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Aviation History
1961
1961 - 1571.PDF
No 2747 VOLUME 8O THURSDAY 2 NOVEMBER 1961 Editor-in-Chiej MAURICE A. SMITH DFC Editor H. F. KING MBE Technical Ediwi W. T. GUNSTON Air Transport Editot J. M. RAMSDEN Production Editor ROY CASEY Managing Director H. N . PRIAULXMBE IN THIS ISSUE From All Quarters 676 Missiles and Spacefiight 678 Two Jubilees 681 Air Commerce 682 Cunard Eagle Western 686 Flight System Survey 689 Straight and Level 690 Service Aviation 691 Correspondence 692 Missiles 1961 693 Ilifie Transport Publications Ltd, DorsetHouse, Stamford Street, London, SE1; telephone Waterloo 3333. TelegramsFlightpres London SE1. Annual sub- scriptions: Home £4 15s. Overseas £5.Canada and USA $15.00. Second Class Mail 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 3; telephoneBlackfriars 4412 or Deansgate 3595. Glasgow: 62 Buchanan Street Cl; tele-phone Central 1265-6. New York, NY: Thomas Skinner & Co(Publishers) Ltd, 111 Broadway 6; telephone Digby 9-1197.© Iliffe Transport Publications ltd, 1961. Permission to reproduce illustra-tions and letterpress oan be granted only under written agreement. Brief extractsor comments may be made with due acknowledgement. Official Organ of the Royal Aero Club First Aeronautical Weekly in the World Founded in 1909 Even in the Infantry . . .L IKE the battleship and the heavily gunned bomber, the tank is considered by many students of modern warfare to have had its day; yet at the "Argus" demonstration of weapons and equipment at Chertsey last week (page 691) another of these monsters—the Chieftain—made its debut, rolling past a specimen of 1917 vintage without any apparent batting of Army eyelids. For it is increasingly argued that a weapon which was of only limited value in the First World War, and only really practical in the Second, can hardly be expected to render much account of itself in nuclear combat, when it can be located by radar and knocked out by a one-man-operated missile. It would ill become us, as an aeronautical journal, to pontificate on the future of armoured fighting vehicles, even though the threat from guided weapons and aircraft is continually and obviously mounting. It is very much our province, on the other hand, to applaud the alertness of the Army to new trends, as manifested at last week's demonstration. Beyond all doubt, the "Brown Jobs" are becoming increasingly air-minded. They possess both offensive and defensive missiles; are employing radar to locate mortars and track mortar bombs in flight, and to provide intelligence of ground movements; and practice increasing co-operation with the RAF in land/air warfare techniques and air portability, both for soldiers and stores. As a young irish Guards officer put it at Chertsey. when the War Minister climbed aboard an Alouette to fly back to Westminster: "Even in the infantry, you've got to be air-minded nowadays." A Choice of Feathers ^ESIRING, in A.D. 1507, to transfer his person from the fair realm of England to the shores of France, John Damian equipped himself with wings. Having fallen to the ground from the top of Stirling Castle, causing him to "brak his theebane," he ventured the opinion that it was his choice of chicken feathers, instead of eagles', which had conferred a natural affinity for the "mydding" (midden) and not the "skyis." Some similarly fine distinction may well decide the outcome of the imminent contest for the Henry Kremer prize of £5,000—for the first person to fly, in a man-powered aircraft, one mile, in a figure-eight course, around two pylons half a mile apart. Several projects are in hand, and financial assistance has been offered in respect of three designs—from a Southampton University group, the Hatfield Man-Powered Aircraft Club and a group at Southend. As Mr Beverley Shenstone has lately reminded us, the available power for man-powered flight is so limited, and relatively incapable of development, that the great thing is "to fly at all, under cruising conditions." Nowadays, he remarks, we have laminar-flow wing sections to help us, and these alone could make the difference between success and failure. Initially (in Mr Shenstone's view) propellers will be used, although other possibilities, such as flapping wings and rotors, are possible, though more difficult. Extra drag caused by the position of the propeller, or its supporting structure, must be avoided: yet the propeller itself must be large—of the order of 9ft diameter. These are but a few considerations which call for the nicest judgment. In the fair realm of England, then, we are soon to behold certain crafts- men and scholars attempting to rise to an age-old challenge. May they rise as on eagles' feathers. May they all stay out of the midden. And may God preserve their theebanes.
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