little Johnny and everyone else has now recovered, for on the rareoccasions when the subject is mentioned there are few complaints of noise, and no one appears to have suffered any ill-effects. I am obviously neither responsible for anything that is goodin civilization, nor intelligent, nor sensitive, for I think that people living near important jet-used airports will soon adopt the atti-tude of our local ex-jet-noise-abaters (if they haven't already) so that Mr Connell's noble society will ultimately die through lackof support and interest. Meanwhile perhaps they will amalgamatt with the select band of brothers who are convinced that the worldis flat. Both causes are equally futile. PATRICIA HAMMOND (aged 15) Newbury (nr Gieenham Common), Berks FORTHCOMING EVENTS Mar 11. British Gliding Association: Annual General Meeting. Mar 13. RAeS Historical Group: "Evolution of Transport Aircraft," by Peter W. Brooks. Mar 15. Kronfeld Club: "Collision Experiments with Wire Barrage Weapons," by Gp Capt Kent. Mor 16. RAeS Astronautics and Guided Flight Section: Symposium on ''Training of Guided-missiles Engineers." Mar 17. RAeS Man-powered Aircraft Group: "Power Tran:mission Systems," by S. S. Wilson. Mar 17. Institute of Navigation: "The Long-term Plan for Air Traffic Control," by Capt V. A. M. Hunt. Mar 18. London Society of Air-Britain: a.g.m., Annual Recognition Contest and Film Show. Mar 21. RAeS: "Some Aspects of Buffeting," by R. Fail. Mar 22. Kronfeld Club: Film Show. Mar 23. RAeS: Fourteenth Louis Bleriot Memorial Lecture, "Problems of Short Take-off and Landing," by H. Ziegler. Mar 24. Society of Environmental Engineers: Annual General Meeting. Mar 28. Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators: "Supersonic Transport," by Dr A. E. Russell. Mar 29. RAeS Agricultural Aviation Group: "Atomization," by R. P. Fraser. Mar 29. Kronfeld Club: "An Austin 7 on the Top of the Senate House, Cambridge," by Peter Davy. RAeS Branch Fixtures (to Mar 17): Mar 13, Boscombe Down, "Air- ships," by the Rt Hon Lord Ventry; Hen/ow, "General Concepts of Space Research and Satellite Launching Vehicles," by D. J. Lyons. Mar 14, Loron, "Hovercraft," by staff member from Hovercraft Development Ltd. Mar 15, Coventry, "Reliability," by Air Vice Marshal A. F. Hulton; Hatfield, "The Strength of England," by Dr Barnes N. Wollis; Manchester, Sixth Chadwick Memorial Lecture, "Some Current Prob- lems Facing the Aircraft Designer," by J. C. Floyd; Reading, "Development of the Handley Page Herald and H.P.R.8," by J. Allan.
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