October 26, 1959

October 26, 1959

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MISSILE ENGINEERING

Vandenberg Trains Usaf Missile Crews

By William S. Reed15 min

AIR TRANSPORT

Experience Breeds 707 Training Changes

By Glenn Garrison14 min

MANAGEMENT

Johnson Retires, Outlines Arpa Future

By Craig Lewis11 min

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6869
MISSILE ENGINEERING

Vandenberg Trains Usaf Missile Crews

Vandenberg AFB—Operational training for U.S. Air Force and Royal Air Force missile crews is being conducted on a round-the-clock basis with live firings of Atlas and Thor ballistic weapons from this West Coast Strategic Air Command base.

By William S. Reed15 min

4647
AIR TRANSPORT

Experience Breeds 707 Training Changes

New York—American Airlines, nearing the home stretch in its Boeing 707-120 transition program, has constantly modified its jet training techniques as more is learned about the airplane. The airline recently graduated its 110th captain from jet training, expects the total to reach about 130 early next year when the bulk of the 707-120 program will be completed.

By Glenn Garrison14 min

3031
MANAGEMENT

Johnson Retires, Outlines Arpa Future

Washington—Roy W. Johnson will leave his job as head of the Advanced Research Projects Agency before the end of the vear but expects ARPA to continue to exist in the pattern established under his direction. Leaving ARPA after 21 critical and controversial months in charge of the military space effort and advanced research, Johnson told AVIATION WEEK that his departure conforms with plans he laid down when he took the job.

By Craig Lewis11 min

9293
AERONAUTICAL ENGINEERING

Kaman Goes to Single Rotor for Hu2k-1

Bloomfield, Conn.—Single-rotor design of the turbine-powered HU2K-1, chosen for high speed and long range, marks a major break in Kaman Aircraft Corp.’s long-standing intermeshing rotor design tradition. Navy Bureau of Aeronautics had already committed $27 million to the HU2K-1 program before the first aircraft flew here late in June (AW July 6, p. 27).

By William F. Burke11 min

104105
AVIONICS

Speech Compression May Free Channels

Bedford AFB—Military need for increased communications capability has resulted in growing interest in a technique for increasing the number of available voice channels over both radio and wire circuits. Called speech compression, the technique has application also to commercial voice circuits.

By James A. Fusca10 min

5455
SPACE TECHNOLOGY

Down-firing Rockets Probe Re-entry

Langley Field, Va.—Unique method of making bodies re-enter the earth’s atmosphere at velocities up to the meteoric speed range—24,000 to 160,000 mph.—has been developed by National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The technique is now being used primarily to study the physics of re-entry in connection with ballistic missile warhead detection problems, but it can be extended to study re-entry of space ships from interplanetary flights at velocities well above missile re-entry speeds and for basic research on the interactions of the atmosphere with natural bodies such as meteors.

By Evert Clark9 min

132133
BUSINESS FLYING

Beech 65 Market Forecast at $150 Million

Wichita, Kan.—Six-place Beech 65 Queen Air represents culmination of a design exercise utilizing major components of the company’s smaller Model G-50 Twin-Bonanza to create a new class of business airplane with greatly improved capacity and negligible differences in performance using the identical powerplants.

By Erwin J. Bulban9 min

2829
SPACE TECHNOLOGY

Nasa Gains Army Missile Team, Saturn

ABMA research group, booster project transferred from military; Gen. Medaris, Johnson to retire.

By Evert Clark8 min

6465
SPACE TECHNOLOGY

Test Pilots Stress Man’s Space Role

Los Angeles—Federal Aviation Administrator E. R. Quesada told the Society of Experimental Test Pilots that “one reason for the high failure rate in our missile and space probes to date is the fact that we have not been able to put a pilot in them to nurse them along, and to compensate for their electromechanical idiosyncracies.”
3637
MANAGEMENT

Shakeup Looms for British Air Industry

By John Tunstall7 min

October 191959 November 21959