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Aviation History
1964
1964 - 1522.PDF
FLIGHT International, 21 May 1964 839 77ie route to China, showing the beacons and reporting points; the numbers are the nautical- mile distances between points INDIA • EAST A NOB + INTERSECTION Wuhsi Yiyang Tukichi^"y - *- ' - '^ SHANGHAI i Hung-Chtao Airport) East China Kwanchieoishsu Sea one pre-service proving flight and the inaugural, PIA pilots reported never hearing any R/T or seeing any other aircraft or contrails. Apart from increasing the length of the single runways at Canton and Shanghai to over 10,OOOft—which our sprightly Boeing seemed hardly to need—with typical hospitality the Chinese have also in- stalled ILS at both ends of the runways. The equipment, we were told, was Chinese-built—perhaps rather surprisingly, as the VORs have been ordered from an unspecified foreign manufacturer. The touchdown at Hung-uh'Iao Airport, like every PIA touch- down on our trip, was smooth as silk. If they bend a Boeing in China, PIA can't expect any practical on-the-spot help from the factory—in China's entry-visa department they don't know Americans. Many people observed that China has always been a country days in and around towns like Canton and Shanghai up to 15-day tours costing from £100 to £145 taking in other citys. The General Administration of Civil Aviation of China (CAAC) is almost as old as the People's Republic itself, and the official definition of its function is: "To serve socialist reconstruction and the livelihood of the Chinese people." In practice this not only means scheduled inter-city services with II-14s, II-18s and Viscounts but a whole host of mixed traffic, aerial work, and some military transport functions, to the remoter regions. The equipment used consists of unknown numbers of: Li-2s (Soviet-built DC-3s); Il-12s; An-2 (Otter-sized biplanes built under Soviet licence in China); and, we were told by Mr Shen-Tu, CAAC's deputy director, even some of the ten-seater Peking No 1 twin-engined transport. As described in great detail by Mr Ho Lo-Wen in an article entitled CAAC's Viscounts have now been given this attractively simple paint scheme; number 410, seen here at Shanghai, took the writer to Peking. The six Viscounts are thought to be numbered alternately from 402 to412 difficult to describe and even more difficult to understand. One of the earliest returning travellers to try it was Marco Polo; and for his trouble he was branded the biggest liar of his time. Today the Chinese apply this description to the "imperialist" Press for com- pletely opposite accounts—for allegedly slanderous exaggerations of poverty in modern Communist China. But what is it really like? On the human side the answer seems to be so much a matter of opinions; some observers have compared11 to life in some of the poorer Roman Catholic countries, with magnificent public buildings replacing grandiose cathedrals; others have noted the tremendous public spirit and the cheerfulness of the People. For anyone who really wants to know, the only answer is to go there. Further, the Chinese are now going all-out to make things easy for the foreign visitor, and anyone from a "friendly" nation or organization—i.e., one that doesn't actively run down ™a~will be granted a visa. The Sino-Pakistan air-link promises to be vitally important to Doth nations. The first Chinese approaches were for extensions of nral o«_.: . . - . ... • •.-loca services near their common frontier, but the more impressive final result, arrived at after only 8hr negotiations last August, may ^ve encouraged an even more open-door policy than was origin- «|y Planned. The China International Travel Service—Luxingshe has anticipated a flood of visitors and has boosted the number ofs English-speaking staff with university graduates. Some two °°zen different conducted inclusive tours are planned for the visit- m8 capitalists. The tours vary in price from £20 to £30 for four "China's Civil Aviation" that appeared in the December 11, 1959, issue of Flight, CAAC is first-and-foremost a public utility, heavily subsidized, but with safety the paramount operational considera- tion. It is proud of the fact it has never had a major accident in- volving loss of life. The CAAC Viscount which carried the inau- gural party from Shanghai to Peking felt indecently spacious with only 52 seats. Four-engined safety was the answer to the enquiry whether the same job couldn't perhaps have been done more eco- nomically with a twin-turboprop. Everyone concerned, from Premier Chou-en-Lai downwards, seems pleased with the Viscounts, and those in which the writer flew were nicely handled—reports say that even on training, which is so thorough it takes seven months, CAAC get 150 landings out of a set of Viscount tyres where other operators get only 100. The engineers, too, obviously love the aircraft; after every flight the cowlings are religiously opened and the Darts given a rub-down. The Rolls-Royce engineers are convinced these are the cleanest Darts in service; even the grease, they say, is rubbed off linkages. The non-stop routeing of our special non-scheduled 2hr 30min flight from Shanghai to Peking was via Nanking and Tsinan; but, just on top at 23,000ft, we could see nothing of the great Yangtze and Yellow rivers crossed en route. Prudently perhaps, in view of the reliance on NDBs, CAAC only mentions the appropriate day of the week in its English language timetable of services. Peking Airport also has just one 10,000ft runway with ILS at both ends; facilities no doubt put there some time ago for the benefit of Aero-
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