FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1954
1954 - 2228.PDF
MS!" AIRCRAFT ENGINEER First Aeronautical Weekly in the World Founded 1909 No. 2377 Vol. 66. FRIDAY, 13 AUGUST 1954 EDITOR MAURICE A. SMITH, D.F.C. ASSISTANT ED/TOR H. F. KING, M.B.E. ART EDITOR JOHN YOXALL Editorial, Advertising and Publishing Offices: DORSET HOUSE, STAMFORD STREET, LONDON, S.E.1. Telegrams, Flightpres, Sedist, London. Telephone, Waterloo 3333 (60 lines). Branch Offices: COVENTRY 8-10, Corporation Street. Telegrams, Autocar, Coventry. Telephone, Coventry 5210. BIRMINGHAM, 2 King Edward House, New Street. Telegrams, Autopress, Birmingham. Telephone, Midland 7191 (7 lines). MANCHESTER, 3 260, Deansgate. Telegrams, lliffe, Manchester. Telephone, Blackfriars 4412 (3 lines). Deansgate 3595 (2 lines). GLASGOW, C.2 26b, Renfield Street. Telegrams, lliffe. Glasgow. Telephone, Central 126J (2 lines) SUBSCRIPTION RATES Home and Overseas: Twelve months « 10s. U.S.A. and Canada, $14.00. IN THIS ISSUE : U.S. Self-criticism - . r< "-north Exercise - - Supersonic Intercepter - Air Support Demonstrated 1 fistic Lockheed - - ( biltern Air Races - - "M to Hunter at C.F.S spects of the Hunter - uxiliary Power in Aircraft ^orld Gliding - - . Britannia Bulletin - - 196 199 202 204 205 206 208 210 211 212 215 Capital News! O VERLEAF is recorded a most welcome and encouraging event: the signing of a firm order for 37 Vickers Viscounts by Capital Airlines. The announcement brings this American operator's total of orders to 40 and at the same time a further option has been taken on 20 more Viscounts. The value of the order is a round £16m, easily the largest ever placed by an American customer for British civil aircraft. On his recent visit to London, the president of Capital, Mr. J. H. Carmichael, reiterated his enthusiasm for the aircraft, spoke of it as the next logical step, and confirmed its great passenger appeal among Americans who have already ridden in it on European routes. Congratulations to maker and customer alike. Unworthy and Misleading N OBODY other than a few American anglophobes and those Soviet operators charged with the job of driving wedges between North Adantic Allies can have taken pleasure in a certain report of the Senate Appropriations Committee which showed signs of making dubious headlines last week. The backdoor manner in which such a document can leak out—a source of amazement to people in this country—may perhaps be regarded as appropriate to the information provided in this instance; and a few days later everyone was glad to hear Mr. Harold Stassen, United States Foreign Operations Administrator, discredit it in outspoken terms. He is reported to have said that it was "one of the most inaccurate investigators' reports I have ever seen." Broadly speaking, the report (some passages from which we quote on p. 196) alleges that the British aircraft industry, the recipient of vast sums of American dollars and other aid in kind, has used some of it to develop civil airliners which are competing with American products. It goes on to suggest that the Hunter, Swift and Javelin are ob solescent and should not be purchased with American military-aid funds. The money would be better spent on home-built American fighters with British engines installed, the investigators suggest. Indicative of muddled thinking on the question of transport derivatives is their apparent belief that the Vickers jet transport—presumably the V.IOOO —is a version of the Valiant. It is only fair to add that the report does not imply misappropriation by British manu facturers or authorities; to judge from a brief examination of dreary pages of figures, quotations and deductions, its main theme seems to be that those responsible for arrang ing and administering American military-aid programmes have not been very smart. There is enough fact and truth mixed in with chaff and bias to give a veneer of versimili- tude, but the carping approach is a complete negation of the spirit of American aid. Undoubtedly the British people have benefited immensely, both during and since the war, from American generosity. Also, we and other European countries have been glad to accept help from America in building up our military strength, knowing it would be used, if at all, in a mutual cause. Few people would attempt to deny that a little of the monetary aid and equipment provided to facilitate development and production of military aircraft has indirecdy benefited civil projects running side by side with them. We doubt, however, if the civil-aircraft picture would have been appreciably different in the absence of such help. As we understand it, the idea behind all the mutual-aid schemes between the Allied countries—and this nation has not been ungenerous—has been to combat all forms of Communism, broadly by replacing want, lassitude and weakness with financial stability, industrial activity and military strength. If this conception is correct, reasons for the financing of production outside America are obvious. That for a given sum of dollars you can expect to get three times as many aircraft in Europe as in North America is important—and overlooked in the report. We note that Mr. Stassen comments that fighters like the Hunter are not obsolescent and "will be the first to fight for the free world if there is a war in the next five or six years." Overseas orders for Hunters have now reached the enormous total of £120m. In supporting his assertion we would add that the state of development of these fighters (and of power units for them) is hardly likely to remain static during the coming few years.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
