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Aviation History
1962
1962 - 0073.PDF
LIGHT International, 73 January 1962 . ; .^0*~~ «LrT.ri -- U w^l / /i gp ^JW"1—r ". Mondoted Air/ines, now on Ansett subsid/ory, operates two of these Piaggio P./66s in New Guinea DART HERALD ODYSSEY WITH the return of the prototype Herald 200 from the sixth Herald demonstration tour, a quarter of a million miles have now been covered in showing the type's potentialities and in particular its ability to operate into remote or inaccessible areas and from rough, unprepared surfaces. Almost 1,000 hours have been flown on these "'see it in action" trips to over 60 countries, and 15,850 passengers have been carried. The latest tour, covering 12,000 miles, included Rome, Athens, Cairo, Aden, Beirut, Amman, Cyprus and Teheran. Several days were spent flying on many of Itavia's proposed Herald routes and much useful information was obtained which will help the airline considerably in working out its schedules. Aerolinee Siciliane (ALIS), the new Sicilian carrier, has expressed interest in the Herald and the opportunity was taken to demonstrate it. ALIS was impressed with the Herald's performance and hopes to replace its present fleet of Herons with larger capacity aircraft. Several Aden Airways pilots flew the Herald at Khormaksar, and from Aden the 81-mile trip was made to Mukeiras, north-east of Aden. The 4,500ft strip there is 6,700ft above sea level and has an extremely rough natural surface. Circuits from this strip have to be kept very close to the airfield to avoid overflying the nearby Yemen border. The Herald apparently experienced no trouble at all operating from here; although the surface was covered with loose stones not one was picked up by either wheels or propellers and no airframe damage of any sort was sustained. Take-offs and landings were also made from Nisbab, an airfield in the Aden protectorate and 5,500ft above sea level, which has a 4,500ft strip of levelled natural scrub surface with a 1,200ft hill at one end. At no time did conditions in the Aden area, under the most severe hot-and-high limitations, demand that a payload other than the maximum be carried, and this performance should strengthen the RAF's appreciation of the Military Herald. King Hussein of Jordan flew the Herald with Jordanian govern ment officials on board at 800ft below sea level over Jericho, and for the Jordanian Air Force another demonstration was conducted at Akaba airstrip in which the Herald operated successfully from an overrun so soft that a lightly loaded combat jeep became stuck in it and had to be hauled out. AIRLINER MARKET PLACE ALL NIPPON AIRWAYS has now returned the two ex-Capital Viscounts it leased from Vickers, and these two aircraft are to go to the Empire Test Pilots' School at Farnborough for use in evaluation and training roles. This is perhaps the most interesting change of airliner ownership recorded in the current range of Air-Britain publications. The FAA has acquired a DC-7 from American for evaluation of the BLEU Autoland system and another sale to a non-airline customer is that of an SAS DC-6B to the French Government. Air Cameroun has bought a DC-4 from Trans Arabia Airways and the US local service carriers are another class of airline re- equipping on quite a substantial scale with surplus types such as the Martin 4-0-4; Piedmont has acquired 17 of this type from TWA 1 replace its fleet of 17 DC-3s and supplement its eight Fairchild 27s. Itavia's two new DC-3s are ex-BUA aircraft and of the Italian carrier's Herons one remains in service, two have been sold to Aerolinee Siciliane (which has also bought the Heron demonstra tor, G-APEV), one to Executive Air Transport of Manchester and a fourth has been traded in to Handley Page. Aviaco has sold one of its Herons to the German charter operator Sudflug GmbH. SUPERSONIC ADVISERS MEMBERSHIP of the US Supersonic Transport Advisory Group was announced on December 11 by N. E. Halaby, Administrator of the FAA, following the new Group's first meeting with the joint Supersonic Transport Steering Group of which Mr Halaby is chairman. He also directs the US Government's Slim SST study programme. The Advisory Group is headed by General Orval R. Cook, who has just retired as President of the Aerospace Industries Association, and includes two senior airline executives; Roger Lewis, executive vice-president administration of PanAm and William Littlewood, vice-president equipment research of American Airlines. TWA is represented by one of its senior pilots, Capt Robert N. Buck. Other members of the Group are Dr Theodore P. Wright, Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory; Alvin S. White, chief engineering test pilot. North American Aviation; William B. Harding of Smith, Barney & Co and James Mitchell, vice-president Chase Manhattan Bank. Rather surprisingly, Boeing. Douglas. Convair and Lock heed are not represented in the Group. NEW CSA SERVICE TO HAVANA BY the time these words appear, Ceskoslovenske Aerolinie should be the first Communist airline to be operating a transatlantic service. The Czech carrier was due, according to Aviation Daily, to start a once-weekly Prague - Havana service in December with refuelling stops at Pre^twick and Gander. A Britannia 318 leased from Cubana but in CSA livery and flown by Czech crews is being used; the latter have been trained in Havana by Cubana, which will do the maintenance on the Britannia. Since April 1961 Cubana itself has operated a Havana-Prague Britannia service via Bermuda and Santa Maria (Azores), at first weekly and later twice-weekly. The new political alignment between Cuba and Czechoslovakia is emphasized not only by the new CSA service but by the reduction in frequency of Cubana's traditional Atlantic service between Havana and Madrid from once-weekly to once-fortnightly. From Gander to Havana the new CSA route will pass over Bermuda, thus avoiding US territory and airspace; CSA is using a Britannia because neither its Tu-104As nor its Il-18s are regarded as suitable for transatlantic services. CSA has expanded beyond the Iron Curtain more than any other Communist airline; its route network now stretches from Prague to Djakarta in one direction and to Havana in the other, as well as to Baghdad and to Bamako (Mali) via Dakar and Conakry. The Polish airline LOT is also anxious to start a transatlantic service, and has held discussions with BOAC regarding possible collaboration in this field. An LOT order for VClOs is a possibility; alternatively, LOT might lease VClOs from BOAC if Poland's foreign exchange resources proved unequal to financing a modern jet fleet.
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