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Aviation History
1964
1964 - 0681.PDF
404 FLIGHT International, 12 March /9c INDUSTRY International Flight Systems Products Company News Great Britain Autopilot for the F.28 Smiths Aviation Division have received an order for their Series 6 flight control system to be fitted in the new Fokker F.28 jet airliner. The first two aircraft, due to fly during 1966, are to be cleared from the outset to operate in low weather minima. Emphasis in the Series 6 is on reliability, low weight and low cost, and the Para Visual Director is an optional extra. The low weather-minima operation of the F.28 was worked out jointly by Smiths and Fokker, and the order was obtained in face of strong competition from a number of leading US manufacturers. More Twin Gyro Platforms Sperry in London have received further orders worth £702,650 for twin gyro stable platforms to equip the additional batch of 40 Mirage III-Os recently ordered for the RAAF. More than 500 twin gyro platforms have now been ordered for other Australian and French Mirages and by five foreign air forces. National Instrument Company (Pty) Ltd have invested £160,000 in clean rooms to provide maintenance support for the equipment in Australia. Sperry note that they are currently responsible for half Britain's exports of aeronautical, inarine and gunnery control instruments, including optics. Unstable Breathing Systems The RAE at Farnborough recently held a two-day symposium on instability in aircrew breath- ing systems. Having encountered similar problems in pneumatic systems, Hymatic Engineering Co was asked to co-operate with the Human Engineering Department of RAE and the results of their work were featured in three of the symposium papers, respectively entitled Mechanism of Control in Breathing Systems, Basic Work in Elements of Breathing Systems, and Tech- niques for Improving Stability of Pneumatic Systems. All were written by Mr J. S. Sivyer, Hymatic's senior development engineer, one of them with the assistance of Mr A. J. Parker, development engineer. Radar Simulator Orders The Govern- ment of Hong Kong have ordered a Solar- tron simulator for precision approach radar for the training of Hong Kong airport controllers. The Norwegian Civil Aviation Authority has ordered a six-target radar simulator for training of controllers at Fornebu airport. Precision approach radar training will become possible with the addition of further equipment. The main simulator can be run independently or in conjunction with a live radar display. Decca Radar Orders The radar displays, height computing system and communi- cations control system for the Sperry AN/TPS-34 air-transportable radar stations recently ordered for the RAF are to be supplied by Decca Radar from their Series 5 display range. Decca equipment will make up approximately one-third of each instal- lation. The States of Guernsey have placed the first civil order for a Decca AR-1 ATC radar, which is to be installed on Guernsey airport in time for the 1965 summer season. The new radar will have dual diversity transmitters providing automatic stand-by in case one of them fails. Displays, which will be of the Decca Series 5 transistorized type, will be remoted from the aerial building to the control tower. The AR-1 will allow Guernsey to provide ATC and approach cover, both for Guernsey and for nearby Alderney. The new radar will be used alongside the Decca 424 air- field radar already in use at Guernsey for many years. Famous Designer's Retirement As briefly reported in our last week's issue, Mr R. E. Bishop, CBE, FRAes, has retired from the deputy managing directorship of the de Havilland Division of Hawker Siddeley Aircraft. Mr Bishop joined DH in 1921, at the age of eighteen, as the young company's second premium apprentice and entered the draw- ing office in 1923. The first design on which he worked, under Mr A. E. Hagg, was the DH.51. When the company was hit by the world slump in 1931 Mr Bishop left, worked for two months on a de Bruyne design project at Cambridge, and was seek- ing work in Germany with Junkers when he was called back to DH. In 1936 he took charge of the design office and headed the company's design team for the next two decades. The first design for which he had full responsibility was the all-metal Flamingo airliner. The DH.98—more familiarly, the immortal Mosquito—was a Bishop-directed design, and was followed by the Hornet, the Vampire, and the tail-less DH.108 research aircraft. The Dove light airliner picked up the dropped thread of transport design while Mr Bishop and his team were working on the Comet, the world's first jet airliner. Concurrently work was proceeding on the DH.110, from which the Sea Vixen resulted, and the Heron was designed and put into production. In 1946 Mr Bishop became a director of de Havilland Aircraft. In 1952 he joined the board of the associated de Havilland Propeller Co, and on December 1, 1958, became deputy managing director of de Havilland Aircraft, by which time design work on the Trident was advancing. Mr Bishop retained this appointment after the acquisition of de Havilland by the Hawker Siddeley Group. Sir Alan Cobham Retires One of the most famous long-distance aviation pio- neers of the 1920s and '30s, and the man who, probably more than any other, was responsible for bringing the possibilities of aviation to the notice of the general public, has retired from the managing directorship of Flight Refuelling Ltd. He will be suc- ceeded by his son Michael, but will remain the company's executive chairman and a director. Sir Alan, who is 69, formed Flight Re- fuelling in 1934, after beginning in-flight refuelling experiments in 1932, when he was already a household name for his exploits in pioneering many of the Empire's air routes. Before forming the company he ran, for two years, his National Aviation Day and a touring aviation circus, which gave thousands of displays throughout the country, was watched by millions, and gave nearly one million people their first ex- perience of flight. Throughout the 1930s he developed his refuelling ideas with commercial operations in mind and was rewarded when his tankers flight-refuelled Imperial Airways flying- boats on the first scheduled non-stop air mail services between Britain and North America. During the Second World War he deve- loped his system for military applications, experimenting both in Britain and the USA. Flight Refuelling received a contract to convert RAF bombers for long-range operations against Japan, though they were in fact not required, as the first atomic weapons brought the war to a close. Commercial and military interest in flight refuelling blossomed after the war and a B-50 of the USAF made the first non- stop flight around the world usiag a Cob- ham system. British airliners made non- stop flights from Britain to Bermuda and Montreal with the aid of Flight Refuelling's tankers, which also performed valuable services in flying fuels into Berlin during the long Soviet blockade. In 1949 the company was asked by the USAF to develop a flight refuelling system specifically for jet aircraft, which resulted in the now standard "probe and drogue" system used operationally by the RAF, RN, USAF and USN. The initial probe
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