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Aviation History
1957
1957 - 0082.PDF
WEST COAST STOP-OVER . . . don't want to choke yourselves like a small boy who grabs too much candy." How are Douglas thinking about the supersonic airliner? I had to find out, in view of what Mr. Hibbard had told me the previous day about Lockheed's confident feelings on this subject. I was given a copy of a paper written a few months ago by C. F. Worley, chief of advanced design at Santa Monica. He went into the mathematics carefully (summarized in the illustra- tion on p. 81), and concluded: "It appears that the short-range capabilities and the high operating costs of the supersonic trans- port, together with the small time-saving at the ranges for which the supersonic airplane is suitable, will limit the air-transport field to subsonic aircraft through the 1960s. By 1970, technical advances will probably justify beginning the design and develop- ment of supersonic transport types, hut it is not likely that they will be performing any important part in the transport economy." I had now heard Lockheed and Douglas giving their views on both medium-haul and supersonic transport. They couldn't have been more different. I was beginning to appreciate the dilemma of the airlines. So far my time had been spent—as I had wanted it to be spent—talking, and I had yet to see the factory. Al Chop took me to see DC-6 and DC-7 final assembly, where aircraft are com- ing off the line at a rate of 12 to 15 per month. Regarding it all from a high vantage-point in the factory the irreverent impression made upon me by the array of DC-6A, 6B, 7 and 7C fuselages was of an aluminium sausage-machine. As in every aircraft fac- tory at any particular point of time, nothing much appeared to be happening in the physical sense—just the familiar clatter of rivet guns and the wailing of windy-drills. But outside in the sunshine there was proof enough that the end-product was com- ing off the end of the line fast: the effect of the score of brand- new DC-6Bs, DC-7s and DG-7Cs spilled on to the Santa Monica tarmac from the factory was of a busy international airport. The first sight of the DC-8 mock-up as one walks into what they call "the old B-19 hangar" cannot, I think, fail to be over- whelming. Painted white, and with the blue Douglas crest emblazoned big and bold upon its side, it awed me in much the same way as had the Empire State when I first gazed up at it from Fifth Avenue. My first impressions of the DC-8 were of the great size and extent of the double slotted flaps, the surprising smallness of the main bogies, and the large size of the windows. The interior—perhaps I was expecting too much—was not as big as I had expected, though by any present-day standards it is capacious. There was no particular theme to the cabin layout— for the reason I shall explain in a moment—and it was being used for trying out details and general effects. Odd points that I remarked upon were the recessed hat-racks, reading lights on the shoulders of each chair, and the absence of any "busy" styling— no fussy furnishings, and just pale colourings harmonizing to give a restful, airy effect. Besides this single full-scale mock-up, which is used for engi- neering purposes as much as it is for furnishing experiments, are half-a-dozen separate wooden fuselage mock-up*—semi-cylinders built up from the floor—and inside which particular airline interiors are being tried out. "There's no such thing as a standard DC-8 interior," Al explained. "We have a separate mock-up for each airline." In this way, I thought, each customer could prevaricate to his heart's content in his own private mock-up —which could, I thought, be padlocked to prevent a rival from plagiarizing his ideas. The glimpses I had of the various interiors convinced me that point number four of Mr. Kleinhans' plan "It's got to look different"—was certainly being implemented. Passengers in the nineteen-sixties, I felt, are not going to ride with an airline with old-fashionsd ideas about interior design. There were other mock-ups too—engineering rigs pounding 82 FLIGHT the snags out of the DC-8's systems, and a detailed layout for the cSit This, I was surprised to find, was almost a replica £ i£5& design of the Comet's cockpit-certamly a complete deoarture from the DC-6 and DC-7. There was the same comprehensive engineering panel on the right, with a chair (and, unlike the Comet, a table) for the engi- neer and a spacious navigation station on the left. There was a difference in scale, of course, and there was plenty of room for each pilot's seat to be accessible from around die side Other details noted were: a large overhead window for each pilot; fuel cocks in the roof rather than on the central pedestal; trim levers instead of wheels; single weather radar-scope aT the base of the central engine instrument panel. Visibility forward, sideways and upwards was the best I have seen yet m any airliner. Left DC-7C fuselage production at Santa Monica. Below, the • DC-8 mock-up in the old B-19 hangar.full-size; By now my notebook was full and I had "factory feet." We returned to the office building (where I was pleased to meet two regular Douglas correspondents, Don Black and Hugh Gagos Al telling me on the way what it was like to work for Douglas. His job of supplying information about-the company to the out side world means—as I well appreciated—that he deals with a great many departments. "You wouldn't believe the co-opera- tion I get from everyone," he said. "No one ever seems too busy or disinterested to help." It is, apparently, Mr. Douglas' influence which ensures that this is so; he has no time for "departmentaliza tion" or for empire-builders. "If someone in the firm is not always helpful to everyone," Al said, "you suddenly find when you ring him up one morning he isn't there any more." Certainly the help I had from everyone—at both Lockheed and Douglas—couldn't have been more complete. But individual warmheartedness was only one of the things that impressed me most strongly. I received two other impressions about America which, at the risk of being taken to task for proselytizing, I shall record. When in New York I met an English friend, an aircraft engineer-salesman, who has been spending a considerable time in the States visiting airlines. What he said didn't apply to me, as I was not selling anything (except—one likes to think—Flight), but I feel his summary of the American outlook on business was fair and to the point. In so many words he said: "They are always very busy. But if you have a business proposal to make they will listen to you until all hours of the night, providing you have a very clear idea of what your business is. It's no use trying to sell a product vaguely—you've got to prove its utility with hard, plain statistical facts—otherwise you find that they're not listening." My second impression was one with which, I think, most visitors to America return home. This is that, providing the business is there, nothing is too big to tackle. We were lounging in the car at Douglas discussing how the world's airports will fit the DC-8 and 707 (see Flight, May 4, 1956). I said I had heard in New York that the I.L.S. runway at Idlewild would need lengthening, and that this could only be done by extending it out into Jamaica Bay. The reply was succinct and typical: "Okay —so fill in the lousy bay."
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