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Aviation History
1961
1961 - 1773.PDF
•~J(??%i,ZXr-i7S;iM* FLIGHT, 1 December 1961 885 Correspondence The Editor of "Flight" is not necessarily in agreement with the viewsexpressed by correspondents in these columns. Names and addresses of writers, not for publication in detail, must in all cases accompany letters. Getting Safety in Focus THE Aeronautical journals have recently given encouragingnotices to the new version of Flight Safety Focus [see Flight November 2, page 684—EdJ. Some constructive criticisms havealso been offered and these are most welcome in helping the Flight Safety Committee to adjust its sights.One suggestion was that a bulletin of this kind, if it is to give the right kind of stimulus, must be frank to the point of brutalityThere can be no quarrel with that aim provided the facts are pro- perly established. But accidents and incidents are tricky things.They affect reputations and responsibilities and there are unavoid- able limits to what may be said. Even official reports on accidentshave restrictions. The Cairns Committee sat throughout 1960 on just this subject and their well-received recommendations have yetto be put into effect. There are real difficulties here, and whilst Focus is meant for "the trade," it is not really a confidential docu-ment. With regard to the anonymous and unrelated nature of some itemsin Focus, this is in many cases very necessary because of the con- fidential character of the original report. However, in cases wherereaders need more detail for bona fide purposes, this office will do all it can to help. The primary fact facing the Committee at this time is that con-fidence in the work behind Focus must be built up. Confidence is easy to lose but hard to gain. Bearing this in mind, the Committeewill certainly still try not to be mealy mouthed about flight safety. There will be limits to what can be done through Focus, and othermeans of disseminating information may sometimes be more suitable. In the final analysis, it is probably best to look uponFocus as an alerting device for managements. Hounslow, Middx J. W. GIBBS,Chairman, Flight Safety Committee Propellers for Profits IT was refreshing to read the letter from Mr S. Rew, on "Pro-pellers for Profits," in your issue of November 16, 1961. Whilst agreeing wholeheartedly with most of his views, there is one pointon which we feel bound to comment. This is in regard to his remarks on maintenance costs. Overhaul periods of 4,100hr forDowty Rotol propellers on Dart engines have now been approved by the relevant airworthiness authority and this without any partialstrip at the half-way stage. Would not Mr Rew put this in the "fit and forget" class ? One well-known operator of Viscount aircraft has been, and stillis, faced with an acute shortage of work in his propeller servicing shop, because of lack of need for unscheduled maintenance and theextreme length of the overhaul period. Gloucester E. J. NICHOLL,Joint Managing Director, Dowty Rotol Ltd Monospar Memories I HAVE read Mr Cazalet's letter on the subject of "MonosparMemories," published in Flight for November 9, with muchinterest. "H. W.'s" assertion that the Monospar which he flew was made at Croydon may have been correct, as the General AircraftCo were producing their aircraft at Croydon up to April 1933. I collected one of the early ST.4s from Croydon on April 8,1933, and during February and March I was frequently at the Croydon works watching my aeroplane take shape. This aircraft, G-ACEW, was ordered on behalf of HighlandAirways, which I had recently promoted to operate the first regular scheduled air service in Great Britain, namely, between Invernessand the Orkney Isles. The first service left Inverness on May 8, 1933, and was operated by ST.4 G-ACEW. It carried a full loadof four passengers and 601b of The Scotsman newspaper, which had placed a contract with Highland Airways for the sole rightsof carriage for one year. The newspapers were carried in a specially prepared locker which was slung under the fuselage. Fully loaded, the ST.4 was very unstable fore and aft and theGipsy model which I flew later was in a far higher class in this respect. I suspect that if "H. W." could have flown our Monosparhe would have felt most uncomfortable, if he considered the Gipsy- type Monospar to have peculiar handling susceptibilities. G-ACEW flew 2,000 passengers on the service and as many againgiving pleasure nights around the north of Scotland, with a view to educating the public to air travel. 