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Aviation History
1953
1953 - 0291.PDF
FLIGHT, 6 March 1953 289 AMERICAN APPRECIATION . . . which should know better, and which, if they thought about it for a minute, would realize that they are doing themselves more harm than the other fellow. It is also one more pinprick in an always superficially sensitive area of Anglo-American relationship. If this sounds unduly touchy to American ears, it should be remembered that the British have put up with a good deal of this technical sniping—most of it unjustified. On the other hand, they themselves are not entirely free from blame. They are inclined to flaunt success in the other fellow's face (an understandably human reaction, and one not confined to any industry, or country, or political party, but extremely irritating all the same), to be a bit over-optimistic and to forget their own intensely nationalistic outbursts when B.O.A.C. so wisely purchased Constellations in 1946. • • • V/TiT sour-grape arguments, such as were voiced at a recent A meeting of the Institute of the Aeronautical Sciences in Washington, do get under the skin. Luckily, at the meeting in question there was a Britisher present who was in an excellent position to answer the critics. He was Mr. R. E. Hardingham, secretary and chief executive of the Air Registration Board, and he put the record straight in a few soft-spoken but telling words. Somebody trotted out the old story of the Comet being an unecono mic aeroplane, and said that it could neither have been built, nor operated, without Government subsidy. The bogey of "what happens if a window blows out at 35,000ft" was also raised again. Furthermore, our gas turbines were said to be unreliable and, moreover, that they were too noisy and the fire risk was too great. To most of this Mr. Hardingham replied with commendable restraint, pointing out that the engines were proving more reliable than some piston engines at present in use in B.O.A.C., that events had answered the fire-risk criticism and that, as the aircraft was designed so that the wings would stay on, so were the windows designed not to blow out. He finished up with the mild—but very telling—rebuke : "It appears to me you've spent too much time on committees." He might have added a word on subsidies and pointed out that there was almost as much indirect subsidy to the various branches of the aircraft industry in America as there is in England—through Government research, orders, or mail pay—and that numerous bills have been, and are^ before Congress to provide further sub sidies for the construction or development of jet transports. If he felt like saying these and other things he was too polite; which was probably a good thing. But it was a mildly rude evening all the same, and a number of people had fun twisting the lion's tail—not so much to hurt the animal, perhaps, as to boost a lagging morale. What made it hard to take was the fact that the Americans are both great enough and generous enough to swallow the pill of British progress without making quite such a fuss and a face about it. FAR-EASTERN OUTLOOK Growing Momentum of Air Transport for S.E. Asia's Millions T O generalize about commercial aviation in the Far East would be imprudent, if not impossible. If air transport in the whole vast area were to be judged by the opera tions of Air India International, which probably carries more traffic between England and India than any other operator, or by Philippine Airlines, which operates the fastest link between London and the Pacific Ocean, one might say that the general pattern of air transport appeared to differ little from that of Europe or America. But air transport in Asia is not in the main a matter of free brandies and press-button service; often it is a seat on a pile of tractor tyres or one's own bed-roll. Between the two extremes lie the hundreds of plane-Jane Dakotas, which come nearer to providing a really public utility than anything that Europe's excessively com petitive situation has permitted to develop, with the notable exception of B.E.A.'s service to the communities, of the Western Isles. This note can do no more than point briefly to a few aspects of eastern operations which are not well known in Europe. It is, for instance, a matter of surprise to some travellers to find that Indian aircraft have Indian crews; that Siamese aircraft have Siamese crews. It would be an injustice to under-rate the devoted work in some of the eastern airlines by British and foreign employees; but it would be a bigger injustice to deny that some of the Asian operators have already passed out of their period of tutelage and THIS well-informed appreciation is the work of one whose mission it has been, for many months past, to expand the Far- Eastern interests of a well-known British firm of aircraft constructors, both as regards transports already operating in that area and new equipment that may be supplied. He shows how political and other factors have combined to produce a situation unlike that ruling in any other part of the globe. that most are within sight of self-sufficiency. This is almost entirely true of management and to a considerable extent of aircrew, except in Indonesia and in the still embryonic Japanese airlines. It is in the maintenance hangar that European help or supervision is in most cases still necessary. There is a sound tendency for operators to strive for technical independence in every derail. A small airline will undertake the high capital expense of equipping itself for full engine and airscrew overhaul, partly in order to avoid dependence on an overhaul organization outside the national frontiers, pardy as a deliberate policy to take every opportunity to strengthen the country's engineering resources and training capacity. This is not good economics; but it is good sense and, as such, usually earns govern ment financial help. The natural development of air transport has been much stimu lated in those countries where internal security has not yet been attained—notably in Burma, where Union of Burma Airways are (Left) A Garuda Indonesian Airways DC-3 at Laha, which is on the island of Ambon. (Right) A trim stewardess of G.I.A.
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