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Aviation History
1962
1962 - 1135.PDF
FLIGHT International, 12 July 1962 Letters The Editor of" Flight International" is not necessarily in agreement with the views expressed by correspondents in these columns. Names and addresses of writers, not for publication in detail, must in all cases accompany letters. Naming the ACV SIB,—These new vehicles, of which the Hovercraft is an example, are quite simply air-lubricated sledges. Clearance height for surface roughness and softness is only a matter of scale. Therefore I suggest AEROSLED as the generic term for them. Surbiton, Surrey R. c. ABEL SIR,—Further to your search for a suitable name for ACVs, how about TERRIER (with due apologies to Alastair Pugh's TERRAIRCRAFT) and SKIMMER, derived from SKIMCRAFT? With all respect to SUPERCRAFT, this is far too boastful a name for an essentially utilitarian vehicle, and also a little too close to television's Supercar. London W9 p. R. EASTON SIR,—My attention has been called to A. Haddock's sugges tion (Letters, June 28) that the GEM-type vehicle be called a skate. This is sheer nonsense, since a skate does not swim that way. On the other hand, a smoked haddock thrown on water would probably look like a yellow hovercraft. I suggest they call the things HADDOCKS. London Wl A. SKATE Jet Noise and Operational Safety SIR.—Roger Bacon ("Straight and Level" June 14) quotes the president of the US Air Transport Association, who opposes any new jet-noise abatement measures that might involve dangerous operating procedures. Me, I don't relish the idea of taking off in a large jet air craft in the knowledge that the pilot is keeping his fingers crossed and muttering "will we, won't we?"—although, intellectually, I am convinced that the president of the ATA is absolutely sincere in his statement that present operating procedures "do not represent any compromise with safety." Surely the very fact that pilots have decided to become 'emotional" about the "alleged dangers of jet noise-abate ment on operating procedures" itself introduces a hazard —no matter whether these emotions are based on reason or on fantasy. London N6 MOLLY NEAL Making Like a Goose SIR,—Instructors and pupils at the wartime flying training schools in Canada must between them have tried everything in the pilot's manuals—and quite a lot that was not in them as well. Therefore the following recollections are unlikely to be unique. They concern flying in formation with geese. I had often seen the stately asymmetric vies of geese in the sky and 1 had also heard various estimates of their flying speeds. The first time I saw a formation below me was in the region of Maple Creek, Saskatchewan. They were on a south-easterly course. I was flying a Tiger Moth of the RCAF type, with sliding cockpit enclosure. I dived down behind them and slowly closed on to the outboard goose on the starboard side. At first I held formation very loosely, with perhaps forty yards between the Tiger and the nearest goose. It was fascinating to fly in such company, and one had the ridiculous thought of dispensing with the noisy, untidy biplane and flying on with one's arms outstretched, like them. Indicated airspeed was just under 60 m.p.h. As I closed slowly in, the nearest bird showed some apprehension by jutting his head from side to side, but he kept going. When the Tiger was little more than a span behind the goose the 59 latter suddenly peeled off, down and to port, and quickly- picked up formation again on the other side of the vie. I continued to move in, and this action was repeated by each goose in turn—five in all, I believe—until only three were left on the starboard side. At this stage the formation had be come a little ragged and the leader had sensed trouble. Suddenly, as if they were all on intercom, the formation as a whole altered course to port. On another occasion I singled out one goose and managed to cut him off from the rest. I made a tightening descending turn round him and it became a matter of which would give in first. Just before I had to break away with the Tiger, the goose either stalled or intentionally tumbled in a sort of spiral dive, dropping off perhaps 100ft more or less vertically, then quickly collected himself and flew off like an arrow. I had the impression that the geese were more concerned about the noise of the aircraft than about its appearance beside their formation. It also seemed that they were more apprehensive about the aircraft joining formation from a slightly lower level than from slightly above. The geese themselves were neither stepped up nor down. London Wl ICARUSTY Eighteen Years On SIR,—Today I suddenly felt old. As we crossed the French coast at Fecamp it occurred to me that 18 years ago I was flying a Halifax over almost the same spot on D-day. 1944. At this time, the captain would have been flying in the Pacific, and our stewardess would have been three years old. 1 thought of the "progress" we of the small independent air lines had made in those 18 years. The only essential difference between the Douglas C-47A (built in 1942) in which we were now taking 36 holidaymakers to Perpignan, and its paratroop version, was the replace ment of the original seats by airline-type furnishings. Without these aircraft we would be unable to carry on. The other types available to us are (1) the Viking—a typically British compromise; and (2) the Ambassador—an aircraft with a difficult spares problem. Re-equipment with turbo prop machines is financially impossible, because of the high purchase price, and the capital outlay in expensive spares. The only suitable aircraft for inclusive-tour work, which must remain our main source of revenue, are the Convair 340/440 or the Martin 404. These are put beyond our reach by the incredible cost of ARB approval—this in spite of a proved reliability of operation on a world-wide basis. It is a pity that the British aircraft industry is apparently incapable of producing a twin piston-engined, pressurized 36/44-seat aeroplane, with a 200kt cruising speed and a good short-field performance, at a realistic price. Maybe it's just as well, however, as I am sure the result would be a contrap tion with main spars running through the cabin, oil-swilling engines and of course, a tailwheel, plus a tendency to stand on its nose. Perhaps one day Mr Laker will get around to producing a Carvair-type DC-3—it would appear to be our only hope for survival in the future. The following is a list of twin piston-engined aircraft still flogging the airways, compiled from your 1961 " Air lines of the World" number:— DC-3 C-46 Convair Martin 1,082 345 413 101 This does not include DC-3s in service with UK carriers. Luton, Beds A. H. G. BOND The Ghost Squadron of Kabul SIR,—To see an S.E.Sa being flown at Upavon was a nostalgic memory of boyhood days, when I saw them being flown by "skywriting" pilots at Hendon. More to the point, however, it reminded me of a surprising discovery in 1939, when I was in the RAF in India. On August 29, 1939, I was one of several pilots detailed to fly 12 Hawker Hind aircraft from Karachi to Sherpur airfield at Kabul in Afghanistan. But I was also detailed to remain at Kabul and hand over these aircraft to the Royal Afghan Air Force. One day during my sojourn up there I was talking to Mr
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