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A.W.650/651 New information from Coventry about Armstrong Whitworth's promising new Freighter/Coach reveals that two distinct versions of the aircraft will be offered - a twin-engined short-fuselage design designated A.W.650 and an alternative four-Dart-powered version, with an extended fuselage, that will bear the type-number A.W.651. Both designs are of twin-boom layout, with pressurized fuselage and "full-width fore and aft axial doors," but an unpressurized fuselage of exceptional width can be provided for the car-ferry role. Traffic Control The Guild of Air Traffic Control Officers last week held its first convention. We reproduce here a synopsis of the technical committee's report, read by Mr K I Pearson, on the present "very sick" state of the air traffic control system in this country. The speaker said that, despite its youth, the Guild was rich in the experience of its members who, being mostly ex-aircrew, were not unaware of the problems as seen from the cockpit. The Guild had put forward its point of view in the hope of hastening "long overdue changes in procedure, and of spurring scientific effort along the road to providing the right equipment at the right places at the right time." Lives were at stake: not the lives of the planner or of the air traffic control officer, but the lives of people who put their trust in the controllers' abilities and methods. "We consider," said the speaker, "present-day air traffic control methods to be outdated, and incapable not only of handling existing traffic but, more serious still, incapable of being developed or extended." Javelins - and after Eric Greenwood, the company's technical sales manager, describes the Javelin order as the largest the British industry has on its books at the moment. The design office, he says, is improving the aircraft almost daily, as it did the Meteor. |
Source: Flight International
