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Aviation History
1956
1956 - 1592.PDF
750 FLIGHT, 9 November 1956 THE IMPORTANCE OF TIME —in Aircraft Manufacture: A. Cdre. Banks' R.Ae.S. Lecture—Part II IN our issue of October 26 we published the first half of themuch-discussed paper recently given before the Royal Aero-nautical Society by A. Cdre. F. R. Banks, C.B.E., O.B.E., a director of the Bristol Aeroplane Co., Ltd., and well knownauthority on engines. In the second pan—like the first, reprinted here in full by permission of the R.Ae.S., the lecturer went on todiscuss the production of civil aircraft, engine development, and concluded by touching on more general problems. In this country [he said], with little internal air traffic but withlengthy communications and sea and air routes to all parts of the Commonwealth and the Empire, and to the rest of the world,we would appear to have all the encouragement needed for our future in the air. But we do not have the domestic (military andcivil) market of the United States, which in itself demands and absorbs a very large aircraft production (representing over 60per cent of the world's civil aircraft requirements) and gives them an almost overwhelming advantage in acquiring elaborate pro-duction equipment and stabilizing the industry at a good working (capacity) level. In having two nationally owned airlines, who will at least giveBritish aircraft first consideration, we are indeed lucky, since it is the only effective way of giving our aircraft manufacturers astart in civil aviation. But these two airlines do not represent, in size, a break-even market, unlike American operators whooffer an enormous outlet for the U.S. aircraft industry. In fact, were it not for the support of the Government in thepast, in ordering prototypes and bearing largely the costs of their development, and also the encouragement of the two nationalairline companies, it would have been practically impossible for us to have attempted to compete in the civil aviation market. Thecost of developing an engine alone would have prohibited this. The American operators are well placed in the latter respect,since their large and comprehensive military programme eventu- ally makes available well-developed engines mostly adaptable tocivil use. There is a minimum size or capacity for a firm producing civilaircraft if it is to meet the rate needed to execute orders in rea- sonable time, and also to cater for the individual customer'sneeds; and profitable manufacture will be very difficult to achieve if production (with about 50 per cent sub-contracting) is less thanabout ten large (150,000-300,000 lb) machines per month. This, in my opinion, is a realistic figure if we are to think of com-peting with the U.S.A., and calls for much larger production units if it is to be considered at all. Also in the case of the smaller (100,000-150,000 lb) jet aircraftat present in the project and design stages in America, one firm is planning to produce, at peak, ten per month; and there arethree other firms all equally large and capable. These production rates cannot be achieved without the com-mensurate capital expenditure on the very expensive and elaborate tools and tooling of the type now in general use in the UnitedStates. In fact, it is hardly possible to attain the low structure- weights and, equally important, the high degree of quality in themodern airframe without the large presses, the "sculpturing" machines or skin millers, the stretch-forming equipment and,even, the automatic riveting machines which the American indus- try is employing today. The basis for the outputs given above stems from the factthat customers cannot, in the tough competition of airline opera- tion, wait unduly long for their aircraft; and delivery must alsobe gauged to produce a yearly total which will ensure reasonably rapid recovery of the development and tooling charges in a com-petitive sales price. Before all this happens, there is much preparatory work tobe done. First, there is the market research—to judge whether or not the proposed aircraft is of the right type and size. Thenmust come the decision to build a prototype, to prove_ the designed performance and constructional features. All this "costs theearth," but it is very difficult to sell anything off the drawing board in the open market unless the manufacturer either has a largebackground of experience, and success, in building civil aircraft or the machine is, more or less, a direct development of an alreadywell-tried model. The trend is now to avoid prototypes, as such, and to regard the first machine built as the production model orpattern. Accurate estimates of the design and engineering effort areneeded, together with the time and cost of manufacturing the prototype and getting the production version through its C. of A.tests; and jigging and tooling must be put in hand early in the prototype stage in anticipation of sales and to ensure delivery dates being kept. The scheduling of delivery dates and givingthe actual days of delivery, is a sign of efficiency. The above procedure must be followed so as to determine thesales price and the number of machines to be sold to reach the break-even point. Then the airline operators can again beapproached and signed up, after the necessary guarantees and warranties have been agreed. Later, if a second wave of orders results from satisfactoryoperation, the "learning curve" factor and inflation will both operate to show whether or not the sales price can be loweredor must be raised. The financial risk is too great in these days to embark uponthe design, manufacture and development of a new (prototype) aircraft, even with Government help for these phases, if a "byguess and by God" attitude is taken; and unless the procedure outlined above is followed, the results will be chaotic and costlyin the extreme. What I am really saying is this: if we are to sell againstAmerica, and probably Russia, we have to get organized into larger technical and production units or give up the idea ofmeeting this heavy competition. But the market for large, high- performance aircraft appears to have been filled for the nextfifteen or twenty years. This may seem at variance with what I have already saidregarding the procurement of military aircraft (that if a firm produces a good prototype but has poor production facilities, theproduction rate may be supplemented by placing orders for com- plete aircraft with a less technically successful firm), but thecase of the civil aircraft is rather different. Since military aircraft have all their development costs defrayedby the Government and only partial support has so far been given to civil machines, sufficient profit must be made by theparent firm to cover some of the latter's development charges and leave a reasonably high proportion available to plough back, soas to proceed with the next step. Therefore, if other firms are brought in to supplement the parent firm's production (of com-plete aircraft) the profits will obviously be severely reduced, thus restricting the scope of the parent firm's future developments. It may, however, be nationally necessary to adopt for civilaircraft the procedure I have already outlined for the procurement and manufacture of military machines, since the shift of emphasisfrom military to civil aviation makes more urgent the need for maintaining the stability of the aircraft industry, as a whole;and it should in the long run prove more advantageous to meet our own civil needs than to pay out further dollars, even if thetotal number of aircraft built does not reach a normally economic figure. But with full Government support in meeting the design,development and tooling charges, it is a practical way of keeping an important industry alive and active—and ensuring a limitedprofit. To the great credit of one British firm, it has sold a fairly largenumber of medium size propeller-turbine aircraft to some North American airline operators. This has created a precedent andgreatly increased the prestige of our industry as a whole. But we should not deceive ourselves that the American airline operators,in particular, will buy British in future unless we can continue to compete qualitatively and quantitiyely with U.S. constructorsand offer something very attractive in performance and delivery —since the latter are already in the process of filling their gapswith a variety of large and small jet aircraft and a propeller- turbine machine. All this is not despondency but realism, and a challenge to theindustry to put on a completely new look in preparation for the events of the next decade or two. And can anyone deny thatwe need an entirely new approach to the business of meeting the increasingly rigorous demands of aviation?To my mind, our "new approach" should start with a good look at the methods of the American aircraft industry and weshould then adapt and modify their techniques and procedures for our own needs. We have not yet grown out of the stage of throwing a cocktailparty, at the drop of a hat, for an "achievement" which should now be regarded as an ordinary job of work. In fact, we toooften act like a bunch of enthusiastic amateurs. Paraphrasing the Red Queen in Through the Looking Glass: we don't wantto be a "slow sort of country" and in aviation we have to run very fast to stay in the same place, but twice as fast to be in the lead. Engines. In the past—that is, between the two world wars—an engine was created or evolved more or less directly as the result of an Air Ministry requirement, to meet military needs, and civil
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