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Aviation History
1969
1969 - 2467.PDF
FBJBffinr INTERNATIONAL incorporating AEROPLANE Founded in 1909. Official organ of the Royal Aero Club. First aeronautical weekly in the world. Published by lliffe Transport Publications Ltd, Dorset House, Stamford Street, London SE1. Telephone 01-928 3333 Telegrams/Telex: Flight lliffepres London 25137 © IPC Business Press Ltd 1969 Number 3150 Volume 96 Thursday 24 July 1969 Editor J. M. Ramsden Air transport editor H. A. Taylor Production editor Roy Casey Assistant editors Neil Harrison, CEng, AFRAeS Humphrey Wynn, BA Assistant technical editor Michael Wilson, BSc, CEng, FBIS, AFRAeS Editorial director Maurice A. Smith, DFC Managing director H. N. Priaulx, MBE IN THIS ISSUE The Moon Landing 112 World News 115 Air Transport 117 Private Flying 124 Rolls-Royce Continental O-240-A 125 Light Commercial and Business 129 Industry International 130 Taking an Aircraft into Partnership 131 Guide to the Cranfield Show 136 Letters 138 Rochester Racing 141 Army Aviation's New Role 143 Defence 148 Spaceflight 150 Straight and Level 152a Front Cover After logging over 1,000hr in five years on "Flight" assignments, this Beechcraft Baron has been re-registered in the name of the International Publishing Corporation for a still wider range of duties, including work for "Daily Mirror," "Autocar" and other IPC publications. Its growing utilisation indicates IPC's appre ciation of the value of business aviation— a theme underlined at the aviation show sponsored by "Flight" at Cranfield this week Man on the Moon The greatest scientific and technical task ever undertaken by Homo Sapiens reached its climax at 0256hr GMT last Monday when Neil Armstrong climbed out of his spacecraft to stand, for the first time, on another heavenly body. At a distance of a quarter of a million miles nationalities blurred and the astronauts became representatives of man's ingenuity and intellect. At the summit of a pyramid of 400,000 men and women of all disci plines in 20,000 industrial firms and centres of learning, labouring for eight years and absorbing an appreciable fraction of the resources of the world's richest nation, the three men were seen, on their journey to the Moon, by hundreds of millions of television viewers. As we watched our screens from the comfort of our armchairs, the moment approached. The first astro naut climbed down the ladder, paused, and stepped on to the Moon. In this supreme moment was man's historic dream fulfilled. Even then we were aware of how crude these first attempts are, dimly perceiving the future in a way which was not possible to an observer at Kitty Hawk 66 years ago, even to a reader of Jules Verne. The voyage had all the ingredients of a good adventure story: the domestic separation, the countdown, the moment of tension as the 3,000-ton rocket climbed into the Florida sky. And could there have been a better hero? Neil Armstrong, dedicated to aviation from the earliest age, pro gressing from model aircraft to combat over Korea, later to fly the glamorous X-15, the world's fastest aircraft. An outstanding man to spearhead the greatest enterprise of all time. A quickening interest was provided by the Russian dark-horse Luna 15 which, it was widely predicted, was to perform an unmanned landing and return with the first sample of Moon soil. To Dr Wernher.von Braun the flight of Apollo 11 is the summit of a life time's work in the development of rockets. The expertise of this German engineer was only too evident to Londoners 25 years ago. Since the war von Braun struggled to get his schemes for giant rockets accepted, often in the face of indifference and US Service rivalry. But he won through; the Saturn V rocket, possibly the largest which America will ever build, is a tribute to his skill and tenacity. General Samuel Phillips, as Apollo Programme Director, had the fre quently unenviable task of steering this expensive (and hence controversial) project. In such an ambitious pro ject, initiated at a time when only one American manned flight (sub orbital at that) had taken place, there would have been every excuse, in the face of tremendous technical difficul ties, for a slippage in the programme. Early in 1967 the disastrous fire which killed three astronauts caused a 19- month delay. The critics were voci ferous; even NASA doubted that a manned landing on the Moon would be possible by 1970. But Gen Philips trampled down all the difficulties and got the programme back on schedule. Finally a tribute to the man whose vision Apollo was: President John F. Kennedy. His oration to Congress on May 25, 1961, not minimising the diffi culties but emphasising the challenge, inspired the American people in the most expensive and difficult task ever undertaken. One other toast is due—to aviation. This greatest achievement of the human species is an aviation achievement. When we talk about Man's awesome technological progress we are nearly always talking about aviation. The defiance of gravity, and the high intellect and physical skill and courage always in volved in pioneering better ways of defying it, have produced an industry which in all its forms—civil aviation, defence and space—is now the world's biggest in terms of annual value. The personal disciplines involved were those of aviation too. Man's first words on the Moon's surface were from the technical check list which, in principle if not in content, even the humblest light-aircraft pilot shares with Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins. To these three exceptional pilots "Flight" offers its congratulations and good wishes for a safe return today to the old familiar gravity of which their historic flight has been the ultimate defiance. A
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