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Aviation History
1964
1964 - 0028.PDF
'LIGHT International, 2 January 1964 23 Buenos Aires to Santiago de Chile, whereas today we hop this journey in little over an hour, and the peaks always seem far enough away—until we begin to descend, which is a protracted and often uncomfortable procedure when the aircraft lets down from thirty thousand feet or so at a very shallow angle through never-ending layers of cloud. I have referred to the saving in flying time as the justifi- cation of the jet. Sometimes, however, the overall time from door to door means that the reduction in flying time has little significance, except as already noted to enable one to endure the physical and mental strain involved. For example, on a typical Sunday journey from Sao Paulo to Buenos Aires, I leave my apartment at O63Ohr and take a taxi to Congonhas airport, just on the outskirts of the city. From there I am transported by a bus leaving Congon- has at 0715 and arriving at the international airport of Viracopos (95km distant) at 0900. A flight is due to leave at 1020 and frequently does. The arrival time in Buenos Aires is around 1230, and usually one is not unduly delayed in the Customs. The airport is about 40km outside the city, and if all goes well one can reach one's hotel at 1400hr. Thus the elapsed time of the trip under good conditions is 7hr 30min. In the old days of piston-enged aircraft the overall time would be as much as 12hr. One flew from Congonhas (not Viracopos) after an early breakfast on Sunday and arrived in Buenos Aires for dinner. The whole day was devoted to the trip, which now I can do in seven or eight hours. No doubt this is a tremendous advantage. Or is it ? The majority of people who use air transport for business or pleasure want something safer and more comfortable rather than something quicker and more dangerous. But they won't get it! Sao Paulo. Brazil JAMES E. SAXTON LAP at Fairlop SIR,—I find Air Cdre Payne's Air Dates a most valuable reference book, but am surprised that he makes no reference to that eventful date November 18, 1946, when the Nene- engined Lancastrian made the first jet-engined international transport flight between Heathrow and Le Bourget (returning to Heathrow on November 22). One item in Air Dates intrigues me—the entry that on December 16, 1937, the Court of Common Council agreed to buy nearly 1,000 acres for £289,700 at Fairlop, near Ilford, for a new City of London Airport. When and why was a decision taken not to proceed with this project? Leigh-on-Sea, Essex LESLIE HUNT Names for Numbers SIR,—Why does the British aircraft industry continue to give its new types numbers instead of names ? I can list nine recent aircraft which have been numbered: Bristol 188, VC10, P.1127, P.1154, BAC One-Eleven, H.P. 115, D.H.125, Short SC.l and TSR.2. The industry has only been doing this recently—I believe it's an American habit. There are only two new aircraft with names, Trident and Concorde. It seems to me that if tanks and ships and missiles can be named, aircraft should be. One name I have heard applied to the 188 is Flaming Pencil, and to the One-Eleven, Challenger. Lymington, Hants. c. J. TALLACK [Most aircraft start out with numbered designations, then receive names when they enter service. Thus the Hunter was the P.1067, the Lightning the P.I and the Viscount the V12. The British aircraft industry is in fact a minority in naming its aircraft, other countries sticking to numbers—e.g. Boeing 707, Douglas DCS, Tupolev Tu-114, etc.—Ed] Two War Fakes SIR,—Reference your report about Mr Carr's fake picture (page 946, December 12), readers may be interested to see some fake work I did early in 1945 with a box camera. The subjects—a B-17 Flying Fortess and a P-51 Mustang —were arranged thus: a cleft stick held the wing tips (hence the B-17's missing port wing tip and the P-51's starboard Again, not quite what they seem to be. Two of Mr C. R. Elliott's fake air- fighting shots wing tip), a rough cardboard gunsight was similarly held, and the wireless aerial in my garden became the aerial of an accompanying Fortress whose mid-upper gun hatch was used by the photographer. The Fortress depicted had just been hit and was going down: the Mustang, as it flashed by, had a damaged port wing tip. Mr Carr, I note, used proper models. I simply cut my aircraft from magazines and mounted them flat. Some of my Fortress friends—experienced air fighters too—were taken in by both. The gunsight foxed them more than anything else, as did the aerial: although, it will be noted, the aerial is the wrong side of the gunsight. London, SW19 CHRISTOPHER R. ELLIOTT Backing the Wrong VTOL Horse? SIR,—Newspaper reports indicate that the basic Hawker P.I 154 design does not possess sufficient range for the Navy's purposes, especially when converted to a two-seat variant. Since the proposal to use a joint RAF/RN aircraft is not new, it is surprising that the Government did not continue to develop the composite VTOL system which, among other things, claimed a longer range than the single-engined type. The composite system has been successfully developed abroad, after initial work had been done in this country, in the Dassault Balzac, but perhaps the best combination so far proposed is for the EWR-Sud VJ 101D, which is to carry (if it is built) three engines only for purely vertical flight—a weight penalty of around 7cwt. Rolls-Royce and Dassault claim that the weight of eight lift engines is less than the extra weight of fuel required for the single lift/thrust engine, and of course there would be an even greater saving in the case of the VJ 101D. It is surprising, therefore, that a composite powerplant aircraft—the feasibility of which has been proven in flight by the Short SCI, the Dassault Balzac and the EWR-Sud VJ 101C—was not originally selected as a joint RAF/RN aircraft, as it has the added advantage of being multi-engined, as the Navy prefer, instead of an aircraft with a completely different and at the time untried system on which develop- ment work had to start again from scratch. Grey College, Durham T. N. ALLEN FORTHCOMING EVENTS Jan 2 RAeS Young People's lecture: "Man-powered Flight" by ProfT. R. F. Nonweiler. Jan 2 RAeS, Yeovil Branch: "The P.1127," by A. W. Bedford. Jan 7 RAeS, Belfast'Branch: Film evening. Jan 7 Combustion Institute, British Section: Colloquium on Decomposition and Ignition of Peroxides, Oxford. Jan 8 RAeS, Chester Branch: "Airliners of the Future," by G. H. Lee. Jan 8 RAeS, Christchurch Branch: "Airfield Construction and Layout'," by R. F. Lloyd Jones. Jan 8 RAeS, Swindon Branch: a.g.m. and films. Jan 8 Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Internal Com- bustion Engines Group: "Estimating Effects of Altitude, Ambient Temperature and Turbo-charger Match on Engine Perfomance" by N. D. White- house, A. Stotter and M. S. Janota. Jan 8 RAeS, Southend Branch: Main lecture, "The VC10— Project Design and Development," by E. F. Maighall. Jan 8 Kronfeld Club: "1963 Regional Gliding Competitions _.iiio:... al Dunstable," by Ron Watson. .,-, ,...v
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