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Aviation History
1962
1962 - 0042.PDF
^^1 FLIGHT International, 11 January 19(2 "Flight International" photograph The scene at Hatfield as the Trident, cleared for flight, waited for the snow on the runway to thaw D.H.121 TRIDENT. .. Second, the main section of the fuselage, excluding the nose and tail but with wing attached, went into the tank (with wings im mersed) at Hatfield during November and is now being subjected to repeated loads fully representative of a typical flight. The company is at the moment not anxious to reveal details of the precise tests involved, but in general the cycle lasts two minutes, includes the application of loads simulating every phase of the flight from taxying to landing, and is equivalent to a flight of about l^hr. Third, a complete tail unit including the pressure dome has had a water tank built for it, DH considering it easier to do this section of the structure separately because of the special loads involved, and tests are well advanced. Four, since the earliest days of Trident fabrication individual structural components such as the flap tracks (of steel), engine mountings, tailplane pivot, undercarriage, windows, spars and so forth, have all been successfully through the structural test department. Customers for the Trident can be offered delivery in late 1963. Production capacity at Hatfield and Chester can be geared to a rate of six aircraft per month. At present assembly is at Hatfield only, the line being fed with components and sub-assemblies from other factories. At present several hundred design staff at Hatfield, including aerodynamics and stress, are working on the Trident, and to date something like 32,000 drawings have been produced, with 3,000- 4,000 more in hand (comparable design capacity, incidentally, is engaged on the D.H.125). DH are confident that the Trident fulfils a market requirement that will open up increasingly during the next decade, and though naturally they respect the competition (which comprises the Boeing 727 and the developed Caravelle), the company feels that it has a product that will sell, for two main reasons:— (1) Automatic landing is an inevitable air transport imperative, and British theory and practice in this field as embodied in the Trident (see pages 45-46) is well ahead of the competition; (2) Without resort to the complexities and weight of flap-blowing, triple-slotted flaps and full leading-edge treatment, the Trident does a full-pay load operation over 1,000-mile stages (with full reserves) off 6,000ft runways. Naturally the Trident's designers have given more than mere thought to developments of this kind; but their view seems to be that while a standard maximum field length of less than 6,000ft can be attained, it has to be paid for by higher operating cost, and would be spoiling the aeroplane for a ha*porth of concrete. To quote DH, "the economics of the Trident are not prejudiced by an isolated requirement to serve a few very exceptional long-stage sectors having short runways." The basic Trident design is of course adaptable to the needs of individual operators, including those who want to serveMonger stages. This, the first picture to be released of the Trident line, shows the scene in the Hatfield assembly hall just before Christmas 1 I I
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