• Jumbo coaches for Jumbo jets
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• British European Airways have placed an order with J. H. Sparshatt and Sons for a fleet of 10 articulated airside coaches With a capacity of 100 passengers. The contract follows work over more than a year with Sparshatts to design a vehicle to eliminate the bottleneck which occurs when large capacity aircraft up to Jumbo jet size are loading or unloading.
Intended for work at London (Heathrow) Airport, the tractive units will be Leyland Mastiff MS 2400 models fitted with the V510 eight-cylinder diesel engine and Allison fully automatic transmission. Production of the trailers is due to begin later this month and the first vehicles will be delivered in time for use in late summer.
Design of the Sparshatt Airside Coach, as it will be known, began with a 30-point list of new design requirements, prepared by the airline. Principal among these was ease of passenger loading. To achieve this the coach trailer has a very low ground clearance and only two shallow steps at entry points. Inside will be seating for 50 passengers—ranged round the side and inward facing for speedy occupation—and rails to control a "flow" system for all passengers.
On each side of the coach are full height sliding doors with a width of 5ft, pneumatically operated from the vehicle compressor • system. The doors can be controlled from the driver's cab or by a courier inside the coach. Located towards the rear are another pair of side entry doors of the jack-knife type, opening onto a completely flat well.
The bench type seats are grp modules, with detachable and interchangeable units of PVC-covered foam rubber for seats and backrests. Passenger environment, often neglected in view of the comparatively short time the people spend in airport coaches, has received special attention. A ducted system of heating and fresh air ventilation is fitted, plus such features as tinted glass, a carefully chosen colour scheme, daylight strip lighting and a public address system.
Overall length of the coaches will be 48ft, overall width 8ft and height I lft 6in.
Interior length of the trailer will be 39ft 6in.
and interior height 6ft 6in. The trailer body will have a steel frame panelled externally with aluminium and internally with a mixture of glass reinforced plastics and PVC-coated steel The body sides, roof and bulkheads will be insulated with expanded polystyrene.
Mr Gordon Sparshatt, Sparshatt's fleet sales director, said: "We feel there is going to be a great demand for these coaches."