From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).
Letter from International Aviation Associates discussing the future availability and adoption of safety fuel for aviation.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 151\1\ scan0110 | |
| Date | 5th June 1940 | |
| 1282 INTERNATIONAL AVIATION ASSOCIATES W.W.WHITE STANLEY LEIGH ARTILLERY HOUSE ARTILLERY ROW LONDON, S.W.1. TELEPHONE: ABBEY 4882 (5 LINES) CABLES: INTAVA LONDON. 5th June, 1940. File 10.16. YOUR REF. Rm. {William Robotham - Chief Engineer} B/ML. W.A.Robotham, Esq., Rolls-Royce Ltd., Derby. Dear Sir, Safety Fuel. ----------- With reference to your enquiry concerning the future availability of safety fuel, this is a question to which, we regret, it is extremely difficult to give a reliable answer at the present time and under the present conditions. Actually the availability of a special fuel of this kind will of course largely depend on the demand. It has certainly been the custom of the petroleum industry in the past to distribute and render widely available any products demanded by any sufficiently large number of its customers. So far as safety fuel is concerned there is of course no distribution yet of this product, and in fact it is only being produced at one or two points in the United States at the present time. A small supply for experimental purposes is now being shipped to this country. We believe the question of future availability will largely depend on whether safety fuel is adopted to any appreciable extent by civil airlines, and possibly for training aircraft. Present indications show that considerable interest is being shown in such quarters, and if we were asked to hazard a guess, we would say that there is every possibility of a limited but regular use of aviation safety fuel developing within the next two or three years. A factor which may of course retard its adoption to some extent is the apparent necessity for the use of direct injection which has so far not been applied to production models of British or American aero engines. So far as seagoing craft are concerned, in view of the extremely limited demand which we believe would exist by comparison with that for petrol and diesel oil, we do not think the prospects of widespread distribution of safety fuel at numerous points around the coast can be considered at all favourable for at least a good many years to come. On the other hand, once some demand for safety fuel had arisen stocks would undoubtedly be held at the main storage installations of the principal oil companies. To take this country as an example it might be said that stocks would be available at points such as Purfleet, Southampton, Avonmouth, Liverpool, etc. | ||