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Aviation History
1963
1963 - 1158.PDF
FLIGHT International supplement, 27 June 1963 JUN E 1 963 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 THEY CAME TO A CITY Volume 2 No 12 Diffe 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 King 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. BY THE TIME THESE WORDS ARE READ a Denny D.2 sidewall ACV (we no longer have to write the Denny D.2) may be plying on the Thames. She has now made her way, under the power of her own Caterpillar diesel engines, from the Clyde, through the Crinan and Caledonian Canals, to Inverness, and so down the east coast to London. There are close and romantic associations between this most mo dern form of over-water transport and the shipping world of other days; and we read with fascination an announcement issued by the informa tion office of those august institutions The Shipbuilding Conference, The Shipbuilding Employers' Federation, Dry Dock Owners & Repairers Central Council and National Asso ciation of Marine Engine Builders. It is remarked that both the D.2, London's first passenger ACV, and the Marjory, the capital's first pas senger steamship, were Denny-built at Dumbarton on the Clyde. They are separated in time by nearly 150 years, and both came to London by the east coast route. Marjory was 63ft long and of 14 h.p.; the D.2 is 83ft long and of 800 h.p. Yet compared with ACVs now on the drawmg-boards at Dumbarton D.2 is a mere skiff. There is another historic association with the D.2's visit which will not leave the ship-lover unmoved; for on passage up-river she passed the most glorious of all the clipper ships, the Cutty Sark—herself com pleted in the Denny yards at Dum barton nearly 100 years ago. (For comparison with the foregoing figures, her f-acre sail area develo ped the equivalent of 3,000 h.p. in a favourable wind.) This nautical nostalgia is far re moved from ballistic missiles, super sonic airliners and vertical take-off and landing which are the weekly concern of our parent journal. Yet the phenomenal evolution of the air- in this issue International News 88 Bertin BC.6 90 Denny D.2-002 92 The Captured Air-Bubble 96 The Cockerell Papers —Part 4 98 Letters 100 cushion vehicle, from a beginning that was both marine and aero nautical, has taken place in a mere five years. If we add the fact that Denny were experimenting with heli copters in the very early years of this, century, that these craft were water- borne, and that the water was that of the Clyde at Dumbarton, we perceive an entire chapter in the romantic history of transport. Denny, of course, are still pre eminently shipbuilders, and a corres pondent who recently rode in and drove the D.2 (pages 92-95) reports how this "shipbuilder's hovercraft" differs from that of an aircraft manu facturer. For example, the engines are mounted on the floor, with space to walk round them, and the steering position allows for a standing driver. Finally, we revert to the announce ment by the shipbuilding authorities we listed earlier. This runs: "D.2 has many advantages over conventional displacement vessels, such as speed with only slight wash, great manoeuv rability and (for the first time in waterborne craft) virtually 'four- wheel brakes'." These are shipping men speaking—shipping men who recognize the arrival of something new and greatly promising. ACV 87
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