Letter from Armstrong Siddeley Motors to SBAC: SBAC Show Lancastrian/Python

I have given the most careful consideration of the proposals of the Flying Control Committee that the Lancastrian fitted with the Pythons should be exhibited on the ground but should not be used in the flying display at Farnborough in September. In the first place, the Python engine has now completed 7,000 hour if development testing, either on the bench or in the air, and I feel that a well-tried unit of this description should not be statically exhibited amongst other possible cardboard exhibits. In the second place, to the best of my knowledge the Python is the most powerful turbo-prop, not only in this country, but in the whole world, and its compactness is well demonstrated in the Lancastrian on account of the other two engines fitted to this aircraft of much smaller powers. In the circumstances, I feel, therefore, it would be a grave mistake not only from Armstrong Siddeley's point of view, but from the British industry point of view not to show this particular aircraft with two Pythons, bearing in mind that the same type of engine is scheduled to be shown in the Westland Wyvern aircraft