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Aviation History
1963
1963 - 0479.PDF
FLIGHT International, 4 April 1963 457 Left above, LV-HHH being raised on to pontoons. Left below, almost ready for flight after repairs. Below, the two Avro men in charge of the opera tion—Mr William Sturrock, right, and Mr John Turner. See "Salvage in Argentina" "Flight International" photograph passenger-miles to the current level of probably about 600m pas senger-miles. The actual number of Forces passengers shows a sharp increase, from about 100,000 a few years ago to about half a million today, though this increase is mostly on the short-haul UK - Germany services. Probably the best index of the value of trooping to the independents is revenue. This has probably re mained for several years at between £4m and £6m, the increased passenger-miles being to a large extent offset by a tendency for rates to decline as increasing use has been made of turboprop Viscounts and Britannias instead of Hermes and Vikings. In the second place, the independents' main competitor in the trooping field is not BOAC or BEA, but RAF Transport Command. Already RAF Comet 2s have taken over from Cunard Eagle the bulk of the UK - Gibraltar/Malta trooping services which were until last September operated by Cunard Eagle DC-6s. And once RAF Transport Command has its fleet of five VClOs in service there will be even greater pressures by the RAF to take over the longer runs to the Singapore and Hong Kong garrisons at present operated by British United Britannias. This trend was of course envisaged in the report published a year ago of the Estimates Committee on trooping. Finally, it seems unlikely that the scheme envisaged by the cor porations will prove as satisfactory to the Forces as do the existing long-term trooping contracts with the independents. Obviously IATA fares would have to be cut very sharply indeed—perhaps by as much as 75 per cent—to match the contract fare levels of around 2d a mile on BUA and CEA trooping flights. Then again, special arrangements would have to be made for surface transport and for passengers' baggage if BOAC and BEA were to offer an equivalent standard of service to that offered by the independent operators. These contracts specify most generous baggage allow ances—in broad terms about double those available on public transport services. There are, too, reasons for believing that the Service departments feel that trooping routes are more conveniently served by whole aircraft charters over which they can exert com plete reservations control. But perhaps most important of all, trooping on scheduled ser vices would destroy the principal benefit of contract air trooping - 'he creation of a mobile strategic reserve. Controllers Confer Some 25 countries are due to be represented at the second annual conference of the International Federation o: Air Traffic Control Associations. On this occasion the Guild of A^ Traffic Control Officers is the host and the conference is to be held at the Bonnington Hotel, London, from April 29 to May 2. SALVAGE IN ARGENTINA THE salvage and repair of Aerolineas Argentinas' Avro 748 LV-HHH, damaged in an emergency landing in a rough, swampy field near Quilmes last September, was successfully completed on March 24 when Avro test pilot R. F. Martin flew the aircraft out of the field and into the airline's main base at Ezeiza Airport, Buenos Aires. The emergency landing was made after an Avro technician had inadvertently unlocked the cabin door in flight while investigating the door-lock warning device: the door suddenly opened, was torn from the fuselage, and became impaled in the port tailplane. Approach speed for the emergency landing was higher than normal, and the nosewheel gear was torn away on striking a deep hole in the field. The nose of the aircraft dug into the swampy ground, and considerable structural damage to the lower front fuselage resulted. The major problem was not so much the damage to the aircraft, but the fact that the field where it had landed—on an area of re claimed land near the banks of the River Plate— was liable to frequent flooding from the river when the wind was from the south east. It was initially thought that the aircraft would be effectively a total loss, but the decision to go ahead with the recovery and repair was made last October by British Aviation Insurance Co, acting on behalf of all hull insurers involved. Mr David Jenkins of BAIC played a leading part in arranging and supervising the salvage operation. Platforms were mounted on top of pontoons (obtained from Aerolineas Argentinas' Sandringham base on the river at Buenos Aires) at a site about a mile from the landing place. The aircraft main gear was jacked clear of the ground, lowered on to a path of wooden planks, and the machine was towed slowly backwards over the extremely rough ground to the repair site. A tracked crane supported the nose of the aircraft, which was finally towed up ramps on to the pontoon platforms. Here the repair work was tackled by a twelve-man Avro working party flown out from England just before Christmas. In charge was Mr William Sturrock, working closely with the company's technical service manager for South America, Mr Robert Lawson, who is based in Buenos Aires. The Air Registration Board was represented by Mr Donald Guillbert. Work was delayed on several occasions by flooding; other occupational hazards included the aggresive activity of local mosquitos and the extremely hot weather. When Flight International visited the site at the beginning of last month the work was practically complete, and fuelling was in progress for the first runs of the new Darts which had been installed. The field at Quilmes was waterlogged once more when the air-
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