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Aviation History
1938
1938 - 1175.PDF
FLIGHT. APRIL 28, 1938. Some Pertinent Reflections on the New Situation Created by the Cadman Committee's Report : British Airliners of the Near Future " A Government order for a transatlantic mail carrier, placed in 1936, provided a small part of the immense development cost of the Albatross." " Flight " photograph. SUBSIDISINC-on RIGHT LINES thW HAT effect is the Cadman Committee's Report likely to have upon the types of aircraft required for British airlines? What will be the trend in - the Dominion and Colonial markets? Are we really going to see a wholesale change-over to high-speed liners? How long will it be before our manufacturers can supply such aircraft in numbers? And, after all, is another million or two of subsidy going to make such a difference to the type of airliner generally needed? Will there still be a market for the slower vehicles? All these questions are puzzling many of us to-day, many who realise that we must still regard ourselves— in 1938—as early pioneers in air transport. Let us take stock. From the Hambling Committee of 1923 to, shall we say, the British Government's announce- ment of the all-up Empire mail scheme late in 1934, the declared policy was to reduce and eliminate airline sub- sidies. Like the disarmament policy, it would have been all very well if the other countries had done likewise, and we should have found ourselves in a leading position. But they did not do likewise. While foreign manufacturers were able to advance to the production of fast monoplane liners, our own manu- facturers were obliged to build the kind of commercial aircraft which could be operated without subsidy or at least with the minimum of artificial financial aid. Everybody knows that and everybody realises that 1934 (already four years behind us) was a year of lost oppor- tunity. Early in that year we watched the first signifi- cant purchases of American high-performance liners by European operators. Early in that year the Society of British Aircraft Constructors expressed concern to the Government and advocated a more aggressive policy of airline development to give British constructors a chance to develop liners of internationally competitive types. The present situation was discerned by British con- structors several years ago, but at no stage had they any opportunity to foiestall it. The design and development of a high-speed liner is a costly undertaking. It could not be entered upon without an assurance of selling a reason- able number, and no operator within the entire Empire was in the position to take a single high-speed vehicle in those days. Operators knew that so soon as they could count upon intense traffic, fast aircraft would pay for themselves, at least on the longer stages, and they knew that if they could put on the fast liners it would encourage the traffic, h those holding the purse-strings of the capital invested in operation wanted, and wisely, to advance to the"payability" stage without suffering three or four inter- vening years of heavy loss. They recognised that the effect of subsidies, guaranteed mail loads, help of any kind, would be to accelerate the approach to the "payability" stage. It was doing so in the United States—though in that country the oper- ating circumstances were almost ideal, and the "help" was liberal. With help on a much less lavish scale the approach could have been accelerated in the Empire. From the manufacturers' point of view the effect of help to operators would be to give them not only an in- creased market within the Empire, but opportunity to sell aircraft in foreign countries where the subsidy policy had long held sway. To avoid an impasse, someone had to provide the help, and it was more than any private enterprise, in either manufacture or operation, could possibly contemplate. Educating the Operator British manufacturers gradually educated the Empire's unsubsidised operators through the stages of twin-engined '' economy types " up to the four-engined liners of the same formula, but were not able to lead them uninter- ruptedly to the next logical step. Countries like Australia developed their services on lines which called for these economical craft, and, as they had no manufacturing industry of their own to worry out the future prospects, did not envisage the formula of faster types until America presented it to them as a fait accompli, when they at once discovered that it suited the requirements of their more important lines—lines in which the big financial interests were at last beginning to show a willingness to participate because the stage of "payability" was almost within sight. The seeds of trouble were sown from 1923 to 1934, an(i the harvest has been gathered since 1934. Now some additional subsidy is promised. Help comes at the time when the British manufacturing industry is beginning to regard the building of fast liners in one or two sizes as a fair risk ; help makes the risk fairer. A Government order for a transatlantic mail carrier, placed in 1936, provided a small part of the immense develop- ment cost of the Albatross, sufficient, at any rate, to make its production a possibility. As a long-range mail carrier or luxurious passenger liner this aircraft promises to show highly competitive figures of speed, economy, and range. But one swallow does not make a summer, and one
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