CIVIL AVIATION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22344, 15 February 1936, Page 17

CIVIL AVIATION

ADVANCE IN ENGLAND

HESTON AIRPORT'S PROGRESS FIRST "BLIND LANDING" SYSTEM [from our own correspondent] LONDON. Jan. 18 Statistics of activity at Heston airport, near London, during 1935 provide clear evidence of the rapid advance of commercial aviation. Even in the British Isles, with their frequently cloudy skies on the one hand and excellent express railway services on the other, there is scope for the intensive use of aerial transportation. Once an adequate ground organisation serves the country the way will be clear for manifold increases of traffic over the best results yet achieved. Heston is the London headquarters of several of the home air transport companies. In some conditions of weather it is preferred to Croydon as a landing place by cross-Channel ailliners. Last year 33,962 aircraft ascents and landings were recorded during the controlled period between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. each day. Of these, 49 per cent were made by commercial aeroplanes. Southampton-Jersey Traffic

Passengers who passed through Heston in 1935 on the regular air lines numbered 17,903. Of this passenger total, 86G8 were carried between London and Jersey by Jersey Airways. This figure is in addition to the company's Southampton-Jersey traffic, which represents by far the largest proportion of its activities. Its Heston traffic alone shows a 24 per cent increase on the previous year. Effective radio communications and direction-finding are provided there. During the year installation was begun of a "blind landing" system which is designed eventually to make feasible the safe approach and landing of suit-ably-equipped aircraft even in the thickest fogs. The Heston system will bo the first of its kind in this country. Demands of "blind" landing are also reflected in extension of the landing area from 105 to 172 acres; work is in hand which will provide runways of from 1015 to 1315 yards in length in all directions. Biplanes Ordered Among important orders recently placed with the Heston sales department is one from British Airways—the new combine of several important "independent" air transport companies—for four of the 1936 model of the de Havilland D.H. 86 four-engined biplanes. The model chosen is that equipped with controllable-pitch airscrews and the Gipsv-Six Series 11. motor, which is rated to give higher continuous power output than the standard engine, thus enabling full advantage to be gained from the new airscrew. Continuous operational speed of the machines is 155/160 m.p.h. at a height of 7000 ft., and it carries a substantially heavier load than the original D.H. 86. Since it was opened in May last year, the airport sales organisation has disposed of fifty new and second-hand aeroplanes. It has orders in hand for a considerable number of new types of machine, all scheduled for delivery early this year.