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Aviation History
1963
1963 - 2225.PDF
1024 FLIGHT International, 26 December 19 S t ra ight and ve I FROM The Daily Telegraph, December 18: "For the last time the Commons debated the affairs of the luckless Central African Federation. It was a quiet, grim occasion . . . Thus a great dream dis solves, leaving behind it disillusion, a subdued bitterness, recriminations and squabbles, hopes blasted..." None of this is applicable, I am sincerely happy to say, to air transport in Central Africa. CAA survives, thanks to the triumph of goodwill and good sense. The three territories, despite all their bitter political differences, have joined together in a common air transport organization. Air transport has achieved what the politicians could not achieve. So long as CAA lives, the great dream will never dissolve. All right, all right—there's a five-wheeled DC-3 in the hangar • Over brandy and cigars the other night, as we sped northward in British Railways' new super de luxe The Northern Epicurean service from Chorleywood to Manchester, Sir Fred Knocking told me of his plans for new air services. We had dined sumpt uously off turtle soup, boeuf Stroganoff and Chateau Mouton Rothschild 1912 and Sir Fred was in that mellow mood when a man unbends easily. "We lost £46m last year in spite of a 97 per cent load factor and three fare increases," he said. "So I'm introducing a revolu tionary new principle called sprint loading on our Masochist service. Sprint loading is really only a variation of trickle loading: the passengers take their marks, get set and run a couple of hundred yards across the ramp to the waiting aircraft when the hostess fires her starting pistol. Anybody who falls over will just have to wait 18 days for the next So that's what Roger Bacon looks like service. On board plain hostesses dressed as Victorian governesses will grudgingly dispense porridge, cold rice pudding, prunes and custard and bowls of Brown Windsor soup, with a glass of water if the passenger asks nicely. Departure time will be 0540 hours and we've got several more ideas in mind, such as compulsory PT for passengers before boarding." • "Our self-adaptive flight control sys tems have been flying over four years in the F-101A and two years in the X-15 ... A triple-redundant version is now being readied for the X-20A . . ."—From a sales leaflet. Becomes obsolete three times as fast? • I saw in my morning paper the other day that the Ministry of Defence building in Whitehall is being described as the Pentagon. Would it not be rather more British, and all that, for us to call our Ministry of Defence the Quadrilateral? Wasn't there once a battle of the Quadri lateral, won by the British ? And there is the traditional British square of infantrymen. I reckon that Quadrilateral has an historical lineage more appropriate than Pentagon. • Count Nicolo Carandini, president of Alitalia, in a speech as incoming president of IATA, Rome, October:— "The tidal wave of scientific progress that bears us relentlessly forward should inspire us to cure the disorders that at present weaken us, so that we may face the supersonic era strengthened by experience and purged of the errors that attended our reception of subsonic jets. This time we must be ready with a considered programme for the gradual introduction of the new aircraft." Ten out of ten. But a month later Count Carandini booked an order for an Americai pseudosonic airliner of unknown make design, price and delivery date. (Passim thought: So much for Air Union.) By all means scramble headlong into th< supersonic age. By all means warn of tht possible frightful consequences. But dc let's allow more than a month to go b) before doing both. • The appointment of Sir Giles Guthrie as chairman of BOAC, I can reveal, is ILLEGAL! According to the Air Corporations Act, 1949, Section 2(2), the Minister shall appoint the chairman of "each corporation from among its members." "Hello, is that you Bacon? This is Ronald Quarrelsome-Pickerfight, Ministry of Planes, here. You should have checked with me before publishing theaboverubbish. By long-established tradition the Minister, each time he wishes to bring in yet another outsider as chairman, first appoints him as a member of the corporation and if y°u think that this is mocking the law you are a5 usual distorting the whole thing completely, dear boy." • "You have to know an American for at least ten years before you can call him by his surname." • "The only thing that will get that aero plane off the ground is the curvature of tne earth." ROGER BACON
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