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| After the Tu-104 General Nicolai Zakharov, Aeroflot’s deputy director, who has just been invited to London to discuss further the possibility of a B.E.A. service to Moscow in association with the Russian airline, told a reporter at a Kremlin reception recently about a new Russian jet airliner. It would, he said, be able to carry 180 passengers at 570 m.p.h. from Moscow to “any capital in the world.” Asked whether this included Moscow to Buenos Aires (8,750 miles) the general replied with a grin and a wave of his hand: “Anywhere – anywhere you like.” He said that when Mr. Kruschev told a British audience in April that a new Russian airliner would be able to carry 170 passengers, he had “lost ten passengers somewhere on the way.” Gen. Zakhorov added that the airliner would be a double-decker, with 30 sleeping berths on the upper deck, and a restaurant on the lower deck. It would have four engines and would be ready “soon.” Testing Complete The S.E.210 Caravelle completed its flight tests last month, less than a year after they began on May 28, 1955. A total of 400 hours were logged in the course of 173 flights. The prototype has now been handed over to Air France for proving flights and cargo operations prior to the introduction of regular Caravelle services next year in Europe and North Africa. The speed with which the Caravelle’s flight test programme was completed is attributed by S.N.C.A.S.E. partly to the extensive use of digital and analogue computers used in the reduction of flight-test results. Helicopter Fishing Described as the smallest in Russia, a new type of helicopter has recently been completed. The engine is said to be “no larger than that of the Pobeda car”; speed is given as 75 m.p.h. and ceiling as 7,500ft. Three gallons of petrol suffice for a range of 65 miles. It is said that the machine will be used for such tasks as “searching for fish and checking high-tension cables.”
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Source: Flight International