1 personally flew it for 600hr.\t first it was a flying test-bed for Pobjoy Airmotors, and the teeth- This Sandringham Mk 7, mentioned in the letter below from Mr Dennis Powell, is one of three operated by CAUSA, the Uruguayan airline ing troubles were many. All were successfully sorted out, subse-quent owners receiving the benefit. G-ACEW was ultimately sold to a private owner in the South,who successfully wrote it off within a period of weeks. He was warned when he took delivery of G-ACEW from Longman Air-field, Inverness, to watch the holding-down bolts on No 5 cylinder, as they were prone to work loose. The warning must have beenneglected, as 1 heard this cylinder flew off and caused the emergency landing, which he could not pull off, probably owing to his inex-perience with this type of aircraft. 1 could easily put it into a field of 300yd and less without doing much damage, if any. I have forgotten the type name of the first Pobjoy radial. Can youinform me? The second type was, I believe, the Cataract and the third the Niagara.Inverness, Scotland E. E. FRESSON [Capt E. E. Fresson, OBE, founded Highland Airways in April 1933.In 1937, when the company amalgamated with Northern & Scottish to become Scottish Airways, he became resident director of the com-pany's northern region. The first Pobjoy engine was known simply as the type "R."—Ed.] Solents and Sandringhams STILL being somewhat of a flying-boat enthusiast I was muchinterested to see your photograph and interesting caption(September 14 issue, page 456) on the Short Solent Mk 3, originally registered G-AKNP, still looking spick-and-span despite the yearsof storage over in sunny California. Back in December 1958 my friend Harry Sievers, whilst transit-ting Oakland International Airport, California, spotted two Solent flying-boats parked by one of the hangars quite a distance away fromthe main terminal building. Since he was only a mere ten minutes on his transit stop, he unfortunately could not get close enough tophotograph the two rare birds; neither could he log their regis- tration numbers. However, both were painted in dark grey anti-corrosion mixture and one was minus its four Hercules engines. Sometime, in the not-too-distant future, perhaps some well-known British flying-boat historian will be persuaded to write a book covering the development and whole colourful and fascinatinghistory of British flying-boats (both commercial and military types); and in such a book we would find, told fully for the first time, thecomplete history of the world-famous Short Bros boats built in thirty-odd years, starting perhaps with the Cromarty of 1921 andfinishing with the last of the Short designs—the Seaford/Solent series of the late forties to the mid-1950s. I don't deny that, in thepassing of years, there have been a number of excellent books (e.g., A. J. Jackson's Vol 2 of British Civil Aircraft is particularlyoutstanding) and articles in Flight and other journals, telling the story of the Short boats. But, in my humble opinion, there is stillneed for a complete volume entirely devoted to the Short Bros and other British-designed flying-boats. In the meantime perhaps 1 could once again indulge in somespace on your Correspondence page to record briefly some little- publicised facts on the three Solent Mk 3s which, back in 1955-56,were sold to an American operator named South Pacific Air Lines Inc, which was registered in Honolulu in the same year. Theseboats were purchased from the UK Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation. Incidentally, this was because no Solents were everowned outright by BO AC: all were leased from the Ministry. For the record, the trio were G-AHIO Somerset, G-AKNPCity of Cardiff and G-AKNT Singapore. G-AHIO was one of the 12 Solent Mk 2s completed at the old seaplane works at Rochesterin 1947-48. These included the prototype Solent G-AHIL which was actually developed from the military Seaford prototype, loanedto BOAC in 1946 for evaluation/testing. G-AHIO was later modi- fied to Mk 3 standards at Belfast whilst the two remaining boatswere both built at the Belfast works as Mk 3s. In November 1951 Somerset was sold to Capt Brian Monkton,an Australian who formed Trans-Ocean Airways Ltd, based at Sydney, and the boat became VH-TOD. City of Cardiff was actuallypurchased in January of the same year, also by Capt Monkton, becoming VH-TOB on the Australian register. [Comd. overleaf
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