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Aviation History
1962
1962 - 0605.PDF
\Gm ,605 >i7!c./0."Wt April 1962 ;<•; ^a^—gM^MBfi^ '«*•&- >wv*&*9° m*m»r • • • ' .. •.'.-, . • ..•:•. Q '^« 6£A Comet and CSA //-/8 at Helsinki, both waiting for weather at Arlanda to clear "Flight International" photograph London-Helsinki by BEA Again ON April 4 BEA reopened its London-Helsinki service with Comet 4Bs. The first service had been with DC-3s in 1946, but was stopped in 1947 and only briefly reopened for the Olympic games in 1952. Now, the 87-seater Comet service will leave London at 0950hr on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday throughout the summer, reaching Helsinki in an elapsed 3hr 45min, including a 30min stop at Stockholm. The old Viking service during the 1952 Olympics took nine flying hours and 26hr 55min elapsed time. The passenger can thus be duly grateful for technical progress— even in tourist seating. The inaugural party on April 4 was led by Lord Douglas, chair man of BEA, Lady Douglas and the Hon Katharine, and the Lord and Lady Provost of Edinburgh. The aircraft, G-ARGM, BEA's tenth Comet 4B, was flown by Capt Greenhalgh, manager of the Comet flight. Normal crew is captain and two co-pilots, one of whom is systems manager with an extensive control panel aft of the second pilot. The absence of a fourth crew-member leaves plenty of space on the flight deck. Most of the flying is done by the Smiths SEP.2 autopilot and Flight System instruments, the work- "Flight International" photograph Lord Douglas (in fur cap) talks with officials at Stockholm Arlanda. In the foreground is his daughter load from radio and navigation being fairly high when operating at such speeds in high-density areas. The centre of the panel is dominated by the Flight Log of the Decca Mk 10 receiver, the coverage from this aid extending over the whole route. ATC requirements make cruise-climb techniques out of the question and BEA are running the Comet at a constant Mach number of 0.76, reducing power progressively as the speed tends to increase with lightening load. A warning horn announced that the speed was creeping past MO.76 just as Flight Internationals repre sentative reached the flight deck during the London-to-Stockholm leg (picture, page 633). The let-down was made at 270kt i.a.s. at a quite moderate rate of descent. Airbrakes were exchanged for partial flap and elevator gear ratio was changed at 170kt in prep aration for the approach. For the 35min stage to Helsinki, the Comet had a take-off weight of 52,130kg which, with a runway length of 10,827ft, gave a V, speed of 112kt. VR was exactly the same and V2 is not normally reckoned in Comet operation. The aircraft is rotated straight into the air at VR, and speed is allowed to increase to 150kt for the initial noise-abating climb. Through intermittent cloud cover we saw the English east coast, then Schiphol airport. Southern Sweden looked green, but Stockholm was still surrounded by patchy grey snow, just melting. Arlanda airport had been officially opened by King Gustav only a few days before BEA's inaugural Comet staged through, and will now be used progressively in place of Bromma. The latter was, however, still counted as a diversion by BEA. Helsinki airport, with two runways carved out of the wooded, lake-spotted countryside, was completed in 1952 for the Olympic games and is 12 miles north of the city. Its 22/04 runway is 6,250ft long, but will be closed in May for extension to 8,700ft and re surfacing. Completion is due in October or November. The 15/33 runway was extended last year to 7,350ft. There is Lorenz ILS, and Bendix ASR-3 radar made by Telefunken provides surveillance and PPI approach service. There is also a small Bendix storm- warning radar on the control tower. Funds have been voted and plans are being prepared for a permanent passenger building to accompany the neat control tower and administration block. The return flight for the inaugural party two days later was delayed at Helsinki by weather at Arlanda, but Capt McKenzie made a very smooth ILS-monitored GCA approach with the minimum ceiling of 200ft, and 2km visibility. Arlanda runway has white wing-bars along most of the length of the runway, with ground-level floodlights facing inwards to light the surface in the touch-down area. Standard Telephones GCA and Decca DASR.l surveillance radar are installed. BEA claim that their Comet 4B service is the fastest available between London and Helsinki, a matter of minutes quicker than the Finnair Caravelle service via Gothenburg. The two aircraft are in fact cruised at the same Mach number and the stage length is 50 n.m. shorter for the Caravelle. A comparison of the loads, weights and performance is interesting on such closely comparable services. While they are cutting some of their international services, BEA are confident that the Helsinki route will be profitable. Certainly the country is well worth visiting in the summer season and the business links between Britain and Finland are extensive. 1961: A CURATE'S YEAR BECAUSE it provides the first authentic picture of a year in which air traffic took an unexpected turn for the worse, the recently published analysis by ICAO of its member-countries' traffic statistics for 1961 is particularly valuable. And it is appropriate to congratulate the Organization's statistics section on its quick work. Perhaps the most cheering feature of these ICAO figures is that 1961 was not really such a wholly bad year after all; like the proverbial curate's egg, it was only bad in parts. The bald facts are that world air traffic increased last year by 8 per cent while capacity expanded by 15 per cent. Whereas the growth-rate for capacity corresponded almost exactly with the average post-war rate, the annual traffic increase was the second slowest on record, only 1958 having shown a worse result. This outstripping of traffic by capacity was evident in a slump in overall load factor, which dropped down to an all-time low of 52 per cent. In a way, even this poor figure failed to show the true position, for it makes no allowance for all those aircraft which were lying unused. In trying to pinpoint this deterioration, the first thing to notice is that it was entirely due to a slowing down of passenger traffic, which showed an increase of only 6 per cent compared with 1960. By comparison, freight and mail expanded by 12 and 22 per cent respectively. (It should be noted that although these various per-
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