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Aviation History
1963
1963 - 2144.PDF
' - URSDAY DECEMBER 12, 1963 Number 2857 Volume 84 Editor-in-Chief MAURICE A. SMITH DFC Editor H. P. KING MBE Technical Editor W. T. GU NSTON Air Transport Editor J. M. RAM8DEN Production Editor ROY CA3EY Managing Director H. N. PRIAULX MBE Official Organ of the Royal Aero Clue First Aeronautical Weekly in the World Founded in 1809 Licence for the Licensing Board WHATEVER Mr Stephen Wheatcroft has to say about British air transport is worth listening to and thinking about. We have been thinking about his recent lecture to the RAeS Air Law Group Flight International November 28) in which he took stock of the way the 1960 Licensing Act has worked and made some typically strong and well argued recommendations for change. His main suggestion was that the Air Transport Licensing Board should work within a broad national policy enunciated by the Minister of Aviation. We have always advocated more, not less, power for the ATLB. But we concede that so long as this Board has to regulate independents and corporations which have what Mr Wheatcroft calls "inequality of obligation" the ATLB cannot really be given all power over the destinies of BOAC and BEA. During the discussion of the lecture Sir Frederick Tymms said: "Only if the State corporations are denationalized can you have equality of obligation and an independent licensing authority." What Sir Frederick says today is often what other people say years later. In this issue World News 946 Air Commerce 948 Straight and Level 955 Sport and Business 956 irports and Ground Equipment: Swings and Roundabouts 95 7 International Airports 960 Equipment Reviewed 964 Letters 9 75 Missiles and Spaceflight 976 Industry International 980 Service Aviation 982 lliffe Transport Publications Ltd, Dorset House, Stamford Street, London, SE1; telephone Waterloo 3333 (Telex 25137). ielegrams Flightpres London Telex. Annual, subscriptions: Home £4 15s. OverseaWfiS. Canada and USA $15.00. second Class Mail privileges authorized at New York, NY. > anch Offices': Coventry, 8-10 Corpora tion Street: telephone Coventry 25210. r rmingham, King Edward House, New Hreet, Birmingham 2 ; telephone Mid-i'-nd 7191. Manchester, 260 Deansgate, Manchester 3 ; telephone Blackfriars 4412 01 Deansgate 3595. Glasgow, 62 Bucha nan Street, Glasgow CI; telephone 1 antral 1265-6. Jjew York, NY : Thomas Skinner & Co ' iliblishers) Ltd, 111 Broadway 6; le'ephone Digby 9-1197. © Iliffe Transport Publications Ltd, iJ63. Permission to reproduce illustra tions and letterpress can be granted only «nder written agreement. Brief extracts or comments may be made with due aeKnowledgement. A Self-Delivered Rocket THIS journal has been bamboozled by the remarkable faked picture of a Russian rocket-launching fighter published in our issue of November 28 and reprinted in several newspapers. Other papers, which did not initially print the picture for its apparent news value, subsequently did so in the context of a hoax revelation (see overleaf) and so the whole affair has understandably received very wide attention. Thus it merits comment on this page: and what a change it makes from rows, scandals and frauds of uglier aspect. How do such things happen, or, more specifically, how can a picture of this sort find its way into a journal such as ours? The explanation is disconcertingly simple. Photographs, or photographs of a certain kind, can be fairly easily faked, and can equally easily deceive. In this know ledge we have, over the years, rejected an impressive number of bogus representations of Soviet aircraft. This one was the exception, for, although during heart-searching periods of scrutiny the present writer experienced pangs of misgiving, he finally decided to endorse the picture as—in his personal opinion—authentic. This is awkward; but it is not surprising. Though backed by extensive experience, his final judgment was prone to human fallibility and was matched against uncommonly adroit deception. There is no automatic check-out for this sort of picture. We make no excuses, but we do take comfort that van Meegeren faked entire old masters, some of them many square feet in area and offering themselves for minutest inspection by whole echelons of experts. They stood the test. Our own subject was a negative so tiny that it could not conveniently be held in the fingers, together with a photographic print of baffling quality. As the perpetrator himself observes: "To be fair to the experts, they were dealing with a very small negative"; and as one air correspondent sympathetically remarks: "The cleverest feature of the fake was that the picture was not too good." We note that while van Meegeren imitated Vermeers and de Hoochs, Mr Bernard Carr of Exeter—an art student himself—fashioned his now- famous models in the image of Flight International's own drawings. This very touch of authenticity is our final consolation.
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