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Aviation History
1948
1948 - 1184.PDF
136 FLIGHT JULY 29.TH, 1948 Civil Aviation Policy Lord Pakenham's First Statement in th^ House of Lords MANY aspects of British civilaviation were touched upon in thedebate initiated in the House of Lords by Viscount Swinton on July 21st. Most important was, of course, the state- ment made by the new Minister of Civil Aviation, Lord Pakenham, on the pur- chase of aircraft. We have not the space to deal seriatim with the questions and answers, and will turn first to the Minister's welcome news that not only are the three Saunders-Roe SR 45 flying boats, now under construction, to be completed, but that if all goes well a further four will be ordered, thus giving British South American Airways a fleet of seven of these long-range boats for their South Atlantic service. Lord Pakenham stated that the first of these boats is likely -to fly experimentally (he stressed the^wofd) "in 1951. When the three boVts, go into service, about 1953. they should provide accornmod&tiofi far superior to any cjtoipetitive type,, and should make possibll1 a- 26-hour sepfice between the Unite*? Kingdom and Buenos Aires. On the subject of bases, Lord Paken- ham said the problem had been pro- visionally settled, and that the boats will normally operate from Southampton Water, making use of existing facilities and, when conditions make it necessary, will operate from the Solent, with the active co-operation of the R.A.F. at Calshot. (It may be recalled that in his Wilbur Wright Lecture, reported on June 3rd, Sir Arthur Gouge showed the relatively vast spaces available for large flying boats in that district.—Ed.). With the willing co-operation of the Ser- vice Ministries, the U.K. flying-boat base was likely to cost only a small pro- portion of what otherwise woukL .have been needed. ";'..-'.•-'• :— •''".•••'>- The IV a Good Aircraft Of the Tudor II Lord Pakenham said the Government was reluctantly but solidly convinced that it must be abandoned; that we must cut our losses on it; and that to persevere with it would simply be to throw good money after bad. The Tudor II was a disap- pointment, but the Tudor IV was a tried and proved aircraft. Three were already in service, and iG were being completed. The Government had approved a re- arrangement of B.S.A.A.'s fleets under which all 19 Tudor IVs would pass to B.S.A.A. The type would suit that cor- poration's routes and, they believed, would do exceedingly well. Lord Pakenham's explanations of the reasons for the decision to order Canadairs was somewhat lengthy. Twenty-two DC-4M-4S would be ordered. This was the latest and improved version of the Canadian North Star type, fully pressurized, air-conditioned and refrig- erated, and with a capacity for 40 pas- sengers. The machines would be operated on the main Empire air routes, fifteen to India and the Middle East and seven on the North Atlantic route to Canada. Fifteen would be available within twelve months and the remainder, shortly afterwards. Through the good offices of the Canadian Government, these Aircraft anoth.efc.they might reasonably look for- would not cost us dollars *wMch otherwise, ward to 24; of the Tudor Us being con- would have been ava'ilabj** to us for*1 -^verted for useful service. He stressed current spending in Canada. The neces^- the fact that*«ff&,ca]%erted Tudor Us to sary dollars would be found through me be rebuilt as Tun or IVs would be addi- tional to the 19 Tudor IVs complete or i li h illpostponement of certain obligations tothe Canadian Government for the re- demption of debt, thus enabling dollars that would have gone towards those obligations to be applied to the purchase of these aircraft. Thus there would be no immediate dollar outlay. It was estimated that the country would save at least ^5 million over five years by buying Canadairs. Carrying Capacity Examination of the possibility of con- verting Tudor Us into Tudor IVs had shown that this would impose a damag- ing financial handicap on the corpora- tions and an unacceptable burden on the taxpayers. One might argue about the relative attractiveness to passengers of the two types, but there could be no argument about the superior payload of the Canadair, carried without extra cost: 40 passengers against 32, or a 25 per cent higher earning capacity. In other words, the superiority of payload varied from 3,ooolb to 3,5001b according to distance. Lord Pakenham also stated another reason for the choice of the Canadair. The Tudor's two-wheel undercarriage did not allow it to be landed on some of the Empire airfields, whereas the tricycle undercarriage of the Canadair enabled the load to be spread over five wheels, thus reducing the concentrated loads on the runway. Turning to the question of the Tudor Us, Lord Pakenham said that 32, ordered for the corporations, were nearly com- plete. It was clearly important to pre- serve continuity of employment in the famous Avro works. At the same time, few would support a policy of simply making work, and he would imagine that the men themselves would be the last to welcome any such idea. He thought they had found a reasonable solution. Negotiations had been opened for the purchase of 21 Tudor IV pressurized freighters for B.O.A.C. and B.S.A.A. These would be converted from redund- ant Tudor Us. Pressurized freighting was an entirely new business '' of which your Lordships are not aware," and offered important prospects as a valuable addition to our air transport services. The development of a freighter with large doors and pressurization raised many technical problems and might take some time to work out. While this was being done, the Govern- ment had given instruction to proceed with the conversion of ten of the Tudor Us to Tudor IV freighters so that there would be no delay in the commencement of the work. (The Parliamentary Sec- retary to the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Mr. Lindgren, made the position a little clearer in the House of Commons by stating that the conversion of the ten was into unpressurized freighters.—Ed.). Lord Pakenham said the Ministry of Sup- ply wanted a number of Tudors for research purposes, so that in one way or Bearing completion. These wil be used on the main passenger routes of B.S.A.A. Lord Pakenham thought that the fact that B.S.A.A. intended to build up a unified fleet founded almost entirely on the Tudor IV showed that this aircraft was considered by them, and by M.C.A. and M.o.S., an excellent aircraft. The decision to buy Canadairs affected a single product, the Tudor II. It would be grossly misleading, therefore, to repre- sent the Canadair purchase as showing a lack of confidence in the Avro firm, let alone the aircraft industry as a whole. The prestige of the aircraft industry and of the Tudor IV were not in question. The fact that the orders he, had men- tioned, and those for the Hermes, the SR 45 and others, some ioo new aircraft in all, would amount to some £25,000,000 should be regarded as clear evidence that the Government recognized that the for- tunes of the British aircraft industry and the British airline operators were indis- solubly linked. Of the operations by the corporations Lord Pakenham said that it was hoped the chairman would be able to present reports and accounts by September 30th. In the meantime, indications were that the losses incurred will be in excess of the amount payable to them in subsidies. This year the subsidy drops to £8,000,000 and there would be the greatest difficulty in bringing the deficits down to that figure. He added that during the year I947-4&-B.E.A.C. deficit on direct opera- tion was only £24,000 on the European services, wh§re%s the total was about £rfaf>o,ooa. The fnajofity was lost on the internal services. During the current year he ho^edt to see a direct operating profit on the Eu^ipean se^^ces. - Other Views In the debate, little emerged that wasnew. The Minister of Civil Aviation tried, before telling Their Lordships somegrim truths, to sugar the pill by giving some figures of the increase in passenf er-miles flown and other traffic statistics. To this Lord Balfour of Inchrye retortedthat anyone can sell pound notes fol nineteen and sixpence. The Duke of Sutherland did notbelieve the expenditure of all those millions of dollars was necessary. Hethought the improved Tudor IVs could have been used on the Empire routes,and a few more Constellations ordered for the Atlantic route in addition to thosetaken over from the Irish Government. The Marquess of Willingdon put in aplea for the staff of the corporations to be given a chance. They saw boards ofdirectors, part-time directors, and, with possibly one exception among thetwenty-five or thirty directors, none had been promoted from service in thecorporations. Viscount Knollys thought the decisionto buy Canadairs was regrettable bot inevitable. He congratulated the Minister
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