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Aviation History
1961
1961 - 1391.PDF
2742 VOLU ME 80 THURSDAY 28 SEPTEMBER 1961 Editor-in-Chief MAURICE A. SMITH DFC Editor H F. KING MBE Technical Editor W. T. GUNSTON Air Transport Editor J. M. RAMSDE N Production Editor ROY CASEY Managing Director H. N. PRIAULX MBE IN THIS IS8UE From All Quarters 496 A Wider Horizon 498 Riley 65 in the Air 5OO Missiles and Space-night 502 VTOL Problems Discussed 504 BOAC and its Associates 5O9 Aspects of the Argosy C.1 510 Sport and Business 512 Straight and Level 513 Correspondence 514 The Industry 515 Service Aviation 516 Flight System Survey 518 Air Commerce 519 I lifte Transport Publications Ltd, DorsetHouse. Stamford Street, London, SE1; telephone Waterloo 333a. TelegramsFlightpres London SE1. Annual sub- scriptions: Home £4 15s. Overseas £5.Canada and USA $15.00. Second Class Mall privileges authorized at NewYork, NY. Branch Offices Coventry: 8-10 Corpora-tion Street; telephone Coventry 25210. Birmingham: King Edward House, NewStreet, 2; telephone Midland 7191. Man- chester: 260 Deansgate 8; telephoneBlackfriars 4412 or Deansgate 3595. Glasgow: 62 Buchanan Street 01; tele-phone Central 1265-6. New York, NY: Thomas Skinner & Co(Publishers) Ltd, 111 Broadway 6; telephone Digby 9-1197. © Iliffe Transport Publications T td,1961. Permission to reproduce illustra- tions and letterpress can be granted onlyunder written agreement. Brief extracts or comments may be made with dueacknowledgement. Official Organ of the Royal Aero Club First Aeronautical Weekly in the World Founded in 1909 What is a Hovercraft? THERE was no doubt in the mind of the former Minister of Aviation, MrDuncan Sandys, that the hovercraft is an aircraft. This is what he said during the passage through Parliament of the Civil Aviation (Licensing) Bill, 1960: "The hovercraft is a little like a duck-billed platypus, which is both bird and mammal. I do not suggest that the hovercraft suckles its young, but I have no doubt at all that it is an aircraft." And indeed it is, so far as registration and design standards are concerned. Technical responsibility for ensuring that ground-effect machines are safe vehicles for public transport is carried by the Ministry of Aviation and the Air Registration Board. But now that Starways—and, last week, P. & A. Campbell Ltd—have applied to the Air Transport Licensing Board for licences to operate hovercraft services (see page 520). the question arises of respons- ibility for licensing the commercial operation of these craft. Starways' historic applications to the Board, published in Civil Aviation Licensing Notice 36, raise a question with a touch of irony: The applicant and other would-be hovercraft operators may well, to quote the Act, be "compe- tent, fit and proper persons" to operate hovercraft services; but is the Board —we ask without disrespect—a competent, fit and proper authority to license such services ? It is significant that some weeks elapsed between the lodging of Starways' applications and their publication in the Board's Notices. The most likely reason for the delay was that the Board decided to take advice on whether or not to accept the applications. Evidently it found that it was obliged to do so; but will it, we wonder, ever hear the applications ? New Legislation Required? It may well happen that the Minister, while not disputing that hovei worthi- ness (as it might be termed) comes within his purview, will decide that these craft are exempt from the requirements of the Civil Aviation (Licensing) Act, 1960. He has the power to exempt a hovercraft operator from the require- ments of an Air Service Licence by extending the scope of Regulation 3. The question would then arise as to which authority, if any, should be respon- sible for the operational licensing of hovercraft; and this may well result in new legislation. It would certainly be a pity if the commercial future of these promising vehicles, in the development of which this country is well ahead, were to be compromised by the restrictions that confine air transport, and particularly international air transport. Meanwhile Starways, and others wishing to reap the commercial fruits of promising British developments in the hovercraft field, want an early clearing of the air, or whatever the right word is in this context. In its applications Starways makes a special point of asking for an early decision "to enable a very extensive experimental and training programme to be undertaken." What Mr Sandys should have said, and what his successor Mr Thorneycroft should now say, is that the hovercraft—at any rate from the commercial licensing viewpoint—is neither a duck-billed platypus nor an aircraft. It is a hovercraft.
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