MID-AIR REFUELLING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26540, 15 August 1947, Page 5

MID-AIR REFUELLING

PRACTICABILITY PROVED FRESH HOPE FOR CIVIL AVIATION N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent Rec. 8 p.m, LONDON, Aug. 14. The refuelling of aircraft in the air has reached a stage at which many technical authorities, hold that provided an airliner is designed to receive fuel from a “flying tanker” such a system would be of great benefit to British aviation, says the .aeronautical correspondent of The Times. He adds that it is claimed that the gains in pay-load would be larger than could be obtained from any other aeronautical practice. There is complete confidence in the refuelling flights made by British South American Airways on its South Atlantic route. After a series of proving trials over the North Atlantic by the 8.0.A.C. this autumn and winter it will be for the Minister of Civil aviation to decide whether the system can be introduced on some of the long-distance transoceanic British civil air routes. The correspondent was a passenger on the non-stop flight from London to Bermuda. He said that an hour before the aircraft was due to reach the position where it would meet the “flying tanker ” which had taken off from Santa Maria with seven tons of fuel, both aircraft switched on the homing equipment used by R.A.F. pilots during the war. When they were still 70 miles apart they were able to identify each other. “ Through the eyes of science our navigator was able to watch the approach of the tanker on the face of the cathode-ray tube long before it was in sight, and regardless of cloud,” says the correspondent. “ Soon the aircraft met and in 19 minutes 2000 gallons had been switched from the tanker, while the whole operation took possibly not more than 25 minutes. The performance was so smooth and unhurried that it might easily have passed unnoticed.” The correspondent comments that approval of the system, which has been so well tried, might bring prosperity to British civil aviation by enabling airliners that are in themselves uneconomic to pay thefr way in future.