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Aviation History
1964
1964 - 0008.PDF
-:T international, 2 January 1964 3 upplied in 1960, for which spares are now eing denied. I: is ironic to recollect that delivery of ^he Gannets was made in the face of strong Australian and Netherlands protests but it i the British Government that has had first ause to regret it. On the day following the nouncement that service backing was to : withdrawn, the Indonesian Acting Chief of Armed Forces Staff, Rear Admiral lartadinata, said that the Indonesian aval Air Force had ordered naval aircraft from another country whose planes are nuch better than the British Gannet." SBAC Appointments The Society of British Aircraft Con- structors announces that Mr H. W. Goodinge, formerly assistant director, has been appointed deputy director, while Mr M. H. Harris has been appointed assistant director. Chief executive and director of. the Society is Mr Edward Bowyer. ; .... , ...... . ... „ NATO Air Defence A critical stage has been reached in the termination of the ground environment be adopted for the control of supersonic intercepters in NATO airspace. Though ithe NATO Air Defence Ground Environ- t specification has been in existence for time, the whole concept is so complex, and so vastly expensive, that no hardware has yet emerged to satisfy it. The specifica- tion can hardly keep pace with technical developments, and F-104Gs for interception are meanwhile accumulating without any ground control system which can effectively direct them. Elliott-Automation have now proposed an answer to the problem in the form of their Firebrigade system, based on the MCS 920 miniature digital computer—and on wide experience with the ARCH type of industrial automation. The first Fire- rigade system, based on an off-the-shelf lliott 803 computer, has been giving ex- remely satisfactory service at an RAF iter control station and has for the first :ime in Europe provided a degree of auto- tion making the sure control of super- nic fighters possible. The Netherlands overnment is about to receive an MCS- '20-based Firebrigade system and has tated that it would acquire a second on ndition that NATO funds were provided Herald's All-up Weight Drops by Nearly a Quarter as 4± tons of supplies take the quick way out. Thirty-two panniers, each weighing 3001b and coupled, were released in less than ten seconds through the double doors of a production Herald series 400 for the Royal Malaysian Air Force in a demonstration at Watchfield, Berks, last month. The panniers were lined on a roller conveyor with a banked exit section. Among those watching were representatives of the RCAF, Canadian Army and RAF Transport Command for its purchase. This brings to a head the question of a standard NATO control sys- tem, for which Elliott, Litton and Hughes are in competition. Some decision was to have been taken at a NATO meeting imme- diately before Christmas but no result has yet been announced. Elliott Firebrigade, in its basic form, is capable of facilitating the control of super- sonic intercepters with existing radar and infrastructure, but it is also capable of vir- tually unlimited expansion, both in terms of the number of targets handled and in the services and geographical extent of the over- all system. Thus, the initial control capa- bility can be established at very moderate cost and rapidly, and the growth Meter- mined in the light of practical operational experience—a simpler and surer procedure than going straight to an "all-in" system. The Firebrigade system for the RAF was delivered two months ahead of schedule— in seven months instead of nine—giving a measure of Elliott's claim that simplicity and the use of many production compo- nents make Firebrigade quickly available. The MCS-920, also now in production, is small enough to permit use in mobile fighter control cabins. A basic twelve-target sys- tem costs about £150,000. Elliott are sufficiently well connected with subsidiaries and associates on the Continent to offer extensive joint produc- tion and the use of a quantity of compo- nents of American origin. The company has also shown very considerable deter- mination to obtain the order and is in a relatively good position to do so, even in the face of the customary intensity of American competition. Pictures on page 33 indicate the layout of various portions of Firebrigade. Jane's : a Postscript The staff writer who reviewed the 1963- 64 edition of Jane's All the World's Aircraft on page 1017 last week writes: In one of those aberrations which journalists dread to dream about I wrote last week that "illustrations and informed conjecture" about the TSR.2 were excluded by the press date, for the aircraft section, being Septem- ber 1. In fact, an illustration and all known information about the TSR.2 are included —in addenda which are correct until November 20, 1963 and which, for good measure, include an illustration of the Soviet anti-missile missile displayed on November 7 and another of the Egyptian Helwan HA-300 fighter. Believing it was impossible that Jane's could be more up to date than it first ap- peared I missed the addenda in the hour I had to scan the book before writing my review. The fact that Mr John Taylor, the editor, and the publishers find it possible to include information only a month or so before publishing day makes Jane's, of course, an even better reference book than the magnificent one it appeared to be last week. lore Power for the Troops Though still slimly clad, each of the Dart RDa.12 engines which power the Hawker Siddeley 748 STOL tactical [transport develops no less than 3,245 t.e.h.p. These two photographs show ground running and inspection by Rolls-Royce service engineers before'the prototype's first flight on December 21. They also show the reversing Dowty Rotol propeller developed for the engine. A l50hr MoA type-test on"the "Do./2 will start within the next few weeks '« T
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