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Aviation History
1952
1952 - 0028.PDF
4 FLIGHT, 4 January 1952 CHALLENGE . . . which is scarce). That ton, plus skill, nets us say, £500 of cash. The Comet takes 22 tons of raw materials (mainly aluminium, which is not scarce). Those 22 tons, plus skill, net us £500,000. The car industry, therefore, in its com bination of steel and skill, is worth about £500 a ton. The Comet, in its combination of aluminium and skill, is worth £23,000 a ton. No one says that we can't afford to build cars as well as tanks. But they do say we can't afford to build airliners as well as warplanes. To my simple mind it would seem, mathematically, to be worth putting all the motor-industry manpower into pro ducing airliners. By so doing, Britain would be "up" by £18,000 per ton of exported goods. Or is this too simple? Let us, then, check our export assumptions, or rather Mr. Bowyer's export assumptions. He says we can do £100 millions of export business in jet airliners per year. There are, at present, in world fleets, about 1,000 big mainliners, and some 2,000 "Continental" aircraft of DC-3 size. Each world fleet, as a group, is worth about £500 million. Assum ing that the mainline fleets are changed once in ten years, and the DC-3 types once in five years, there is a total of £150 million a year available in the airlines as it stands. This is allowing for no expansion in a business which is, in fact, going to expand enormously. With spares at 20 per cent the total present-day annual market is £180 million; allowing for some growth, let's call it £200 million. If Britain could grab but half that market with her Comets, Viscounts, 175s, Apollos, and Ambassadors, then Mr. Bowyer's optimism is justified. And this is not counting any sales of Heron or Dove or similar-sized feederliners. In other words, the market is there; is not just a pipe-dream. Up oi^r Street And please to remember about the civil jet airliner busi ness, we are the world's best—and usually the world's best is not too hard to sell. We are not, however, the world's best at making nylons and lipstick and a thousand and one other fritterers-away of our manpower. Nor are we, with some individual exceptions, the world's best at making motor cars. Again, to my simple mind, I should have thought we should have welcomed with eager arms an industry which offered rich new fields (with richer still to come); which made no excessive demands on scarce raw imports; which would easily become our biggest single "export"; in which we held a clear world lead of "three to five years"; and in which, also, skill and craftsmanship were considerable ingredients. By all our traditions, this is right up our street: is it not, indeed, just the thing we, as a nation, are alleged to be looking for? The aircraft industry is well aware of all this, and its leaders could add many more details to the case I have just roughed out. They could tell, too, of customers who have asked for delivery dates . . . and then walked sadly away. How maddening all this is after five years of enterprise, genius, courage, hard work, and the investment of some £140 millions of our national treasure—all to end in just a succes d'estime! We can rest miserably assured that such a chance will never come our way again—not after the C.A.A.'s recent report. And we hardly need ask what is the root cause of this impending national disaster. It is lack of manpower—or rather, lack of properly distributed manpower. The aircraft industry now employs some 170,000 people. To meet its re-armament programme it needs a further 150,000, and to cash in on the jet airliner market-it needs a total of 420,000. In the final analysis, then, the lack of 250,000 men and women threatens to be our downfall; and only 100,000 of those are needed for the airliners with which we are concerned. During the war two million people were employed in the aircraft industry. Less than one-quarter of that total would save us now, in a position which lies no less close to our ultimate national safety. And "skilled" labour is not, in the main, called for; as one leading manufacturer said last week, "We trained cinema usherettes in the war—we could do it again." Meanwhile, let us have a look at the manpower of some other industries :— Motor vehicles and cycles .. Tailoring .. .. .. Boots and repairs Cosmetics and soap Catering and hotels Dry cleaning and laundry Dressmaking Toys and games Printing and publishing Drink .. Cocoa, Chocolate and confectionery ., Hosiery and knitted wear 307,000 278,000 145,000 96,000 653,000 185,000 93,000 30,000 .. 345,000 154,000 82,000 125,000 Is there, even in this briefest of brief lists, nowhere from which 250,000 aircraft workers can be recruited without causing a revolution, and remembering the prize to be won? The Chancellor of the Exchequer is, by economic measures, to put the "squeeze" on industries which in our present plight can be regarded as "fripperies." We do not know what manpower this will throw up or, more importantly, when it will do so. We do know, however, that, underlying the shortage of workers in the aircraft industry, is the sicken- ingly familiar cry of "No houses." One manufacturer told me the other day that he was actually losing men rather than gaining them, because, as one of his ex-workers put it, "I am fed up with sharing a room with five chaps and my bed with two." In the view of most, houses are the key—and to that great national problem there must surely be brought some form of priority or planning, call it what you will. I can only underline it in this present connection, and pass it by as being outside the scope of this article, even though most of my subject-matter stems directly from it. Housing today is "politics":—and to the politicians we must leave it. Two other factors are raw materials and machine tools. As to the materials—I just cannot believe that for such easy "spinning into gold" they would not be made available. The machine-tool shortage is more real, but even on this there are divided opinions in the industry itself. The recent private remark of one of our biggest aircraft industrialists does, however, bear quoting: "Machine tools?" he said. "•Of course they're short. But just give me the manpower and I'd do the job. After all, I know of nobody in the business who is double-shifting his tools yet." And nor do I. Finally, I come to the point that Air Power is indivisible —a point so well summarized in the current de Havilland Gazette (and, incidentally, referred to by Sir Ralph Cochrane in his recent speech at Bristol, which may give us hope from the Air Staff end). The Gazette says :— "No air force can be great unless backed by a strong mer chant air service; rearmament alone calls for this, and for a strong commercial-aircraft industry to create and maintain it. Air power is indivisible; strength of military and civil operations and manufacture are its inseparable parts. "Here is a great opportunity for export business in a branch of engineering and transport which is on the brink of an immense advance. The statistics of rising air traffic leaves no doubt of this. The opportunity is indeed more than great. It is unique. To disregard it would be as tragic as would have been the neglect of our maritime calling when Elizabeth was Queen." AMERICA AND THE N.Z. RACE AS we reported a month ago, Mr. 'H. W. Christie and * Mr. John Stannage have travelled from New Zealand to America to publicize the 12,200-mile England-Christchurch Air Race, to be held in October 1953. Commenting on their visit, American Aviation says, "What with de Havilland anxious to show off the Comet, they hope to attract rivals from the U.S., but jet transport planes have been a little scarce on U.S. production lines of late. However, it is possible the U.S.A.F. might be persuaded to get into the race with something special in the military line in an effort to cop the speed prize. Make those reservations early, chappies. Christchurch is a long way from here and 1953 will be rolling around sooner than you think."
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