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Aviation History
1964
1964 - 1361.PDF
754 FLIGHT International, 7 May (954 Straight n d LeveI "I SAY, first officer, what's that horn | blowing for?" "You're getting near the stall, sir." "Good gracious—now there's a red light flashing and a bell ringing!" "Yes sir, you're getting very close to the stall now." "What's this! I can feel the stick-shaker shaking, I can hear the stick-knocker knocking, and I can feel a palm-tickler tickling and a foot-thumper thumping. For heaven's sake, WHAT ON EARTH IS HAPPENING?" "We are stalled, sir." "Stalled? Good heavens, of course— I knew that something was amiss. But all is well, laddie—we have a stick pusher!" • I expect that the new No 3 terminal at Heathrow is a great success from the point of view of the airport officials. Unfortun- ately, it cannot be counted an unqualified success by the public who use it. Suppose you are meeting a flight. You want to see the aircraft land and taxi in, and you want to see and wave to the people you are meeting—you probably haven't seen them for years. You then want to see them until they are out of Customs and reunited with you. AH of this is either impossible or very difficult without frantic enquiring, rushing very long distances, jostling and neck-craning. There could be big information boards telling people how, where and when to watch the arrivals they are meeting, and something certainly ought to be done about How's this for an advertisement for the VCIO autopilot? Mind you, you can't see what the other chap's doing the beastly uncivilized arrangements for meeting people out of Customs. The public —hundreds at a time very often—have to crowd into a tiny area by the doors trying to peer round the grim screens that London Heathrow's boot-faced Customs men have erected, presumably to hide their shame, while yards and yards of hall go to waste. I know that passengers and the public are a frightful nuisance to airport officials, but come off it, chaps—/ understand, but millions don't. It's Absolutely You—No 5 Miss Trebawke-Davies at Hendon in 1912 with an unidentified escort • Puzzled, Potters Bar: This BAC-221, is it to do with the Concord programme? French air expert: Oui monsewer, that is perfectly correct. She will be tres useful, tres useful. Puzzled, Potters Bar: So you are paying half the cost? French air expert: Alors, not exactly, mon vieux, we're not contributing a sou. You see, in that respect the BAC-221 has absolutely nothing to do with the Concord programme. Comprenez? • "I notice you've spelt it Taiphun instead of Taifun. Is that just for phun ?" • Representative Jack Brooks (D-Texas) talking about Pan American high-density 707 flights: "In my view 187 passengers crowded into a jet leaves too little room to cope with emergencies. You don't have to be an expert to figure out that it's just as difficult as can be to get three full-size people in one side of those aisles, and just visualize what if it was dark or smoky or you were all just good and scared." When a British MP and a Belfast newspaper six months ago said something incomparably milder about the "evacu- ability" of a certain British airline's aircraft they were savagely served with writs. Surely this is on someone's con- science in Britain? All the Minister of Aviation is doing, so far as I can ascertain, is asking for information about the FAA's evacuation tests. • "The same business principles apply to air transport as they do to selling socks"— Sir Giles Guthrie, chairman of BO AC. I'll bet you can't find any darned holes in that argument. ROGER BACON
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