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Aviation History
1961
1961 - 1174.PDF
276 FLIGHT, 31 August 1961 FROM ALL QUARTERS Thunderbird Regiment for Germany A MISSILE unit equipped with English Electric Thunderbird Is—36 Guided Weapons Regt, Royal Artillery—is moving to the British Army of the Rhine in September. It has recently completedtraining at Tycroes, North Wales, and will be brought up to full strength for the move with 35 officers and 500 men. Organization ofSAGW regiments is on the basis of three batteries, each with 12 launchers. A second Thunderbird regiment, No 37, is at Manorbier,Pembrokeshire, headquarters of the Army's School of Artillery. Heading Beagle Flight Test ANOTHER new appointment has beenannounced by Beagle: Mr R. B. Stratton, AFRAes, has been made the group's chiefflight test engineer and took up his new duties at Shoreham on August 14. For-merly with the Royal Air Force, Mr Stratton left the Service in January 1949to join Saunders-Roe at Cowes as chief flight engineer. In 1954 he set up the flighttrials unit for the SR.53, and from 1956 to 1960 was in charge of the project's oper-ation and development at Boscombe Down. He then became chief developmentengineer, helicopter division, Saunders-Roe, responsible for P.531 and Skeeter develop-ment. Mr Stratton has held a PPL since 1948, has a Silver "C" gliding qualification and is an instructor with the British GlidingAssociation, the RAF Gliding and Soaring Association, and the Air Training Corps. As an RAFVR squadron leader he is onthe staff of the Hampshire Wing of the ATC. Beagle's Autogyro BEAGLE have now entered the rotating-wing field, with the BeagleMiles-Wallis WAI 16. This machine was developed by Wg Cdr K. H. Wallis on the basis of the American Bensen Gyro-Copterdesign, which was intended for the amateur constructor flying for his own amusement. As developed, however, it is intended as areliable single-seat autogyro for serious operational purposes. Powerplant is a 70 h.p. McCulloch two-stroke. The Wallis autogyro as it now exists is described as "a beautifullybuilt little machine that speaks volumes for the engineering design ability and the workshop craftsmanship of Wg Cdr Wallis. Hismethod has been consistently to find simple design solutions, but in every case the simplicity is that of refinement, not of crudity;and in this essential his aircraft is fundamentally far removed from the original American line of thought." Definitive performance figures are not yet available, because Mr R. 8. Stratton ARRESTING SPECTACLE at the Farnborough Display next week will be a demonstration of the new RAE/Dunlop anti-overrun gear, here illustrated in use: the Scimitar's arrester hook has just engaged the cable, and nylon webbing bands are being drawn from the drums of energy-absorbing units sunk flush on each side of the runway and utilizing multi-disc brakes. The new gear is referred to on page 322 of this issue calibrations have yet to be done; but Wg Cdr Wallis has demon-strated that in zero-wind conditions the autogyro will take off in about 25yd and climb at something over l,000ft/min. Themachine cruises "effortlessly" at 67-70kt, can be flown without losing height at as low a speed as lOkt. Maximum take-off power is65 b.h.p., gross take-off weight 5801b. A photograph appears on page 289. A. V. Roe Canada President NEW president and chief executive officer of A. V. Roe CanadaLtd is Mr T. J. Emmert. His appointment, taking effect from August 23, was announced last week by the company chairman,Sir Roy Dobson. Mr Emmert, in the words of the official announcement, "hashad an outstanding career and considerable experience in aviation and in general manufacturing." After holding an executive positionwith Boeing, he joined Canadair, becoming a vice-president and director. In 1950, at the age of 34, he was made executive vice-president of Ford of Canada. He became a vice-president of Massey Ferguson in 1959 and has relinquished this position totake his new appointment, previously held by Sir Roy Dobson. British Airborne Digital Computer IN conjunction with MoA and RAE Farnborough, the AppliedElectronics Laboratories of the General Electric Co Ltd at Stanmore have been developing an airborne digital computer system with thename Dexan (Digital Experimental Airborne Navigator). Details of the device, and of the progress of experiments in an RAE Cometfrom Boscombe Down, have been released since the "newequip- ment" information in subsequent pages of this issue went to press. Fully transistorized, the computer incorporates both digitaldifferential analyser and incremental whole-number sections. A ferrite core store will retain 1,024 20-bit words. Analogue-to-digitalconverters and appropriate output units have been added. For the navigational experiments, which have utilized only a portion of the BREEDERS OF BEAGLES; The team behind—or more accurately in front of—the beagle 8.206, which was rolled out at Shoreham on August 15. In the centre will be recognized Mr Peter Masefield, managing director of British Executive and General Aviation, flanked by Messrs G. H. Miles and J. W. P. Angell (left) and F. G. Miles and Tom Rickard (right). The aircraft (which is powered by two 260 h.p. Rolls-Royce Continental IO470Ds) was described in detail in "Flight" last week
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