FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1963
1963 - 1140.PDF
FLIGHT International supplement, 23 May 1963 MAY 1963 A ir- Cushion Vehicles Editor-in-Chief Maurice A. Smith DFC Editor H. F. King MBE Technical Editor W. T. Gunston Production Editor Roy Casey Managing Director H. N. Priaulx MBE INTEGRATING FUTURE TRANSPORT Volume 2 No 11 Itiffe Transport Publications Ltd Dorset House, Stamford Street, London SE1 Telephone: Waterloo 3333 (Telex 25137) Telegrams: Flightpres London Telex Annual subscriptions Home 18s. Overseas 18s. Canada and USA $3 Branch Offices 8-10 Corporation Street, Coventry Telephone: Coventry 25210 Kin? Edward House, New Street, Birmingham 2 Telephone: Midland 7191 260 Deansgate, Manchester 3 Telephone: Blackfriars 4412 or Deansgate 3595 62 Buchanan Street, Glasgow CI Telephone: Central 1265/6 New York. N.Y. Thomas Skinner & Company (Publishers) Ltd 111 Broadway 6 Telephone: Digby 9-1197 © Iliffe Transport Publications Ltd 1963. Permission to reproduce illustrations and letterpress can be granted only under written agreement. Brief extracts or comments may be made with due acknowledgement. WE RECENTLY PRINTED IN Flight International an arresting comment by Mr G. F. Fiennes, chief operating omcer of British Railways. "What is surprising," he said, "and indeed incredible, is that there is virtually no voluntary association between parallel forms of transport... As a railwayman or a transport man or a citizen I see no great fundamental difficulty, but much advantage, in setting up, for instance, an air/rail/ road/sea conference for traffic within this country." If the systems of the present are lacking in co-ordination how much more so are systems of the future, the variety and potential of which increase from year to year ? Happily a plea for something to be done has recently been made in the House of Commons, and by no less a voice than that of the Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition, Mr Harold Wilson. In asking the Government to look to the future he said: "What place has been given to the monorail in future transport planning . . . Can we really decide what we are to do about London transport, and the closure of commuter lines, until a decision has been taken about that ?" He went on: "In connection with some of the more remote systems of transport . . . have they [the Govern ment] overlooked the possible future of the hovercraft—itself, if I may say so, a triumphant product of public enterprise." We need only add that the mono rail of the future may well employ the air cushion principle and that, as first announced in our March issue, the Institute of Patentees and Inventors has sponsored a Monorail Group consisting of "a few experts eager to study this art with a scientific engineering approach." Study groups of this sort, dedicated to a particular form of transport, are, of course, praiseworthy. But we share Mr Harold Wilson's concern that somebody or other should be in this issue Romping Ahead 68a International News 70 Westland Ride High 72 VA-2 Visits Amsterdam 76 Southampton Symposium 78 Letters 86 attempting to perceive and co ordinate potential new forms of transport. These will doubtless in volve the application of the air cushion principle in many and diverse forms, some of them allied with others in craft and systems of astonishing variety. Once again we have in this month's issue of our journal numerous signs of sturdy growth. Westland an nounce their plans for production, and both they and Vickers-Armstrongs press forward vigorously with their demonstration programmes. Mr Co- kerell and others probe further and further into the future. Mr Cockerell remarks that the hovercraft field stretches all the way from near-ships of 20kt to near-aircraft of 200kt, on to hovertrains of 300kt or more and back to hoverlorries at road speeds. However, the main theme is still over- water hovercraft in the 50-100kt speed range. How these and other transport systems can be best co ordinated is surely a matter for the exercising of some of the public enter prise to which Mr Harold Wilson alludes. ACV 69
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
