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Aviation History
1961
1961 - 0640.PDF
650 FLIGHT, 11 AIR COMMERCE . . . CHARTER AIRLINE FOR SCOTLAND A NEW company, Caledonian Airways (Prestwick) Ltd, has beenformed with a nominal capital of £25,000 to operate pas- senger and freight charters. Accommodation has been applied for atPrestwick Airport where it is intended to set up a base; another is to be at London Gatwick.A spokesman of the company said recently that it was proposed initially to operate with two aircraft, probably DC-7Cs, from latethis year or early next year. Caledonian will compete for business in the inclusive tour market, for which they believe a considerablepotential exists in Scotland. BUSES AND FERRIES MORE interest might previously have been shown in ArmstrongWhitworth's AW.670 Airbus and Air Ferry developments ofthe Argosy had they been less expensive. Few British independent airlines were in a position a year or two ago to order aircraft costingnearly £im, particularly the ultra-short-haul car ferry operators who, at low utilization, would have had to face amortization ratesrepresenting a substantial proportion of aircraft revenues. The AW.670 has now been adjusted to approach more closely to1961 ideas on aircraft for intra-European operations. On page 617 of this issue Mr Harold Bamberg, chairman of Cunard Eagle, refersto his ideas about an aircraft for European routes as "something possibly with a fixed undercarriage and four reliable powerplants."Both are features of the AW.670. The Air Ferry aircraft has also been improved with the provision of adequate space for eight cars5ft 6in wide, and room in which to lash them down. The AW.670 now has a new double-deck fuselage 58ft long by15ft wide at floor level and 7ft lin high, giving a usable rectangular volume of 6,150 cu ft. Overhangs of 1ft 6in and 2ft 4in into thefront and rear doors respectively increase the available hold-length to 61ft 10in for car ferrying. Hold-height increases to 9ft 2in im-mediately aft of the rear spar; and the rear door opening, 8ft 6in high, is large enough for most touring caravans. The full-widthfreight doors can be manually or power operated, and the floor-sill height is 4ft. Up to 32 passengers can be accommodated on theupper deck, or 30 if a toilet is provided. The Airbus can carry 102 passengers in the main hold, seatedsix-abreast at approximately 40in seat-pitch, over a 340 n.m. stage FRONT DOOR HINGE Trailing vortices from its flaps, the Vanguard in this p^aph approaching over new Mazda 200W sodium linear approach lights projectors which are being tried out on the main runway at : rousted Manufactured by the AEI Lamp and Lighting Co, they are scd to t> effective in reducing glare e with full SBAC reserves, or 114 passengers over a 160 n.m.with the same reserves and at 34in pitch. A buffet is not normally carried, but two toilets are provided at the rear of the cabin Except for a fixed, faired nosewheel the undercarriage is the sameas that of the AW.660, but the Air Ferry can have a convertible fixed undercarriage, when forwai d and centre undercarriage doorshydraulic services, retraction jack and locking-spring unit arc removed in favour of a locking strut. Fairings and wheel spats arefitted; the latter, in halves, with the wheels off. Fittings to secure the main fairings are then clamped to the undercarriage legs, and theleading edges and side portions of these fairings are attached to the forward and centre door hinge brackets respectively. All fairings aresecured by screws and quick-release fasteners, access panels being provided for servicing and fuelling. The Air Ferry can carry eight cars in two rows of four, withcentral and side gangways. Car-lashing/seat-attachment points, into | which hand-locked fasteners can be inserted, are located at 2inlongitudinal and 20in lateral pitch over the entire length of the floor Baggage can be stowed in either side of the clamshell doors. Load-ing and unloading are made quicker by having the starboard row of cars facing forward and the port row facing aft. The vehicles can bedriven off without reversing; and, if the ramps are full width no marshal is required to direct the drivers. TWA'S BIG JET ORDER AT a cost of more than £66m TWA is to buy 30 more Boeing707s. Six are to be 707-331 Bs, twenty are to be 707-131 Bsand four 720Bs will be leased. All are Pratt & Whitney JT3D-? turbofan powered and all thirty aircraft will be delivered betweenSeptember, 1961 and October 1962. TWA at present has in service rather more than 30 of the 47jets which it previously had on order—fifteen 707-13Is, twelve 707-33Is and twenty Convair 880s. It is interesting that, while theBoeing fleet is to be increased very substantially, the order for Convair 880s is to remain unchanged. This big new order bringsthe total Boeing order book to only four short of 400 aircraft, nci including the four leased 72OBs. TWA will now have the secondlargest jet fleet outside of the Soviet Union. BOAC is the airline which has the largest number of jets in service or on order— IYComet 4s, fifteen 707-420s and forty-five VClOs. BOAC will order another three 707s if Treasury approval is obtained but threeaircraft would be sold when the VClOs are delivered. Simultaneously with the announcement of the Boeing order byTWA's president, Mr Charles C. Tillinghurst, Jnr, a new chairman was elected to succeed Mr Warren Lee Pierson. He is Mr ErnestR. Breech, one of the trustees appointed last December to control the shareholding relinquished by Hughes Tool. SAS IN TROUBLE THE image that SAS has over the years projected of itself as amodel of airline efficiency and international co-operation has.in the last six months, faded. As a note on page 224 of Flight for February 17 1961 showed, SAS has the lowest staff productivity interms of both capacity and flying hours produced among the world's dozen biggest airlines. All the Kr210m (£1 lm) put into SAS in 1950 must be consideredlost, reports a committee of Scandinavian Government officials that met in Copenhagen on April 25. The committee was composedof Government officials from Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and its recommendation that Kr280m (£14.5m) should be providedwas endorsed by the transport ministers of the three countries concerned. The committee could not guarantee that SAS can bekept operating without further loss, and no profit could be expected for three years. As reported in Flight's review of SAS's annual report last weefcthe airline made a loss of about £6m in 1960 on revenues of £45m- It is estimated that the loss for the present financial year, endingSeptember 30, 1961, will probably be more than the £2.™ estimated, according to the committee's report, which fLirt'frcriticizes "extravagantspending"and recommends an overhaulofw company's leadership. A condition of the provision of new capitais that in future SAS must be run on strictly business lines, even "" interfers with the prevailing division of activities [2:2:3] betweenthe three countries. Illustrated here are the two new versions of the AW.670, the 102-pc^M Airbus above, and the Air Ferry, which can accommodate eight c:rsa^ 32 passengers, below. A caravan can be accommodated in (' e re" • fuselage and provision is made for fixing down the undercarriage
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