Aviation News - February 2016 UK

The article on Cargolux in the November issue

illustrated the signi cant advances made in the

airfreight business since Cargolux was formed,

relating not just to the aircraft but also to the

airports and to the freight handling facilities.

Some of the ways things used to be

are shown in the supplied photograph of

Cargolux CL-44 TF-LLJ taken in January

1974 from the rooftop viewing area of the

passenger terminal at Singapore Paya Lebar

Airport, which was the international airport of

Singapore until replaced by Changi in 1981.

One important feature that has been retained

by Cargolux is the ability to load outsize cargo –

originally via the swing-tail of the CL-44 and later

via the nose opening of the 747.

David Smith,

Leamington Hastings, Warwickshire

Lightning Visit

Having just read the January issue,

my interest was piqued by the article

‘Lightning Over Britain’ and in particular the

references to the Lightning F.2 and 2A. I

was stationed in the 1970s at the Central

Servicing and Development Establishment

(CSDE) RAF Swanton Morley as a tech

author maintaining the servicing schedules

for the aircraft of the RAF.

Our team, part of Schedule

Maintenance Squadron, had the Lightning

as part of our complement. We were

tasked with the rewriting of the F.2 and

F.2A schedule and as normal we would

spend some time on a station  nding

out what the engineers would want to be

included or altered.

Nos.19 and 92 Squadrons operated the

Lightning F.2 and F.2A at RAF Gütersloh

in West Germany, although at the time

its runway was being resurfaced and the

squadrons were detached to RAF Bruggen,

and that is where we caught up with them.

We spent a week ironing out any problems

they might have had and then returned to

Swanton Morley to deliver the goods. It

made a pleasant change to be ‘abroad’

instead of swanning around Britain.

Roger Edge,

Grantham

Blue Skies for the RAF

At last some good news for the RAF. The

recent Strategic Defence and Security

Review provided some much-needed cheer

following the savage cuts implemented in the

previous review of 2010.

The headline news was of course the

decision to acquire nine Boeing P-8A

Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft (MPA) to

 ll the gaping hole left by the scrapping of

the Nimrod MRA4. Recent incidents have

highlighted this embarrassing shortcoming

in the military’s capabilities as allied nations

have been called upon to provide MPAs to

help hunt for Russian submarines in UK

waters. You’d like to think that as an island

nation, our requirement for an MPA platform

would be obvious. At least steps have now

been taken to rectify this. The decision to opt

for the Poseidon came as little surprise to me.

With UK service personnel having already

gained experience on the platform, under the

Seedcorn initiative, it made the decision a

no-brainer in my mind.

Sentinel, which seems to have had the

axe hanging over it for years, lives to  ght

another day, earning a stay of execution

thanks to the invaluable service it has given

on recent operations while the decision to

retain 14 C-130Js to support special forces

is also sensible, given its smaller size

compared with the A400M making it more

suitable for such missions.

Rupert Barnes,

Royal Tunbridge Wells

http://www.aviation-news.co.uk 41

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Magic of Flight – Boeing 757-200 and

Military Helicopters – Military Aircraft

of the 20th Century.

LETTER

OF THE MONTH

Cargo Developments

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