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Aviation History
1967
1967 - 2151.PDF
746 FLIGHT International, 9 November 1967 Gulfstream 2 Certification On October 19 the FAA awarded Grumman a type C of A for the Gulfstream 2 business jet powered by two Rolls-Royce Spey 2Ss. The two development aircraft had completed over 600 hours' total flying since the first flight on October 2, 1966. The first of over 70 Gulfstream 2s ordered for private and business users in the US and else- where will be delivered shortly. Atlantic Aviation, one of the two US distributors for Grumman, painted and furnished the Gulfstream 2 seen here WORLD NEWS . . . Robertson Trophy Award The C. P. Robertson Memorial Trophy, awarded annually by the Air Public Relations Association for the best piece of publicity for the RAF, goes this year to Martin Sharp and Michael Bowyer for their book Mosquito. The trophy is being presented to them by the CAS, Air Chief Marshal Sir John Grandy, during the APRA reunion at the RAF Club on November 22. Hendon to House RAF Museum The Royal Air Force Museum, for long a fine idea without a home, is to be established on a site on the former Hendon Aerodrome, in North-West London. This was announced last Mon- day, November 6. Preliminary planning is in hand and plans should be publicly presented next year in association with the RAF's 50th anniversary celebrations. It is hoped that the museum will be open by 1971. It is intended that capital cost should be met by public subscription and running costs from public funds. A nucleus of museum staff is already at work, headed by the Director, Dr John Tanner, former librarian at the RAF College. Assistant keepers will be aviation historian J. M. Bruce and Mr R. Lee, a well-known designer of museum and art gallery displays. Historically, Hendon is an appropriate choice, for it was the most important centre of British aviation during the formative pre-1914 years. It is also a good choice practically, being easily accessible from London by bus or tube, and from the north by the new Ml extension. Donald Campbell Flight regrets to record that among those killed in the Iberia Caravelle acci- dent last Saturday night was Mr Donald ("Doc") Campbell, well known in the gliding and light aviation world as a constructor of light autogyros and a repairer of sailplanes. His wife was also a victim. (Sec "Caravelle 10,000ft Too Low," page 749.) 1968 Hanover Show The seventh German Aviation Show is being held at Hanover from April 26 to May 5, 1968, at the same time as the Hanover Fair. The show is being organised by the BDLI (Bundesverbrand der Deutschen Luft- und Raumfahrtin- dustrie), Bad Godesberg, and exhibi- tion management will be in the hands of .the Deutsche Messe- und Ausstellungs —AG, Hanover. "Slim" Sear Retires W. H. ("Slim") Sear, OBE, AFRAes. chief test pilot of Westland Aircraft since 1952, has retired. He is succeeded by Sqn Ldr W. R. Gellatly, AFC, RAF (Ret), deputy chief test pilot since 1960. "Slim" Sear went to Westland after flying with the RAF and the Royal Navy and graduating from the ETPS, and has been responsible for development and production flight testing of all the com- pany's rotary-wing aircraft over the past 15 years. He played a prominent part in Mr W. H. Sear developing the all-weather anti-submarine helicopter to its present advanced stan- dard; was closely associated with the development of turbine types; and was responsible for flight development of the Westminster, Britain's biggest heli- copter, and more recently of the anti- submarine Wessex 3. He was made OBE in 1963 in recognition of his flight test work. Ron Gellatly, who succeeds him, was test flying for Fairey Aviation until that company was absorbed by Westland in 1960. THE SPEY FAMILY . . . . . . will be the subject of a special feature in Flight next week, November 16. The article on these important Rolls- Royce engines will include a highly detailed cutaway drawing of the Spey 25R, the powerplant for the British Phantom. Parliament An adjournment debate on hydrofoils and hovercraft in the Commons last Thursday showed that MPs are not above lubricating the facts with a little air when it suits them to do so. In this case Mr R. Gresham Cooke could scarcely bring himself to say a good word for British Rail as hovercraft operators. Seaspeed Services had carried 100,000 passengers across the Solent last year and lost £68,000. he said. Arithmetically correct, no doubt; but Mr Cooke omitted to mention that the accounts included a writing-off figure for the estimated cost of two terminals. Again, when he referred to the St Lawrence hovercraft service operated by Hoverwork (Canada) during Expo '67— not by Hovercraft Travel as Mr Cooke said—it was "the competition of British Railways at home that had induced the firm to pack up its promising Canadian venture and come back home." Not so; this was a seasonal operation and ended with the closure of Expo '67. When it came to purchasing the first sidewall hovercraft from Hovermarine. BR were again the villains of the piece, according to Mr Cooke. A "private enter- prise company which had put down a deposit for the first such craft had it snatched from under its nose by the superior purchasing power of British Rail." But in fact this was nothing more sinister than the first going to the first operator to put down a deposit. For such a supporter of private enter- prise, Mr Cooke was less than just when paying tribute to the development work done by Hovercraft Development and British Hovercraft Corporation, in not mentioning Britten-Norman's activity. Dr Jeremy Bray, Joint Parliamentary Secretary, Mintech, paid a well-deserved tribute, at the end of this half-hour debate, to Hovertravel—whose work in the Solent, he said, had been of tremen dous value to hovercraft. An immense amount of data had been collected by the company, and it had been given informa- tion contracts, "to make sure that the know-how that it has collected is fed back into the development programme.' On quite a different tack, the Lords on the same day heard Lord Beswick answer a question about BEA equipment. He had been asked by the Earl of Kinnoull how the Government expected BEA to remain "a fully commercial undertaking" when a decision on their passenger aircraft replacement had been blocked by the Government for over 18 months. There had been no unnecessary delay, said Lord Beswick; the BAC One-Eleven Series 500 would be in operation some time before the airbus was available, and the possi- bility of an American purchase had been ruled out.
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