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Aviation History
1981
1981 - 0127.PDF
Mumr INTERNATIONAL. Week ending 17 January, 1981 Number 3741 Volume 119 ISSN 0015-3710 Published in association with Aeroplane Monthly and Airports International by IPC Transport Press Ltd, Quadrant House, The Quadrant, Sutton, Surrey SM2 5AS, England. World's first and only complete aeronautical weekly £) Copyright IPC Business Press 1981 Founded 1909 Second-class postage paid at New York, NY, and additional entries. Editor J. M. Ramsden Defence Editor Graham Warwick BSc Defence editorial Mike Gaines Chief Sub-editor Philip Jarrett Sub-editor Graham Cowell Technical Editor David Velupillai BSc Technical editorial Richard Whitaker BSc Air Photography Tom Hamill Air Transport Editor Bron Rek BA Air Transport editorial David Learmount General Aviation Cliff Barnett, Ian Parker BSc News Ian Goold Art Editor Colin Paine Layout/Sub-editor Dennis Baldry Technical Artists Frank Munger, John Marsden Keeper of Records Chris Kjelgaard BSc Pictures Stephen Piercey US Publishing Consultant Warren H. Goodman, Spring Valley Road, Ossining, New York 10562. Telephone: (914) 941-0805. Publishing Director Martin Morgan Group Advertisement Manager David Holmes Advertisement Representative Michael Elmes Advertisement Production Howard Mason Overseas advertisement representatives: at back of this issue Telephone : 01-661 3320 (Advertisement Sales) 01-661 3267 (Advertisement Production) 01-661 3321 (Editorial) Telegram/Telex 892084 BISPRS G US Advertisement Sales Manager Herb Salazar, IPC Business Press, US Advertising Sales, 205 East 42nd Street, New York 10017. Telephone: (212) S67-208C. Telex: 238327. Subscriptions Manager A. Walden Telephone: England (0444) 59188 (UK and overseas subscrip tion rates can be found in this issue) International Business Press Associates E&S Member of the Audit Bureau of Circulation NEXT WEEK • On the eve of the official opening of the Trinational Tornado training establishment at RAF Cottesmore, marking the official service entry of this ambitious collaborative aircraft, Graham Warwick takes a pro spective iook at the programme. • We present our annual survey listing accidents to public-transport aircraft throughout 1980. Life of a SIR JAMES MARTIN, who died last week at 87, was one of the aviation immortals who gave their names and lives to companies which attained international stature. Many others put their technical or per sonal imprints on companies which became bigger than the 1,100-employee Martin - Baker — for example, Dassault, de Havil- land, Douglas, Dowty, Fokker, McDonnell, Messerschmitt, Nor throp and many other pioneer ing names. Some—like Sopwith —are still living; others fell out or saw their foundations absorbed into conglomerates. Martin-Baker, a synonym for military flight safety, has stayed small, personal, independent, and fast-reacting. Martin was regularly in his office until a few weeks ago; but he never out-stayed his authority, always teaching and trusting the young engineers. Founder of the Martin Air craft Co in 1929, later Martin- Baker (see page 120), he was an inventor of mechanical genius and simplicity. From his pioneer ing pencil came, just after the 1939-45 war, the first ejection- seat drawings. He had always been concerned about the sur vival of fighter pilots at ever- increasing combat speeds, and the 50,000 seats delivered by Martin-Baker since those daring days, and nearly 5,000 lives saved, are the measures of his technical and human achieve ment. Others may have made more ejection seats, but Martin-Baker has always been the one to beat for innovation and quality— evident in the latest "zero-zero" Mk 10 seats of the low-level 800kt Tornado, and in the pilot's life saved the other day by a 1954-production seat. Martin's office was full of gad gets and drawings which would become, say, automatic limb restraints, liferaft inflators, in clined-seat firing devices, and so on. It was also a shrine of thanks giving from air force pilots and squadrons. He particularly -saver treasured the letters he received from escapers and their families, reading them during his office sandwich lunches. His twin sons, both Martin-Baker engineers, re call that profit or loss never in fluenced his motivation to master a new life-saving challenge. He strongly believed that combat helicopters should have ejection seats: he had invented a retrofit for side-angled firing but main tained that ejectability would be better designed in from the start of a helicopter project. The Martin-Baker factory is no glass and aluminium palace, of the sort which neddies build for themselves. Approached along a country lane past bungalows, it invests in quality staff, technical facilities and products rather than in administrative preten tiousness. There has been no serious internal labour dispute for 28 years; all the directors are working directors; and the man agers, with one or two special exceptions, have been grown from within rather than im ported. The memorial service, at the RAF church of St Clement Dane's in London early in Feb ruary, will give thanks for the life of a softly spoken, dynamic Irishman whose name has be come synonymous with more than military flight safety, J.M.B. IN THIS ISSUE World News Air Transport Defence General Aviation Business Private Industry International Avionics Letters TOWARDS THE PLASTIC AERO- PLAN E-2 118 121 124 127 128 130 132 137 138 TURBINE AERO-ENGINES OF THE WORLD 141 Spaceflight 180 Front cover: This imposing Tom Hamill study of a Singapore Airlines A300 Airbus introduces our international gas-turbine directory, which beginson page141.
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