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Aviation History
1961
1961 - 0555.PDF
V t "*- K.- „- 7* FLIGHT, 27 1961 565 Straight and Level NO SMOKING WITHIN 50FTis the warning often placarded on_. fuel bowsers at UK airfields. In the USA, monster yellow tankers declare themselves FLAMMABLE— which the pedantic Englishman, if he survives the explosion, will argue means non-inflammable. At airports in the USSR—or at any rate at Moscow, a colleague tells me— comrades puff away freely at their papirossis on the tarmac, in the hangars, in fact anywhere in the vicinity of aircraft at any time. In order to complete an exclusive Flight survey of the Great Powers' smoking-near-aircraft policies, another colleague recently lit up a Gauloise in a certain fighter-assembly plant in France. His French host didn't object—not until they approached the pre-fiight hangar, where there was JP.4 about. Would he please, he was then asked, extinguish his cigarette ? When kerosine and gasoline had been handled in this hangar, it was explained, smoking was permitted, but the rules for JP.4 were more strict than for either of the other fuels, and would he kindly defense de fumer immediatement ? • Do you remember my picture of the brave aerial postman three weeks ago? Mr R. E. Nicoll, sales manager of Alvis's Aero Division, has written to me about it. I might interpolate that Mr Nicoll is something of a pioneer in British civil aviation, having been operations manager of the British Aerial Transport Co in 1919-20. The trepid pilot, he tells me, was none other than the late Major Jack Savage, inventor of Skywriting—and sometime member of Flight's editorial staff. BUMPER DOUBLE NUMBER. LOOK OUT FOR COLOURED COVER The aeroplane was one of Horatio Barber's Valkyries—no relation to the B-70—and the photograph was taken at the time of the first aerial post in this country—between Hendon and Windsor Castle. • Extract from Air Service Licence (Transitional) No. A. 163 issued by the Air Transport Licensing Board to Derby Airways:— 4. Passengers and cargo may not be taken up at Derby for carriage to Nottingham, Birmingham, or Manchester, or at Nottingham for carriage to Derby, Birmingham or Manchester, or at Birmingham for carriage to Manchester, Derby or Nottingham, or at Manchester for carriage to Birmingham, Derby or Nottingham. 1 think I get the general drift of what the Board means—no domestic traffic rights. Four words instead of 47. • A numbness pains my senses when I contemplate the prospect of jets on UK domestic air services. It is a real prospect, as the Cunard Eagle and British United Airways applications to operate internal services show. Both these independents specify the use of jets by 1964. I hope that, when traffic on the trunk routes from London to Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Belfast is great enough—possibly in the summer of 1962, probably in the summer of 1963—one of these independents will be licensed to offer me a choice of airline. Here is a perfect field for flight-testing private v. public enterprise in British air transport, a field unhedged around by pool agreements and foreign traffic politics. But it would be raving lunacy for one of these independents to introduce jets in competition with BEA's Vanguards. These big low-cost aircraft have a 15-20 year job to do on internal routes, and they are well-nigh ideal for the job. The big investment in them must not be sabotaged by smart little status- symbol jets boasting a five-minute faster schedule, pinching all the traffic and wrecking the economics of our internal air transport system. When a similar situation looked like developing in Australia in 1958 the Commonwealth Government stepped in and said NO. Ansett-ANA and TAA were required to compete with similar- quality aircraft—and competition has been no less lively. [Advt] Required urgently, copy of "The Union jack" Grand Easter Double Number, 1911, by columnist wishing to know fate of bound and gagged aviator illustrated in this picture— Roger Bacon, "Flight," London There are two things that are the mark of a gentleman—(/) he should have done his first solo in a Tiger Moth, and (2) he should be a regular reader of Flook in the "Daily Mail." Flook is mascot of 831 Sqn, Fleet Air Arm, and was on parade on the occasion discussed below • Admiral Sir Denis Boyd: May 1 express the hope, Mr Flook, that you are contriving to find satisfactory oppor- tunity, here with 831 Sqn, for the exercise of your renowned propensity for transmogrification. Flook: I thank you, sir, for your solicitation, and beg leave to refer you to the journal Flight dated April 6. This well-regarded publication will apprise you that No 831 is a unit of uncommon character. Equipped with both de Havilland Sea Venoms and Fairey Gannets it has the manifold function of providing aircraft for weapon training exercises and of conducting tactical and equipment trials, while maintaining readiness to embark in aircraft carriers of Her Majesty's Fleet, complete with maintenance personnel, for the per- formance of these onerous tasks, from the Arctic Circle to the Mediterranean. Admiral Sir Denis Boyd: Quite so. Quite so. Bang-Bang-Bang-Bang • Extract from the BEA Magazine:— "Closed in 1921, East Fortune ^Edin- burgh] came to life again 20 years later, in July 1941, with the arrival of 60 Operational Training Unit equipped with Defiants. In 1943 the station was handed over to 132 OTU, which flew Bofors, Beaufighters and Mosquitoes until July 1946. ROGER BACON
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