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Aviation History
1964
1964 - 1348.PDF
FLIGHT 743 international, 7 May 1964 Slower Big Jet First photograph to be released by Boeing showing blown-flap trials with the 367-80 prototype (forerunner of the 707 family), in the course of which airspeeds down to 80 m.p.h. have been achieved. Further details of modifications, which include tailplane "inverted slats," will be given next week including foreign orders. This would give a total profit of something like £5.4m out of total payments by the Ministry of £13.5m, and export orders estimated at £1,250,000." Mr Amery concluded by saying he had initiated a review of contracting policy: "It may be that we have pushed the principle of fixed prices too far. I am sure that the principle is right, but it may be that we have pushed it into areas where it does not fully apply. It may be that the Government ought to share with the contractor the fruits of excessive gain or the damages of excessive loss. It does, under some contracts, at present. Perhaps we ought to enlarge this." It might be an advantage, he added, to supplement the efforts of the Ministry's technical branch by bringing in outside consultants. Earlier, making a point about losses which might equally well occur under fixed-price contracts, the Minister had said "Hawker Siddeley have recently informed me that they have made heavy losses on the fixed prices agreed with the Govern- ment for the purchase of Argosy aircraft for the Royal Air Force. The total value of the contract was some £27m, and I have been advised by my department. , . that the net loss is at least £5m.. .." Among assertions made by the Opposition —whose motion of censure was defeated by 302 votes to 236—was a claim by Mr George Wigg that computer equipment for HMS Eagle, supplied under a £7m contract awarded to Ferranti and other firms, had been delivered so late that it could not be evaluated, and that after installation it had been marked with a yellow cross, signifying that it was sub- standard. To this allegation the Minister of Defence replied that inquiries he had made nad shown that the Royal Navy had 'absolutely no complaints" about either deliveries or costs; they were "completely satisfied." Minister Visits BAC Preston Mr Julian Amery, the Minister of Aviation, with Sir Robert Cockburn, Chief scientist in his Ministry, visited the Samles- oury, Preston and Warton factories of the "eston Division of British Aircraft Cor- poration on April 24, to inspect the facili- ty employed in the development of the wghtnmg and TSR.2. Accompanied byr •— B. Benjamin, Private Secretary, and Mr P. Brightling, Assistant Secretary at the Ministry, Mr Amery and Sir Robert arrived by air at Samlesbury, where they first had talks with Mr F. W. Page, the chief execu- tive of the Preston Division, Mr W. Shor- rock, the general manager, and other senior executives before inspecting TSR.2 wing construction and the Lightning Mk 3 assembly line. After lunching at the Preston factory, they toured the machine shops and saw Lightning and TSR.2 assembly at Preston. Moving on to the research, design and flight test centre at Warton during the afternoon, the visitors met the project managers of the TSR.2 and Lightning and various heads of departments during their inspection of TSR.2 test rigs, flight simu- lators, wind tunnels, flight test depart- ment and flight operations. This last, which controls Lightning test flights, has now reached an advanced state of readiness for the forthcoming TSR.2 flight-test pro- gramme, which will be controlled from Warton. New President of the RAeS At the annual general meeting today, May 7, the presidency of the Royal Aero- nautical Society passes from Professor A. R. Collar, CBE, MA, DSC, FRAes, to Mr Henry H. Gardner, BSC, FRAes. Mr Gardner entered the aircraft industry as a technical assistant with Sir W. G. Armstrong-Whitworth Aircraft in 1928, after taking a B.Sc (Hons) degree at Bir- mingham. He soon afterwards went to Blackburn Aircraft, then moved to Vickers- Armstrongs in 1929 and has been with the company, now part of BAC, ever since. In 1938 he was made chief stressman; in 1941 chief technician and in 1945 assistant chief designer, aircraft. During some of these years he worked on the stress analysis of geodetic structures under Dr Barnes Wallis. In 1953 Mr Gardner switched to guided weapons, as chief designer in charge of that activity, and was made a special director of the company. Since the reorganization of BAC at the beginning of this year he has held the post of technical director, BAC (Weybridge). He joined the RAeS as an Associate Fellow in 1933 and was elected a Fellow in 1945. In 1952 he won the Simms Gold Medal for a paper entitled Structural Prob- lems in Advanced Aircraft. He has been a member of the Society's council continu- ously since 1955. A keen yachtsman, he also flies: he learned in 1931 and has kept in practice, still flying occasionally as supernumary pilot in BAC executive liaison aircraft. As is customary at the Society's a.g.m., awards for papers read last year will be presented. Among the recipients will be a Frenchman and two Americans—Capt R. Bloch of the Delegation Ministrelle pour rArmament, Mr Harold Davies of Thiokol Chemical Corporation and Dr R. L. Schleicher of North American Aviation. Other RAeS news is of two memorial lectures taking place this month in the Society's lecture theatre at 4 Hamilton Place, London Wl. Next Thursday, the 14th, at 6 p.m., the seventh Lanchester Memorial Lecture will be given by Prof A. Ferri of the Guggenheim School of Aero- nautics, whose subject will be Problems in the Application of Supersonic Combustion. A week later, on May 21, also at 6 p.m., the second Handley Page Memorial Lecture (convened jointly by the RAeS and the Cranfield Society) will be delivered by Dr H. V. Lachmann, HP director of research, who will speak on Sir Frederick Handley Page: the Man and his Work. Helmets for the Luftwaffe The German Ministry of Defence has awarded contracts worth £120,000 to M.L. Aviation Ltd for supply of Type 12P Mk4 partial pressure helmets and associated test equipment for German F-104G pilots. The orders were gained in face of strong com- petition from French and US manufacturers. Helmets of this type are already being exported for the air forces of Sweden, Canada and India. Biggin Hill Air Fair This year's Biggin Hill Air Fair begins today, May 7, with a Trade and Press Day, and is open to the public from tomorrow until next Sunday, May 10. Details are given on page 778. Calculations at Brighton Brighton will be the venue of the fourth international conference of the International Association for Analogue Computing from September 14 to 18. About 100 papers will be presented at the conference, which is being organized by an honorary secretariat based at Ferranti Ltd, Kern House, 36 Kingsway, London WC2.
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