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Aviation History
1963
1963 - 1917.PDF
722 FLIGHT International, 31 October 1963 © Straight and Level © THE Duke of Edinburgh today opens the Flight Safety Committee's sym posium on air safety. As I mentioned last week, this symposium is being held behind closed doors. Now the Duke of Edinburgh is to open another secret symposium on an air safety subject—the supersonic transport from the pilots' point of view. This symposium, sponsored by IFALPA, the international pilots' association, takes place in London from November 12-14. What on earth can be secret about the problems of supersonic airliners? 1 am rather sorry that the Duke of Edinburgh, a practising airman, should patronize secret discussions on air safety. • Did you see the BBC TV Tonight pro gramme on Wednesday of last week? A Ministry of Aviation accidents inspector explained, in plain man's language, how accident investigations are carried out. In the old days the Ministry of Aviation would have refused pointblank to supply an expert to talk about an accident. It was extremely enlightened of them to have co operated on this occasion. Their man came across well without mentioning in any way the accident that was in the news. • Information on the Concorde has to be metered out on a 50-50 basis. It can't work any other way. There have been misunderstandings: American papers have so far been given the most technical infor- Nasty shock-wave just here, Fred mation; but these slip-ups have only served to strengthen efforts to achieve a 50-50 relationship. In other words, what BAC put out Sud put out, and vice versa—with consultation and prior agreement between the two. But so intense is public interest in the Concorde that this 50-50 relationship is going to be difficult to administer. I fear the tendency will be for less and less in formation to be released. Why not have a series of regular—say six-monthly—news conferences at Bristol and Toulouse? From a Uganda newspaper 11—lill • DEATH OF A DREAM ran the mordant headline to a picture of the One- Eleven wreckage. If every aviation dream had died in the wreckage of an early disaster there would be no aviation today worth speaking of. The death is not of the One-Eleven, but of the seven men who comprised its crew. No words of mine can lighten the grief of their families or the stunned sorrow of their colleagues. They died evaluating a condition of flight which the BAC One-Eleven, in all the next 30 or 40 years of its operational life, is never likely to experience. That was their job. We had been inclined to forget the risks of civil-aircraft flight testing. Of all the 15 new types of turbine airliner since 1949 (seven British, five American, one French. one Canadian and one Dutch), not one has suffered a fatal accident on pre-service manufacturer's trials. Not one—despite the extreme, improbable situations that the test crews have had to explore. # From a Press report:— "Britain's giant Vickers VC10 airliner made its debut at Prestwick Airport today. and brought its first complaint to the airport from a resident nearby. As the airliner . . • swept over the hamlet of South Wood, near Troon, the thunder of its four engines sent an oil painting of Highland cattle crashing from the wall in the home of Miss Margaret Fraser, smashing a plate-glass table top . • • "The VC10, code name Victor Foxtrot. was making a series of 'circuits and bumps at Prestwick as part of a crew-training programme. . . Capt Jack Nicholl, senior BOAC pilot in charge of VC10 training. said: 'In every respect this is a beautiful aircraft.'" ROGER BACON
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