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Aviation History
1964
1964 - 1597.PDF
876 FLIGHT International, 28 May WORLD E W S Indian Industry Progress The first port and starboard Bristol Siddeley Orpheus 703 turbojets to be built at Hindustan Aviation's Bangalore engine factory for the same company's HF-24 Marut Mkl fighter, were recently completed successfully. Announcing this, Bristol Siddeley, which has been assisting HAL engine manufacture since 1954, pointed out that this achievement means that supplies of the Orpheus 703 are available from the Bangalore production line well in advance of the main Marut production. The first 703s follow only a few months after HAL's completion of their 100th Orpheus 701, which they manufacture for the Hawker Siddeley Gnat fighters they are building under licence, and less than two years after production planning began. Not only have HAL produced a new mark of engine using development-shop methods, but, in collaboration with the Indian Gas Turbine Research Establishment, produced their own reheat system which probably raises static thrust to at least 7,5001b. These engines have been installed in the fifth HF-24 (due to fly as this issue went to press), which has supersonic intakes and should reach a level Mach number in excess of 1.5. Further development is anticipated, using a still more powerful engine. The Soviet RD-9F (two of which were on test at Bangalore late in 1961) is not suitable for such high Mach numbers; other possibilities are two BS models later than the Orpheus 703, the powerplant of the Egyptian HA-300 being developed by Prof Brandner; the Rolls-Royce/MAN RB. 153; and various US proposals (P & W JT-8, GE1/J1 and Wright-modified Orpheus). Details for the amalgamation of HAL with the other elements of the Indian air- craft industry, the IAF Aircraft Manu- facturing Depot at Kanpur and the Mig-21 production complex, are now being worked out and the amalgamation will soon be complete, said India's Minister of State for Defence Production, Mr K. Raghuramiah, recently. To be called Aeronautics India Ltd, the present name of the Mig-21 com- plex of three factories now building, the amalgamated industry will be headed by Air Marshal Ranjan Dutt, present managing director of HAL, as managing director. RAF HS.125 Named Following its now common policy of naming new Service aircraft after distin- guished predecessors, the Air Force Board last week decided that the RAF's 20 HS.125 twin-jet navigational trainers, now being built, would be called "Dominies." The earlier Dominie was the Service version of the Dragon Rapide, several hundred of which were built during the Second World War and which were widely employed on navigation and communications training, liaison flying and ad hoc transport, duties which will now be handled by the HS.125, which comes, of course, from the same de Havilland stable. The Dassault VTOL Programme The following letter has been received from Generate Aeronautique Marcel Das- sault. At the time of closing for press we have not seen the official statement by the Ministere des Armees to which allusion is made, but we willingly give the letter publicity:— "We are sorry to draw your attention to thefact that the information published in the May 21 special VTOL issue of Flight Inter-national, signed by Mr J. Hay Stevens and relative to the French VTOL, is not correct.When reading the paragraph devoted to the French VTOL one would understand that wegave up this programme because of its very expensive cost. The experimental aircraftBalzac V.001 was damaged while carrying out a check flight for the State Official Servicesand is now being overhauled in order to fly again within a few months. The Mirage III-Vprototype, operational fighter V-STOLMach 2, is being assembled at the Melun-Villarocheaerodrome and will carry out its first flights by the end of next July. "It seems that all this is due to a misunder-standing; in fact Mr Stevens, at the end of February, asked us for some precisions aboutthe French VTOL programme and we thought it was not yet necessary to give any informa-tion about it, our prototypes being unable to fly before the summer of 1964. "Unfortunately, it seems obvious that wecannot leave the information of Mr Stevens as it is and the Ministere des Armees pub- Gen Andre Puget (right), president of Sud- Aviation, receives the Igor I. Sikorsky Trophy "in recognition of outstanding achievement in the advancement of the helicopter art by the establishment of an official world speed record" —the Super Frelon's 217.7 m.p.h. last July. The presentation was made by Lee S. Johnson, Sikorsky president, at the Honors Night Dinner at the American Helicopter Society's recent forum in Washington, DC lished an official statement to re-establish thetruth. The May 16 issue of the French review Air et Cosmos also devoted a long article toVTOL and there is no mention of the abandon- ing of the French VTOL programme, and thisfor a very evident reason. "Anyway, if such a decision was taken, dobelieve that the French papers would be the first to be informed." Mr Stevens expresses his regrets and associates himself with us in offering apol- ogies not only to Marcel Dassault but to Rolls-Royce, who are, of course, very closely concerned in the project. Aero Exports to Indonesia Blocked Acting on British Government instruc- tions, the Hong Kong authorities have refused an export licence to Indonesian representatives in respect of aircraft spares held in the colony. The Indonesian Govern- ment news agency, Antara, stated that spares for six DHC Otter aircraft, used by the armed Services, were blocked in Hong Kong. On the same day Antara announced that the Indonesian Government has ordered a Sikorsky S-61A turbine-powered heli- copter "for the use of State guests visiting the country." Recasting the Swiss Mirage The Dassault Mirage IIIS fighter, 100 of which are to be built in Switzerland for the Swiss Air Force, will be virtually a new aircraft, though based originally on the HIE version for the French Armee de l'Air. The many changes to be made account largely for the 66 per cent increase in estimated cost, from £72,583,000 to £120,583,000 for the 100 to be built, as reported in these pages on May 14. A Hughes Taran IS target acquisition radar and fire control system is to be substituted for the French CSF Cyrano equipment, the performance of which was judged by the Swiss to be insufficient. The aircraft is to be adapted to carry an un- specified air-to-air missile weighing 500kg and having a range of more than 10km. An arrester hook and attachments for RATO units' are to be incorporated, to permit operations from short airfields, and call for strengthening of the airframe. A stronger undercarriage and improved brakes are to be fitted and the nose is being redesigned to fold sideways, a la Buccaneer, as SAr- aircraft are frequently serviced in narrow caverns hewn in the rocky mountainsides with which the country is so richly endowed. Originally it was intended to fit recon- naissance pods, like those carried on tfie Swiss Venom FB4s, but tests have shown that unacceptable performance losses resui. Some of the 100 Swiss Mirages will there- fore be IIIRS models, based upon theFrench Air Force's IIIR reconnaissance version, but incorporating the Tar system.
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