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Aviation History
1964
1964 - 1813.PDF
996 FLIGHT International, 18 June 196 WORLD E W S Swiss Mirage Inquiry Ordered Swiss Parliamentary approval for a further £48m to cover additional costs involved in the development and produc- tion of 100 Dassault Mirage III fighters for the Swiss Air Force has been withheld. Last week the Lower Chamber refused the Government's request and demanded, instead, a Parliamentary commission of inquiry, which was at once set up. Members alleged carelessness in estimating costs, some claiming that the military authorities had deliberately withheld information when they found costs would rise above the £72m already voted. In the Birthday Honours Mr H. G. Conway, joint managing director of Short Bros & Harland Ltd, is among members of the aircraft industry named in the Queen's Birthday Honours List, published last Saturday; he is appointed CBE. Mr Brian Trubshaw, chief test pilot of BAC's Weybridge Division, is made OBE, as is Mr R. W. Harker, military aircraft adviser to Rolls- Royce Ltd. Prof A. J. Murphy, principal of the College of Aeronautics, is similarly honoured. Among those named in the Service sections of the list are Air Chief Marshal Sir Denis Barnett (GCB) and Air Marshal Sir John Grandy (KCB). A more detailed abstract of the list will be given in these pages next week. Saab 105 Progress As announced earlier this year (Flight International, March 12) the Royal Swedish Air Force has ordered 130 Saab 105 twin- turbojet trainer/light-attack aircraft. Fund- ing has since been requested for an additional 20 aircraft in the attack configur- ation, and for equipment for the original order. Saab report that series production is rapidly building up towards delivery in the latter part of next year. Manufacture of components is nearly complete for the first batch of ten aircraft, the first of which will start moving down the final assembly line during the autumn. The first series fuselage has already left its jig. Flight testing of the prototype began on June 29 last year and the aircraft was handed over to the Air Force for evaluation in November; manufacturer's testing was resumed in February. The first prototype has so far logged 260hr in some 330 flights, and testing of the second prototype is about to begin. "It has been shown that the stability characteristics are very good," say Saab, "and that stick and pedal forces are well within prescribed limits in all configurations and under all flying conditions. After successful flutter tests in flight the aircraft has been flown at its maximum permissible Mach Number of 0.86. Stability remained excellent and there were no appreciable trim-changes." New ARB Chairman Following the death of Lord Brabazon of Tara, who had been chairman since 1945, the Air Registration Board has elected as chairman Mr Guy F. Johnson, CBE. Mr Johnson, who was a member of the Handley Page Committee which was charged with the setting-up of the Board, has been vice-chairman since the Board was constituted. Wings for the Aerogyro Lockheed-California Co announce a new US Army research study into the behaviour of the XH-51A Aerogyro rigid-rotor heli- copter at speeds in excess of 200 m.p.h. Under the $840,000 contract Lockheed will conduct further testing on the dynamic components to ensure a safe life of 150 flight hours; expand flight data through additional analysis of primary performance features (including velocity/load factors and offset e.g.); evaluate the three-blade rotor against a new four-blade rotor; add a 14ft 9in fixed wing to reduce rotor-blade angles; and attach a 3,0001b-thrust Pratt & Whitney J60 turbojet on the port side. Gross weight will be increased from 3.500 to 4,4501b. Lord Beaverbrook For long a legendary figure in Fleet Street, Lord Beaverbrook—who died on June 10 at the age of 85—never failed to make an impact on any business (we use the word in its widest sense) in which he was involved. This was never more true than of the business of aircraft manufacture in the ominous summer of 1940, when Sir Winston (then Mr) Churchill created the post of Minister of Aircraft Production and appointed Lord Beaverbrook to fill it. The Royal Air Force was desperately short of modern equipment, and the new Minister was given carte blanche to remedy the deficiency. In a matter almost of days he tore apart and reconstructed whole sections of the existing machinery for ordering aircraft; never had red tape been so ruthlessly slashed. The industry, too, became his obedient if sometimes unwilling slave. Even the general public were press-ganged: long practised at influencing the masses, Beaverbropk soon had them surrendering their domestic aluminium—"Saucepans for Spitfires"—by the ton, and aircraft workers achieving hitherto unimagined feats of output. Inevitably this dynamic little man made enemies, and many were the cynical stories of the "Millbank madhouse" as his Ministry was sometimes called. But he more than achieved the results his friend Churchill expected of him. By March 1941 he was able to announce that the Across the Sea from Ulster came Shorts' Belfast strategic freighter last week for maximum-weight take-off trials at Boscombe Down. A note on Belfast and Turbo-Skyvan testing and prospects appears on page 999
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