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48 | Flight International | 15-21 August 2017 flightglobal.com

Standard parts

The International Committee

to standardise the metal

parts of aircraft

held its first

meeting in New

York on August

8th. The work is expected to

reduce the thousands of

metal parts now made in

innumerable sizes to a few

standard shapes.

Rocket patent

An automatically

detachable turbine and

propeller

assembly that

would give

rocket projectiles

an initial boost of speed

until they reach the

substratosphere is the

subject of a United States

patent recently issued to Dr.

Robert H. Goddard, who

has conducted rocket

research for many years in

the desert near Roswell,

New Mexico.

Falling flaps

A section of the flaps of a

BOAC VC10 fell from the

aircraft while on

final approach to

Kennedy

International,

New York, on August 9. It

hit the roof of a house.

There were no injuries, and

the aircraft landed safely.

BA deal opposed

American Airlines and Delta

Air Lines have

urged the US

government to

block British

Airways’ acquisition of a

major stake in USAir, unless

it secures equal access to

the “protectionist” UK

market for US carriers.

The new Boris Island?

process for the Rolls-Royce

Trent 1000-TEN engine upgrade.

Knowing that online flight

tracking tools allow an aircraft’s

flightpath to be visible, the pilots

attracted much attention on social

media by selecting a route that

drew an outline of the Dreamliner,

including the type’s distinctive

raked winglets. The wingspan

stretched from the southern tip of

Texas to the Great Lakes.

These flightpath drawings are

clearly catching on, although

some take a slightly less

corporate approach. In New

Zealand, a pilot has just flown a

penis-shaped route to raise

awareness for testicular cancer.

Blogging off

On the subject of Boeing, what

has happened to Randy’s

Journal? Despite at times being

updated several times a month,

the blog from Boeing’s

marketing supremo has not

appeared since April, when

Randy Tinseth wrote about the

787-10’s first cross-country trek

to Boeing Field.

April marked 10 years from

when he took over blogging

duties from predecessor Randy

Baseler – who had launched the

journal two years earlier with,

rather fortuitously, exactly the

same name.

Is it 10 and out for Tinseth’s

tales from the marketing front

line? We hope not.

Long ship

Measurement muddles at the

BBC, which in an online story

(later corrected) about the sea

trials of the aircraft carrier HMS

Queen Elizabeth referred to its

length as “280m (9,000ft)”.

Sounds like it could be the

solution to the South-East’s

runway capacity conundrum.

V-signing

And finally, a plea from the

Vulcan to the Sky Trust, which –

despite the V-bomber’s second

life as star of air show flying

displays being finally over –

must raise funds to support the

upkeep of XH558. This includes

the building of a new hangar

and visitor centre.

The latest fundraising

initiative marks the imminent

10th anniversary of the last

Vulcan’s return to flight and will

enable supporters to have their

name inscribed for all time on

the wing of the aircraft.

See http://www.vulcantothesky.org

for details.

Not so little

Britten

“Uncle Roger must be having
palpitations,” exclaims Tony
Cowan, who writes in response
to Allan Winn’s assertion two
weeks ago that, with 445
examples manufactured, the
Vickers Viscount – a turboprop

• outsold the Avro RJ100/BAe

146. We in turn had earlier
     claimed the quadjet was the
     UK’s top-selling airliner.
     “Both are outnumbered by
     the de Havilland Dragon Rapide,
     731 built, and the later Dove,
     542 built,” asserts Cowan.
     “However, the daddy of them
     all”, with more built than the
     146 and Viscount put together,
     is the Britten-Norman BN-2.
     A total of 1,280 of the Isle of
     Wight’s most famous export
     have indeed rolled off the line.
     And with Bembridge this month
     announcing the delivery of its
     latest BN2B-20 variant to
     German airline FLN, the
     Islander has the honour of being
     the only in-production British
     commercial aircraft type.
     We stand corrected, although
     the Dragon, Dove and Islander
     are piston aircraft with few
     seats. Whether that disqualifies
     them as “airliners” is open to
     debate, but we ought to have
     made the distinction clearer.

Flightpath of

perfection

How’s this for product
placement? A Boeing crew has
traced the outline of a 787-8 in a
flightpath that stretched over
two-thirds of the continental
USA as part of the certification

Figure of -8

Flightstats

Peter Jolly/REX/Shutterstock

Norman conquest: the UK’s most successful airliner?

Associated Newspapers/REX/Shutterstock