STRAIGHT&LEVEL
38 | Flight International | 3-9 March 2020 flightglobal.com
Flight to the Cape
Of the four machines which
were flying on the Cairo-
Cape route last
week, disaster
overtook three,
and at the time
of writing (Wednesday), the
Silver Queen II, the South
African Government’s
Vickers Vimy, is the only one
left in the running.In Burma
Some day the story of air
supply in Burma will be told
in full. The Allied
armies in that
country have
now advanced so
far that the only possible way
of keeping them supplied is
by air. The work of the
Dakotas is remarkable, and
lately we have heard
something of the work of the
little Stinson Sentinel.Mission to Mars
On September 15 last year
President Nixon’s space task
group presented
recommen-
dations for
America’s long-
term space programmes, of
which by far the most
ambitious is a proposal for a
manned expedition to
Mars. In many ways, this
would follow the techniques
laid down by Apollo.Stealthy Germans
Daimler-Benz Aerospace
(DASA) has revealed details
of a previously
top-secret
Stealth aircraft
research
programme conducted in
Germany during the 1980s.
The programme, known as
Lampyridae (Firefly) or
Medium Range Missile
Fighter (MRMF) led to the
development of a three-
quarter scale piloted
windtunnel model of a multi-
faceted Stealth fighter.From yuckspeak to tales of yore, send your offcuts to [email protected]
AviationtagAviationtagAlcock and
Brown return
Their statue has travelled almost
as far over the decades as the
intrepid aviators themselves,
but Alcock and Brown have
now landed for good at the
Brooklands Museum in Surrey,
where the aircraft that carried
them across the Atlantic Ocean
was built.
A year after the centenary of
their nonstop flight, the
sculpture was unveiled by
Prince Michael of Kent, royal
patron of the museum, in front
of an audience of local
dignitaries and family,
including the niece and nephew
of Sir John Alcock.
Originally situated in the old
north side terminal at Heathrow
airport, it was moved to the
central area, then the now-
defunct visitors’ centre, and
finally the Heathrow academy.
Last year, it went to the west of
Ireland to mark the centenary.
Captain Alcock and
Lieutenant Arthur Whitten
Brown landed near Clifden,
County Galway on 15 June 1919,
after taking off from
Newfoundland, Canada. They
were flying a Vickers Vimy
biplane, assembled at
Brooklands.
The limestone statue was
commissioned by the UK
government and sculpted by
artist William McMillen. It was
unveiled at Heathrow in 1954,
around which time it featured
Some 7,000 such items from
MSN003 (9V-SKA) – first flown
from Toulouse on 7 May 2006,
delivered to Singapore on 12
October 2007 and retired in
October 2017 – sold out within
48h, says the company, which is
now taking pre-orders for tags
made from MSN005 (9V-SKB).
Yours for a mere €27.95 ($30).Current affairs
Following our story on the 24h
news service that reported on
the British Airways 747
breaking the transatlantic
crossing record by flying at
supersonic speeds of 80mph, we
discover that one of the UK’s
serious newspapers also got a bit
muddled. The same aircraft, it
stated, had shortened its journey
so dramatically by exploiting
the “Gulfstream”. Must have
been flying very low indeed.on the front cover of Flight. It
features the pilots in their
aviator clothes, complete with
caps and goggles, weighs 1t and
is 3.3m (11ft) high.Black and white
Overheard on a recent short-haul
service to the south of France, a
conversation between flight
attendants during the drinks
service which suggests that the
unhealthy obsession with identity
politics is capable of spilling over
into the most trivial areas.
“I was asked for a black tea
with milk,” said a confused
member of the cabin crew to his
colleague. “That’s just a white
tea, isn’t it? Isn’t it?”Piece of history
Fancy owning a bit of an airline-
operated Airbus A380? A
German company is using
recycled fuselage parts from ex-
Singapore Airlines superjumbos
to make collectable identity tags
made from their outer skins. The
aircraft have been broken for
spares by Tarmac Aerosave in
Tarbes, France.
“Each of the limited edition tags
sports the aircraft type, registration
number, edition number and size,”
says Aviationtag.Something to remember me by?