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Aviation History
1969
1969 - 0084.PDF
68 LETTERS piece of paper, and not the excuse for an orgy of dismantling. The philosophy of "on-condition" maintenance has been accepted for Concorde after the major operators have demanded a highly cost-effective approach to air worthiness engineering during the last ten years or so of new-generation airline aircraft; and we are gaining hope that on-condition philosophies may be extended to light aircraft, whereby they will sensibly be left intact unless very good engineering evidence can be shown for dismantling. Undoubtedly those with short commercial sight who have a vested interest in the maintenance business will do their best to sabotage this automotive approach to aircraft maintenance, whereas those who also market new aircraft will undoubtedly appreciate the marketing merits of a low-operating-cost product, and may even be so bold as to offer a fixed-price check system and a book of maintenance vouchers, as the motor trade have done for years. Those of us who still can find the time and energy to crusade through the jungle of UK airworthiness procedures have recently put their case to the Minister of State, Board of Trade, Mr W. T. Rodgers, MP, and the Director-General of Safety and Operations and his colleagues, through the medium of the Standing Private and Club Flying Committee. We now hopefully enter 1969 looking for the prospects of Britain's image in the field of light aircraft airworthiness and maintenance being updated with a view to minimising the escalation in operating costs and maximising airworthiness. In the meantime, I hope Dr Macpherson will enjoy some flying and check the airworthiness of his aircraft and equipment as often as possible in flight. If he applies his stethoscope to his gyro instruments, and if their guts don't "rumble" on run-down, he refuses to have them removed for overhaul, he will thereby take his first epic step into "on<ondition" maintenance for light aircraft. Hopefully, others will follow! Ryde, Isle of Wight DICK STRATTON Private pilot and aeronautical engineer) First Powered Flight? SIR,—Mr Charles H. Gibbs-Smith's approach to early powered flight is that of an aeronautical Alf Garnett, a lovable loudmouth, delivering bigoted judgments at the top of his voice and shouting down the opposition. His act used to be entertaining, but he will, I know, be grateful to have the warning that it is now becoming a nuisance. Denigrating the dead is not, on the whole, an amiable activity. Mr Gibbs-Smith's friends would be happier if he would stop calling Ader, the Wrights, Cody and A. V. Roe liars* Ader's claim to have flown, he end lessly repeats, was untrue; the Wright's statement of distance flown in 1903 was far different from the "true distance"; Cody's and Roe's first-flight claims were false. Such digs at the illustrious dead could be overlooked were their promulgation not subsidised by the taxpayer. The Science Museum, which in the days of the great Bernard Davy, was scientifically objective in outlook, sponsors Mr Gibbs-Smith's outpourings. It also defends him against criticism. I personally once sought to answer a reference to myself. Sir David Follett wrote to me: "I am unable to suggest any means whereby you could reply." Seaview, OLIVER STEWART Isle of Wight SIR,—I read with interest Round 2 (or is it Round 3?) of the Gibbs-Smith v Penrose contest. I wonder if I may be permitted to make an obser vation. I believe that Mr Gibbs-Smith, after unfeignedly sifting all of the facts at his disposal, was forced to FLIGHT International, 9 January 1969 come to the opinion that he holds now. Should he form another, acting on pure guesswork or hearsay, he would in his position be guilty of a grave misrepre sentation. I also believe that Mr Gibbs-Smith is an honest man; and when he, M Mensier and M Dollfus are all convinced and satisfied that M Ader did not fly a sufficient distance to maintain a powered flight, on the evidence presented it must be so. However, should Mr Penrose have some new information to substantiate his latest claims let him publish, and we will all be spared a lot of boredom. Until such time could I venture to suggest that Mr Penrose refrain from this continual deprecation of Mr Gibbs-Smith? Chigwell, Essex R. I. WALDIE SIR,—Like many of your readers, I have been following the exchange of letters between Mr Gibbs-Smith and Mr Penrose as to who made the first powered flight. While no one would deny that the honour—if that be the correct word—must go to the Wright brothers for making the first sustained controlled flight in a powered flying machine, I feel that Ader should not go unrecognised. In 1893, the year before Maxim, Ader flew 500yd in his steam-driven monoplane. It was not until the Salon of 1908 that Ader and his monoplane were remem bered. Ader was indeed the victim of a conspiracy and his success was deliberately suppressed. He was treated with disdain. He burnt all the drawings of his machine and he would have burned even the machine itself had not a friend appealed to his sense of patriotism. It is well known that the whole of the facts became public property, and at least France did not hesitate to render tribute to Ader and his achievement. Your readers might be interested to know that leaving the ground—which was, of course, Ader's primary object—so took him by surprise, revealing familiar objects in an entirely new aspect, that he nearly lost his senses. In view of this fact, it seems possible that the cause of his coming to grief on this flight was not due to aerodynamic faults in his aeronef, but to pilot error. If this be so, then it must have been the first accident to be attributed to pilot error. Lowfield Heath, c. R. BARNBY Sussex Eagle Euphoria? SIR,—I trust this letter will not be too late to qualify for your "Top hundred letters on why Eagle failed" award. Mr Ashwin (December 5) took to task the manage ment, Mr Clarke (December 19) the chairman. May I draw your attention to the part played in our eventual collapse by your own periodical? If you killed us, it was by kindness: Flight has, over the years, greeted each fresh manifestation of indecision by Eagle's management with almost fanatical appre ciation. Adjectives like "dynamic," "aggressive" and "forward-thinking" poured liberally from your pages, and there must have been many of us in Eagle who wondered whether there was another rose-tinted Eagle, somewhere beyond the stars, to which the Flight articles referred. All our activities, whether ill-advised or not, you greeted with enthusiasm. So excited did you become in 1962 when the first Boeing arrived that Uncle Roger said: "When every other airline has gone out of business or merged with Pan American, Cunard-Eagle will still be quietly going about its business." The trouble was that your mood of euphoria was catching. There was a great deal about Eagle that was good, but your blanket approval must have generated complacency: possibly this accounts in some way for the failure to up-date the management structure. It seems that you have chosen Caledonian as our
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