FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1964
1964 - 1208.PDF
RIGHT International, 23 April 1964 Ministry of Aviation, Shell-Mex House, Strand, London WC2, England. Rocketry is the main theme of the MoA's exhibits. Taking pride of place is the Blue Streak rocket, chosen by the European Launcher Development Organization as the initial booster stage of its first 3-stage satellite launching vehicle. A model of this 61ft rocket is on display. Even though many successful British rockets have been crowded out of the limited space available, those which are displayed represent a successful record of achievement that so often escapes public notice. A one-eighth scale model of the two-stage Black Knight illustrates a rocket that has never failed in a quite extensive programme of firings in which it has been used. This rocket, which has reached heights of over 500 miles, is used for an international pro- gramme for studying the effects of re-entry into the atmosphere and for proving the Blue Streak flight safety systems for the ELDO satellite launcher. Indicative of the success of the Black Knight firings is the showing of tape recorders carrying performance data recovered from the re-entry heads after their plunge through the atmosphere to Earth. In the upward flight of Black Knight two liquid-fuelled Gamma rocket engines supply the thrust. The basic design of this motor was evolved at the Ministry's Rocket Propulsion Establishment at Westcott. Other engines, mostly with solid propellants and which owe their existence to RPE, are on show and their names read like a space aviary. The Cuckoo, another motor with a 100 per cent successful launching record, powers the second stage of the Black Knight re-entry vehicle and acceler- 679 ates the test equipment to high speed in its journey back to Earth. The Cuckoo and the Raven have been the basis of the Skylark research rocket's successful firing 'record, including many of Britain's scientific space research projects. The Chick launches the meteorological rocket, also to be shown at Hanover. The Gosling, as the power unit of ground-to-air guided weapons, has been fired successfully no less than five thousand times. Various experiments borne aloft by some of the research rockets produced by the col- laboration between the Ministry and industry, are displayed on the stand as well as techniques for obtaining the best results from instruments launched into space. Not all the rockets on show are glamorous and expensive products. The meteorological rocket is not only an extremely economical and reliable system for obtaining data from the upper atmosphere, but has the added advantage that it can be tracked by a moder- ately-priced radar and uses a propellant that is cheap to manufacture. British satellite design "know-how" is illustrated by the model of UK.3, the brain child of the Ministry's Royal Aircraft Estab- lishment, the Royal Society and British industry. Important physical measurements are to be made by intricate instruments carried by this satellite. These instruments will draw their power and have their readings recorded, coded and relayed back to Earth by equipment reliable enough to work in the difficult space environment for more than a year without maintenance. Such reliability is achieved by exhaustive environmental testing to ensure that every Above, Motoimport Foka sailplane Left, flow-turned molybdenum nozzle for space motor by Metallwerk P/onsee Right, top to bottom, Mooney Master, Mooney Mark 21, and Mooney Super 21 Messier undercarriage ofTransall C.I60 single one of thousands of components will continue to work under the stress of vibration, temperature changes, pressure variations and other extreme forces to which they are sub- jected. The techniques involved in environ- mental testing are illustrated on the Ministry's stand. Models of two of the four engine test cells existing or under construction at the National Gas Turbine Establishment at Pyestock are displayed. The development of aero-engines for supersonic flight demands extensive ground test facilities of this type and the most ad- vanced of these cells includes in its programme, tests of a full-scale Concord powerplant over a range of Mach number variations between 1.8 and 2.3. Mooney Aircraft Inc, Louis Schreiner Field, Kerrville, Texas, USA. Marketed by REA International Corp of 80 Broad St, New York 4, New York, USA, the 1964 Mooney range of light aircraft comprises the Master, Mark 21 and Super 21. All are four- seaters. The Master is essentially a Mark 21 with fixed undercarriage, although it is readily convertible to have retractable gear. The Mark 21 itself has a Lycoming 0-360 engine of 180 h.p. driving a Mooney metal constant- speed propeller and giving a maximum cruising speed of 180 m.p.h. Range at 171 m.p.h. (no
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
