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Aviation History
1986
1986 - 0241.PDF
STRAIGHT AND LEVEL New Products • Thinx Avionics of Potters Bar International Airport has developed a Neddy Voice Recorder for accurate post- Cabinet row replay of exactly what was said by the Minister of Planes and his officials. Designed to be fitted to a crash-resistant area of the most powerful aerospace managing director, the NVR is an orange-coloured black box which can stand repeated ministerial resignations in atmospheres of extreme un pleasantness. A special version, the Facial Expression and Shoulder Shrug Elbow Nudge-Nudge Recorder, will soon be avail able to aerospace analysts who are still wondering why British Aeroscrape wants an ailing helicopter company so much that it is prepared to fall out with its favourite neddies FUNNY HATS over it. A special non-volatile memory is available to indi cate why BAe didn't help Westland when asked by the British Government to do so a year ago (correction: not quite very nearly asked). • From Mail on Sunday Magazine: "Dick Rutan, tall, wiry with an easy smile, flew more than three hundred combat missions in Vietnam—he was a 'wild weasel' flyer going in to take the flak for the bombers. At 46, the retired Air Force Lieu tenant Colonel—his missions stopped when he was shot down—still wants adventure: 'I've always been interested in setting records. I don't mean breaking records. Setting records. Nobody remembers the second guy who flew across the Atlantic—everybody remem bers Lindbergh'". DID the Prime Minister see that memo before or after lunch on the critical date? ANSWER! Did she use the word "the" instead of "a"? ANSWER! Nobody is certain, though we should know more tonight, after lunch, reports our political editor, Colin Hearsay. Our Funny Hats correspondent writes: Why will politicians never learn that aviation is the most difficult activity known to man? Nobody ever heard of Duncan Sandys after he said "no more manned fighters". Nobody ever heard of Peter Thorneycroft after he cancelled Blue Streak. Nobody ever heard of Julian Amery after he launched Concorde. Neither Healey nor Jenkins made it to Prime Minister after cancelling TSR.2 and buying and cancel ling the F-111K (though I forgive Mr Healey everything for saying "I would rather people wondered why I wasn't Prime Minister than why I was"). Nobody ever heard of Mr Heath after he let Rolls- Royce go bust and then nationalised it. And all the rest. What are they doing now? Advising their grandchildren never to speak to aviation people. With respect, Minister, the airlines think you are pushing deregulation too far. .. (British civil aviation minister Michael Spicer checks on Heathrow security measures) Lindbergh was the third, after Alcock and Brown. Or 32nd if you count the R.34 airship crew. All British. Sorry, European. • Capt Charles Simpson, vp operations Air Canada, on North Atlantic 767 oper ations: "In 1919 John Alcock and Arthur Brown in their Vickers Vimy operated across the North Atlantic in a twin- engined aircraft with a two- man crew. The icing was so bad that Arthur had to step [out of the cockpit] to chip it off. They drank brandy all the time to keep warm, and they landed in a non-CAA- approved Irish bog". • The British will soon roll out their new fighter. The French have rolled out their new fighter. The British EAP is a single-seat twin-engined fly-by-wire canard carbon delta due to fly in the early summer. The French Rafale is ditto ditto, also due to fly in ditto ditto. Leave space here for stat utory platitudes about Euro pean co-operation, the latest definition of which is that you can have a 2 per cent share of Hermes. What would old Handley Page have said? "Fun, mon cher chap, but not nearly such fun as DIY." • With what adequate words can one describe an aeroplane with two 100 h.p. piston engines, a fuel tankage of 1,500 US gal, wings which flex 35ft at the tips, and a crew of two—a lady and a gentleman—who intend to fly round the world unrefuelled non-stop in 12 days? After 30 flights and nearly 100 hours of testing, Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager pronounce their Voyager "mission adequate". Hellow Rollo, did you get that? Perfect for when the Scruggs Wonderbudgie is discovered to be incapable of flying round the RAF Potters Bar circuit. Bon voyage, Voyager. I'm sure you'll prove more than mission-adequate for the ulti mate world record. ft Sir George Edwards turned up to the launch of Concorde pilot Chris Orlebar's new book.* It was Sir George who took the British technical responsibility for Concorde. "The worst strike against Concorde," he told me, "was when the Americans cancelled their project, and itinerant ministers here said we would fail. The Americans cancelled because they didn't know how to do it." *The Concorde Story, Newnes, London £7 • 95 (01-891 5911) Reading Evening Post, October 24, 1985 1A BRITISH glider plane missing after taking off from Luxor Airpoit i» upper Egvtit landed safely 30 horns later at Port Sudan airport, I Cairo airport control tower I I officials said last night. FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL, 25 January 1986 55
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