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Aviation History
1969
1969 - 3038.PDF
Handley Page Halifax Avro Lancaster G/oster Meteor 8-S DEARLY !tl Ml IMtl Itl II . . . Flight this tribute to the Lancaster we must honour also the memory of Sir Roy Dobson, another man of heroic stature in British aeronautics whose death Flight has had to record since its Golden Jubilee; for it was he more than any one brought into being what Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris called the "greatest single factor in winning the Second World War." Soon after the war the designer, Roy Chadwick. sent Flight some figures concerning what he erroneously called in his covering letter 'the 10,0001b bomb version of the Lancaster.' The figures spoke for themselves: 'Weight, less fuel, oil and bomb. 36,4571b. Fuel (l,675gal), 12,0631b. Oil (120gal). 1,0801b. Bomb. 22,4001b.' Dobbie's Grand Slam. Gloster Meteor [March 5, 1943) Several of Flight's staff have personal associations with the Meteor. The editorial direc tor actually flew the Trent-Meteor, which was the very first turboprop aeroplane in the world, so someone must have taken a peep at his log book first. Mark Lambert flew the Prone- Pilot Meteor, though Mark was never one to need straighten ing out. John Yoxall and his lads even learned how to take pictures from Meteors. The present writer began to feel quite at home in the back of a Mk VII, until one Spud Murphy bore him aloft for a head-on attack on a bunch of B-29s and another artist propelled him round the German landscape look ing for AFVs on one jet. In fact, the Meteor only had two jets because it was reckoned in the early days that one would be too feeble for combat. The very first Meteor could only taxi on the thrust of its Rover-built W.2Bs, and the first of the type to fly, on the date given, was the fifth—DG206. When DG205 was tested at Bosoombe Down in March 1944 it was considered easy to fly, and quiet, in the absence of vibration and fumes. But after the first few degrees of movement the rudder quit work and the elevators were too heavy whereas the ailerons were too light. But things got better after that. de Havilland Mosquito de Havilland Comet Vickers Viscount Vickers Viscount (July 16, 1948) In the past fifteen or twenty years we have come to take the Viscount so much for granted- a natural-born winner—that its perilous birth is too easily forgotten, if indeed the circumstances have ever been fully appreciated. F. G. Swanborough summed up very neatly in his book Turbine-Engined Airliners: "For a time the Viscount appeared commercially unattractive and schemes were even studied for a version with piston engines. The first flight of the first prototype did little to help and Vickers abandoned construction of their own prototype whilst also slowing down work on the second. During 1948 project design work led to a proposal for an enlarged version, taking advantage of develop ment of the Dart to have 50 per cent more power than in the V630. With this additional power, Vickers were able to offer a Viscount with a larger fuselage and seats for forty passengers. Economically this was much more attractive to BEA and the airline prevailed upon the Ministry to order a prototype of the larger version. By placing a contract for the second V630 to be completed as a flying test bed for the Rolls-Royce Tay funds were freed for this new prototype." After that, one Viscount led to another. English Electric Canberra (May 13, 1949) The Canberra was Britain's first jet bomber, and it really had two birthdays —the second on July 20, 1953, when the first example built by the Glenn L. Martin Company for the United States Air Force was airborne at Baltimore. The manifold honours gained by this consummately designed aeroplane are, on this occasion, draped for the quiet man who brought it into being (W. E. W. Petter, died 1968). But we may honour, too, another man whose
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