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Aviation History
1989
1989 - 0096.PDF
STRAIGHT AND LEVEL The AN-124 has scored many other records. On July, 1985 it lifted 219 kg of commercial cargo to a height of 10,750 metres, beating the > Indian Hotelkeeper and Traveller, July 1988 YES, Northrop's B-2 Stealth bomber does look like some of the company's 1940s flying wings, but are we not seeing a truly new bit of styling? I refer to the jagged trailing edges of the wings, an ingenious resolution of directional control without a vertical fin and rudder, and a very distinctive bit of "pinking", as my tailor would call it. I predict that the B-2 will influence car design as much as the Sabre did in the Fifties, when every new American car sported swept tailfins. Will boy racers now demand cars looking as though they've been cut out with pinking shears? • Talking about boy racers, what's with all this "Turbo" pseudery? If it means they have a turbocharger, in which the exhaust drives a supercharger, which I doubt, Second World War B-17 Flying Fortresses was Turbo. So were the P-47 Thunder bolt and other American fight ers and bombers of that era. The British Merlin had a mechani cally driven supercharger. In fact I think turbochargers were tested by the Royal Aircraft Establishment in the 1914-1918 war, and may even have been in service. Never mind, Brian—buy yourself a genuine replica of a Second World War sheepskin DEFENCE CUTS WHAT do you reckon, Air Marshal? More defence cuts this year? —Certainly. Peace is break ing out everywhere. I've been told to manage without 20 squadrons next year. Which means fewer orders for you chaps in industry. Not Sopwith, surely? How could you? Just look at those beautiful Snipes! Where else could you buy such defence quality per shilling? —You'll have to make furniture. What about our technology capability? You can't defend the country with kitchen cupboards. —Tell your boss his name is already immortal. Sopwith Snipes and Avro 504s, RAF Pageant Hendon, July 1920. Sir Thomas Sop with is 101 on January 18. Yes, 1 know it's still too rich . Sorry, don't know WIHIHJ (RAF Armstrong Whitworth Siskin, c 1928. flying jacket and look like the pilot of a genuine Battle of Britain Turbo Spitfire. • Air UK is said to be working its 737s at a rate of 3,000hr each in the six months of summer. It isn't long since 3,000hr was par for the annual utilisation course. Now it seems that you must fly your aircraft (sorry, assets) 6,000hr a year to be considered an efficient utiliser of capital resources (yuck). At this rate utilisation will be 8,750hr by 1990. This will leave ten hours a year for refuelling, offloading the bar cash, and fog at Luton. PS—I was diverted to Birming ham the other week because of "fog at Luton". I discovered that, a quarter of a century after the world-leading Cat 3 Trident and VC10, Luton is still only Cat 1. Wasn't that par for the course in the 3,000hr utilisation era? • The use of airships to observe Warsaw Pact exercises, says Guy Hartcup of the Airship Association, would be "unprovocative and would reduce international tension". Because war is inimical to laughter, skies full of chubby Pickwickian airships could produce the laughter of ever lasting world peace. Thought for 1989. PS—Or you could just quote the cost of the B-2—$523 million each. Luggage in Advance by Angela Obvious I HOPE that the airlines, in responding to Lockerbie, will be as competent and profes sional as the rescue and acci dent investigation authorities have been. It hardly matters whether the bomb was embarked by terror ists or by common criminals. Airliners are vulnerable to all fanatics, criminals, and nutters, and the airlines must operate accordingly. I am always astonished at the amount of baggage checked in by passengers. I often wonder how necessary it all is, how carefully it will be scanned before the flight (if at all), and how easily someone could pervert the boarding-card cross check or airside security procedures. The airlines should now charge for baggage—a very high rate for "same flight", and a low rate for what we check in a week before as "luggage in advance", to go by some other flight or carrier, perhaps even by surface. So would we baffle the bomb ers, make time and money for the proper scanning of all baggage, enjoy express check- in, and use less runway. —... 1 ;*H Sp**-' "AND A HAPPY REST OF THE NEW YEAR TO YOU TOO". . . (Cessna 401, 1971J 38 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL, 14 January 1989
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