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Aviation History
1961
1961 - 0344.PDF
352 FLIGHT, 16 March 1961 It was by Comet 4 that Dr Nkrumah of Ghana chose to fly to the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' conference in London. He travelled from New York, where he had been attending the UN. The Comet was chartered from 80AC. As we go to press it is announced by de Havilland that Dr Nkrumah has bought a Heron, for the personal transport of himself and his ministers; it will be delivered later this year BEA v BOAC "BOAC has strengthened its position in the Middle East by co-operationwith the Middle East Airlines. Both airlines operate Comets. BEA like- wise has strengthened its position in the Middle East (where there is aconflict of interest between BEA and BOAC) by co-operation with the Olvmpic Airways. Both airlines likewise operate Comets. Is it too muchto'hope that, one day, we shall see BOAC and BEA co-operating with each other ?"—Straight and Level, Flight, January 6, 1961. SEVEN weeks after this was written the chairman of MiddleEast Airlines, Sheikh Najib Alamuddin, suggested (Flight,February 24) that competition between BEA and BOAC in the Middle 'East could affect relations between MEA and BOAC.The Sheikh suggested that a possible Middle East reaction to com- petition from BEA in association with Olympic and Cyprus Air-ways might be to drive Arab airlines into a protective pool. MEA would prefer to see a Pan Arab airline eventually brought intobeing with BOACs assistance, but, said the Sheikh, "we cannot fight BEA without affecting relations with BOAC as well." In association with MEA and their pool partner Air-India,BOAC operate 32 jet services a week through the Middle East. BEA operates 22 services through Athens and beyond, all ofwhich are in association with Cyprus Airways or Olympic. Cyprus Airways services are all operated by BEA aircraft, and it isa source of resentment in the Lebanon that the other British corpora- tion should advertise and should operate in competition with thelocal carrier. In the House of Commons last week, Mr G. Chetwynd (Lab,Stockton-on-Tees) raised the question of "unnecessary and waste- ful duplication of services between the two British airline corpora-tions." He asked the Minister of Aviation. Mr Peter Thorneycroft, about the "grave danger" to BOACs established position in theMiddle East of a clash between BOAC and its associates, and BEA and its associates, in the Middle East area. Because of the"delicate political atmosphere" he suggested that it was necessary to have a co-ordinating policy between airlines operating in andout of the Middle East. He offered to send the Minister a memoran- dum on the matter and this Mr Thorneycroft accepted. AIR COMMERCE SAS CARAVELLE FLAP A MODIFICATION programme involving the Caravelle'sflap mechanism was initiated, it is learned, following a take-offincident some weeks ago to a SAS Caravelle at Madrid. The airline's report was as follows: "During take-off from Madrid the pilot noticed that he had toapply right aileron and right rudder to keep the aircraft straight and level, as the aircraft had a tendency to roll and turn to the left.As he suspected a split flap deflection he selected various flap posi- tions in order to minimize the roll tendency to the left. The aircraftwas fully controllable and the captain decided for reasons of safety to land back at Madrid as soon as possible. No particular difficultieswere experienced in the approach and landing phase. "When inspected on the ground it was found that the left flapwas 20 down, while the right flap was 35' down. Closer inspection revealed that the drive shaft for the right-hand flap was brokenimmediately outboard of the bevel gear in the wing root area." FACING BACKWARDS IN THE HOUSE WE are in the Ministry told by our advisers that ... the back-ward-facing seat probably does give an extra margin of safetyin some circumstances." This was stated by Mr John Hay, then Joint Parliamentary Secretary, MTCA, in the House of Commons in May 1959. Again the backward-facing seat issue has been raised in the House of Commons. Mr. A. Hopkins (C & Nat L, Bristol, North- East) asked the Minister of Aviation last week: "Will you require, before issuing the certificate of airworthiness, that all passenger seats in passenger aircraft should be backwards-facing?" Mr Hopkins also wanted to know whether the Minister was aware that 16 lives might have been saved if the Electra which crashed at Boston had been fitted with such seats. Mr Thorneycroff s replies were to the effect that it would not be right to impose such a requirement on British operators; that he was keeping in touch with the American authorities; and that the whole question "is kept under review." The last time this matter was raised in Parliament the Govern- ment's reasons for not making backward-facing seats mandatory boiled down to: (1) aircraft safety is increasing; and (2) airlines would lose money. The debate was reviewed in Flight for May 22, 1959, pages 726-727, and the questions then posed have never been answered. Eighteen Caravelles have now been ordered by SAS for their consortium with Swissair, together with options on a further eight Seen in this fine toke-off study is one of four leased tc Swissair, who are reported tc be planning to operate an additional four
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