FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1962
1962 - 2196.PDF
FLIGHT International, 27 September 1962 519 DOWN WITH NOISE ONE of the interested parties expected to take a leading part in the forthcoming BALPA forum on aircraft noise gave what was probably a preview of its opinions during a recent deputation meeting with the Minister of Aviation. Mr John Connell of the Noise Abatement Society asked the Minister that all commercial flying should be stopped immediately between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m., as had been done in Oslo. The Society also believes that it would be of immense value to the airlines, aircraft manufacturers, and residents near airfields if the Minister would limit airline flights in accordance with their load factor, which should be not less than 80 per cent. They also object strongly to "off peak" fares which encourage night flying. AUTOMATIC LANDING PROGRESS AFTER years of development work, Smiths Aviation Division and the MoA now have some really important results to show for their efforts towards automatic landing capability. Displayed at Farn- borough was their new Varsity, very extensively modified and fitted with a complete triplex flight control and electrical system (as described in Flight International for September 6). With this air craft Smiths will next year be able to demonstrate actual poor-weather blind landings under civil conditions of safety, a most important step in proving conclusively not only that the system works but—• of even greater significance at this stage—that the crew can exploit the system under actual operational conditions. The psychological aspect becomes more and more important as the equipment emerges from the experimental into the operational stage. The DC-7 which Smiths fitted with a single-channel Autoland system for the FAA earlier this year has now flown a good deal at Atlantic City and elsewhere and has proved to be, in Smiths' estimation, the only aircraft in the USA with a working automatic landing system. The FAA was reported to have been concerned about the efficacy of the switching system, by which ILS glide-slope guidance is replaced by the attitude-hold phase and then by radio altimeter control. The DC-7 was accordingly taken to Pittsburgh, where there is a ravine just short of the runway. Automatic land ings were performed successfully. Trials have also been made with the 150ft waveguide localizer at Atlantic City, with good results. Service ability has remained excellent throughout the flight programme. FAA also have their own Leader Cable installation, but it appears that the waveguide localizer has given rather more accurate results during comparative evaluation. There seems to be no doubt that ILS is considered as virtually the only guidance system with any real prospect of worldwide installation. The ICAO classifica tion of accuracy has laid down quite clearly what characteristics and tolerances are needed and few consider it practical to expect member States to begin an entirely new infrastructure programme to implement another aid. When the financial and safety stakes are so high, years of experience with ILS are not to be lightly discarded in favour of a new, untried aid. The second Trident, G-ARPB, has now completed some 50hr of flight testing of the Smiths SEP. 5 autopilot, including checking of the holds for attitude, height, speed and Mach number under a wide variety of flight conditions. Turning performance and radio coupling have also been investigated. Flight instruments and yaw damper were actually operating during the first flight and the air data computer, the first in a British civil aircraft, has been used. The flight control system should be certificated by the middle of next year, with the additional autoflare and automatic landing capability being incorporated in the scope of the certification at a later date. As reported earlier this year, Sud-Aviation are equipping two Caravelles with Smiths automatic landing systems. Automatic landing capability, either in itself or as an integral feature of the new British transports, has considerable commercial potential. Britain's competitive situation is extremely favourable at the moment, but the next two years will prove decisive in keeping or losing the advantage. Smiths feel very strongly that a definite statement of policy at Government level, clearly affirming Britain's intention to exploit automatic landing, is needed to convince po tential customers that these years of development work will be carried through to some definite conclusion. Although there is no US aircraft programme which can be remotely compared with the BEA/de Havilland/Smiths effort for the Trident (and it is difficult to see how any existing airliner could be modified for true triplex operation) the British lead is by no means secure. If the French were to complete trials with the Cara- velle and install the necessary improved ILS required, they could introduce operational civil automatic landing before Britain did so. The effort and investment must be maintained for another two years at least if we are to reap the harvest of 15 years of pioneering work. POWERPLANT OVERHAUL CONFERENCE IN 1956; when the introduction of big jet aircraft into airline service was soon to become an accomplished fact, it became apparent that many new major problems would arise in connection with the overhaul and maintenance of engines. In order to try to resolve these problems in the most economical manner, a conference of the major European airlines was called under the chairmanship of Mr H. Doppenberg. who is the general manager of KLM workshops. The other members of the original conference were Air France. BOAC, Lufthansa, Sabena, SAS and Swissair. The main objects were to discuss the best kind of organization and arrangements for plant layout, type of equipment and tools needed, training of personnel, and the possiblity of bulk purchase of tools and equipment required for overhaul and maintenance. By 1961 most airlines had completed their overhaul reorganiza tion. It was therefore decided by the member airlines to recast the constitution of the conference to permit discussion on the major overhaul and operational problems that were becoming apparent from the operation of jet aircraft. BOAC were the first to organize one of the new-style conferences, which was held at the Treforest repair factory near Cardiff on September 6 this year. The chairman of this conference was Mr Charles McGibbon, manager engine overhaul, BOAC Treforest, and a paper entitled Engine Overhaul Material Costs was read by Mr J. G. Romeril, The team behind Japan's NAMC'YS-I /|(r/ght), which made its maiden fight on August 30, are seen at a news conference. From left to right: Dr H. Kimura, Professor of Nihon University; E. Hasegawa, test pilot, NAMC; K. Kondo, chief test pilot, NAMC; P. T. Shoda, president, NAMC; E. Imai, chief of aircraft section, Ministry of International Trade and Industry; M. Ohta, manager of planning, NAMC; I. Takashiba, manager of production engineering, NAMC; and T. Tojo, manager of design, NAMC. First flight was made by K. Kondo and E. Hasegawa \ »**£* -
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
