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Aviation History
1962
1962 - 0274.PDF
276 FLIGHT International, 22 February 1%2 Ansett-ANA's DC-3s now bear the new insignia Victorian AIR COACH Services. This picture was taken recently at Kingsford-Smith Airport, Sydney AIR COM MERCE CATEGORY 3 WEATHER THREE new categories of ILS conditions are recommended by ICAO's communications division, following the month-long meeting which finished in Montreal on February 12. Category 1 covers the present ILS conditions of 200ft cloudbase and half-mile forward visibility; Category 2 will make it possible to land if weather conditions are 100ft and one-quarter of a mile; and Category 3 will permit instrument landings under all weather conditions. Although the meeting could not decide whether ILS can be developed to make it suitable for blind landing (i.e., Category 3), technical specifications for Category 2 were established. These should, when put into operation, reduce the number of bad-weather delays. Other recommendations made at the meeting, and which now have to go to the 1CAO Air Navigation Commission and then to the ICAO Council, are: (1) new specifications for secondary surveillance radar, allowing for more than 4,000 different coded replies from aircraft transponders; (2) reduction of the separation between adjacent VOR channels from lOOkc/s per second to 50kc/s per second, and a second mode of interrogation and response for DME; (3) new distress procedures; (4) revision of HF frequency allotment plans, and development of HF single sideband (SSB) systems; and the need for more VHF channels. The meeting was the seventh session of the ICAO communica tions division and was attended by representatives from 37 ICAO states. The chairman was Mr D. J. Medley, of Australia. MANUAL LABOUR IN BEA TODAY there are in existence 24,000 copies of 500 different BEA-approved technical publications. The task of producing and amending these manuals is the responsibility of a department which seldom gets much publicity but whose work-volume grows steadily. This department is the Technical Information Services section of BEA's Project & Development Branch; and the section produced a display of its efforts last week at Dorland House, BEA's Lower Regent Street office. As an indication of how the technical manual business has grown, in 15 years of operation the DC-3 maintenance manual has required 100 amendments; and in the first 18 months of Vanguard operation 626 amendments have been required. For those who are fond of statistics, 200 amendments are prepared each month to the various manuals, and 27,000 copies issued to 900 recipients. In one month, a quarter of a million pieces of paper are handled by the staff of 54, and more than half of them are printed by BEA. Maintenance and operating manuals are used extensively throughout the corporation by the engineering, flight operations, traffic, catering and training departments. A complete set of maintenance manuals for a major type like the Comet or Vanguard costs more than £150 per set. In fact, more than £20,000 is needed to purchase all the necessary manuals for the fleet of a major type. Manuals prepared by manufacturers, both for aircraft and accessories, have to be continually adapted and revised to BEA's specific needs. For example, revisions are made to describe the use of existing test equipment, because it is not always economic to buy the particular equipment described in the manual when existing BEA equipment is suitable. Again, modifications and procedures of value specifically to BEA arise as operating experi ence is gained, and these must all be incorporated in the appropriate technical publication. It is possible for a manual issued by an aircraft manufacturer to have been virtually re-issued, within the life of an aircraft, by a large operator like BEA. The corporation's technical information section costs about £64,000 a year to run, including salaries and accommodation, though not printing and paper costs. The latter, plus the time of people throughout BEA incorporating amendments, would bring BEA's overall expenditure on technical publications to about £100,000 a year. UP-TO-DATE WITH TRANS-EUROPEAN CONSTELLATIONS bearing the markings of Trans-European Airways are now a familiar sight at London Gatwick, the airline'? base, and at airports on the Continent and further afield. The name first appeared three years ago, unpretentiously enough, on a couple As described on this page, a display of BEA's technical publications was on show last week at Dorland House, the corporation's office in Lower Regent Street, London. See the note on this page
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