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Aviation History
1948
1948 - 2169.PDF
DECEMBER 23RD, 1948 FLIGHT 739 The Future of Air Transport Some New Thoughts on Airline Operation : "Environmentalism " as a World Force : Annual Average Speed the Criterion of Efficiency : Reduced Performance as a Function of Development Delay QWINGto the very full programme of lectures sponsored by the Royal Aeronautical Society during this winter, it has been found impossible to include a paper of outstanding interest. This was to • . . have been read by a very well known figure in airline and aircraft design circles. Because of its , - • manifestly great tmportancs - Flight " has secured the copyright of this paper, the author of which .:....,:•;.- prefers, for the monism, to remain anonymous. We feel that no airline operator or aircraft designer • •-,. r, - -can afforl to ignore the lessons implied in this masterly summary of the present and future trends "•'-, > ' •'r'r;t.-..:-.yr~:.....-y •.,.'-.'-. in world air transport. . >. ?••.•.-:•";•;. IT has become a truism among students of humandevelopment to say that man is the product of his- environment. Would it not be equally true to say that . - the machines he has invented are also the product of their f own environment? Thus it may be said that aircraft— • developed and operated, as they are, by and amongst ; people with a special passion for academically scientific, performances of all kinds—have become the creatures oi the laboratory, of the designer's private drawing office and of the aerodynamicist's attic. The design of aircraft—and I am speaking primarily of civil aircraft, since military aircraft remain a law unto themselves—has never been so much a means of producing a suitable system of transport as one of personal gratification and pride for a relatively small group of enthusiasts. "Environmentalism," as I describe my new theory of aircraft development, has been based on a vast edifice of statistical evidence covering the history of air transport .- during the last three decades. It would take more than the space at my disposal to give even the bare skeleton of the figures which have been used to bolster up this fundamental ; truth. All I can hope to do here is to outline some of the implications involved, and to this end my comments are subdivided under three simple headings. The first of these is: Function It was my good friend Doctor A. M. Spiifnng who coined the famous dictum: '' The speed of an airline is the speed r of its slowest passenger coach." At that moment he had just spent a period of six hours in the active enjoyment of his first experience of airline travel. During those hours he had made three abortive return journeys by coach between the London terminal and-his airport of departure, and had consumed sixteen cups of coffee and nine buns. The weather continued to be aeronautically inclement, and the Doctor completed his journey next day by boat and train, thereby refuting the commonly held view that it is better to travel hopefully than to arrive. The affair was all the more unfortunate because he had been due, on the first evening, to deliver a lecture, entitled "Electronic Aids Have Defeated the Fog Menace," to a very distinguished gathering of Lithuanian air traffic clerks. I assume that he changed the title and altered some of the more optimistic 2;- passages in the text. I mention this episode because it ':•• seems to me to underline the environ- mentalist's primary contention: That the function of any means of trans- i port is to carry personnel or freight :•• from A to B, and to do so according .; to an advertised timetable unless prevented by Act of God. Hurricane, Tempest, or any other extreme con- tingency on the unlikelihood of which our insurance companies make the greater part of their profits. 2OQ ISO # Present-day aircraft are the pro- duct of their own environment. To this axiom I should like to add a rider in the form of a suggestion that the published cruising speeds of civil aircraft in service should be based on annual rather than on hourly averages. A glance at Fig. 1 will make the point clear. Aircraft " X " normally cruises at 200 m.p.h., but is prevented from starting its 200-mile journey on 7 per cent of occasions, and is, because of its difficult characteristics, " stacked " for an hour on a further 20 per cent of occasions. Aircraft " Y " is a more old- fashioned affair, with a relatively low landing speed and a normal cruising speed of 150 m.p.h. Radio and radar de- velopments have s u c c e e d,e d i n keeping pace with its performance, so that it can fly on 99 per cent of its scheduled ser- vices and is "stood off" for an hour on only 2 per cent of its journeys. If, for the sake of aca- demic argument, we ignore head- wind effects and cruising speed of ' 146 m.p.h. Aircraft " Y" has a fatter fuselage, is more comfortable and is much less critical in the matter of its runway require- ments in competition with our old friend I.C.A.O. Yet, by my standards, it is faster. It costs less to develop and build and, most important of all, would have saved my friend Spufnng both his roll-and-coffee indigestion and the last-minute expurgations from his internationally important lecture. Which brings me to the second heading: 1OO1 ^OPTIMUM SPEED 1OO 1OQ CANCELLED^ SERVICES 9O / 9Cf EQUIVALENT "FFECT-OF DELAYS OVERALL AVERAGE SPEED \ NUMBER OF TIMETABLE /JOURNEYS\ 2OO MILES \ AIRCRAFT "X" EACH Fig. I. AIRCRAFT climb and descent losses, the 'X" is 143 m.p.h. and that of ' overall 'Y" is • An airline inarches on its overheads. • In the air it is always better to arrive than to travel hopefully. • The speed of an airline is the speed of its slowest passenger coach. • An airline company can pay its way if it has no aircraft. • The level of an aircraft's per- formance is in inverse ratio to the time spent on its development. Ways and Means To paraphrase the words of Cor- poral (later Emperor) N. Bonaparte —an airline marches on its' over- heads. However economically slowly and safely its aircraft may fly, and however its booking clerks may filch, by soft words and smooth manners, the customers from its competitors, it is all of little avail if the rents of the accountancy and public relations palaces are too high, and if the main- tenance and traffic organizations are B 7
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