JETLINERS OF 1965

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28938, 4 July 1959, Page 10

JETLINERS OF 1965

No Windows; Television For Travellers [From JACK PERCIVAL, in Los Angeles] '■pHE 2200 m.p.h. supersonic jet transports A scheduled for 1965 will not only beat the clock and sun around the world, but the passengers inside the windowlegs planes will have television sets by tWzNtt*'. . \ The shape of things to ®me were <*- lined here this week by British and American experts attending a symposium on Supersonic aircraft at the national summer meeting of the Institute of Aeronautical sciences. Speakers on this subject were Mr H. L. Hibbard, a senior vice-president of Lockheed, Mr R. A. Bailey, chief engineer of Bristol Siddeley Engines, Britain, and Major-General J. W. Sessums, Jr., of the United States Air Force.

Major-General Sessums said that the use of external windows in supersonic transports travelling at speeds three times that of sound would only add unnecessary weight. He forecast a complete system of television inside the plane to check on how engines, wings and other parts of the aircraft were being handled.

Most passengers would be more entertained by conventional television programmes picked up from the ground than they would be by looking at the earth from altitudes of 60,000 feet, the ideal cruising height for supersonic jet-airliners, he said. Dr. R. Jamieson, Bristol Siddeley’s chief engineer, also attended the meeting and told the scientists and aircraft constructors that tomorrow’s supersonic, passenger-carrying aircraft will combine turbo-jet engines with ram-jet engines. He said that this combination of eight or more power-plants will be nested in a delta-shaped transport made of heat-resistant steel. The aviation industry calls ram-jet engines “flying stovepipes” because of their simple construction. At present they are being used to power Britain’s Bristol Bloodhound ground-to-air missile.

The speakers said that passengers in the cabins of the supersonic airliners will be just as comfortable as in today’s planes, even though the exterior temperature may climb to 600 degrees Fahrenheit, caused by atmospheric friction. They told delegates that the faster-than-sound passenger planes will be delta-shaped with the wings near the tails.

Mr Bailey said that his idea of a supersonic transport is one that will take-off with normal

turbo-jet engines from today’s airports, climbing to cruising altitude using that power.

At 25,000 feet the pilot will switch over to the ram-jet engines which will gradually build up to a speed triple .that of sound, which will be built ol stainless steel and titanium.

The new planes, which could be available in 1965, could fly from London to New York in 98 minutes and from London to Sydney in about six hours. Following these predictions, the “Wall Street Journal,” in a frontpage article, said that the ram-jet engine may replace the turbo-jet. “If these devices click in practice, and no less a firm than General Electric Company is hard at work on ‘variable engine geometry,’ the ram-jet stands an excellent chance of becoming the prime factor for the muchdiscussed 2200 m.p.h. jet transport of the 1970’5,” the paper said. “To accomplish this, the ram-jet will have to shoulder aside its better-known relative, the turbojet engine, which powers the Eoeing 707, the Douglas DC-8 and other jet airliners just now coming into use. An improved ramjet also might muscle in on additional military missions,” the “Wall Street Journal” added. The ram-jet, which has primarily been developed in Britain, is a tube with a sharpnosed cone sticking out forward. It can only function at high speeds, and when it reaches these, great gulps of air are rammed into the tube around the cone, mixed with fuel in a combustion chamber, bui.ied and expelled as hot gases out the exhaust pipe or nozzle.

The plane or missile it is powering is propelled forward in accordance with Newton’s third law of motion: to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

In a paper presented to the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences.