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Aviation History
1957
1957 - 0715.PDF
FIRST AERONAUTICAL WEEKLY IN THE WORLD FOUNDED 1909 ^ and AIRCRAFT ENGINEER No 2523 Vol 71 FRIDAY 31 MAY 1957 Editor MAURICE A. SMITH D.F.C. and BAR Associate Editor H. F. KING M.B.E. Technical Editor W. T. GUNSTON Production Editor ROY CASEY Iliffe and Sons Ltd Dorset House Stamford Street London, S.E.I Telephone • Waterloo 3333 (60 lines) BRANCH OFFICES Coventry 8-10 Corporation Street Telephone • Coventry 5210 Birmingham 2 King Edward House, New Street Telephone • Midland 7191 (7 lines) Manchester 3 260 Deansgate Telephone • Blackfriars 4412 (3 lines)Deansgate 3595 (2 lines) Glasgow C.2 26B Renfield Street Telephone • Central 1265 (2 lines) Toronto 1, Ontario Thomas Skinner of Canada, Ltd. 67 Yonge Street Telephone • Empire 6-0873 New York 6, N.Y. Thomas Skinner and Co. (Publishers),Ltd. Ill Broadway Telephone • Digby 9-1197 SUBSCRIPTION RATES Home and Overseas • Twelve Months, £4 10s. U.S.A. and Canada $14.00 in this issue 724 Thunderchief 725 Exercise Vigilant 733 The Paris Show 743 Irish Birthday 746 Jet Provost in the Air 749 Comet 4B Postscript 750 Current Work at the N.P.L. 751 Alroplane . 753 Highway to the Air Thoughts After ParisE BOURGET, with its seething Salon and wind-scoured aircraft park, are falling Viscount miles astern as we begin this column. The singing of Darts proves so tranquillizing that we can at least attempt a first appraisal of the great international exposition we are leaving behind, and which we already look forward to revisiting for the climactic week-end. What comes to mind first? One thought above all: that this is, to a disquieting extent, an American show. Disquieting especially because Britain has been edged firmly—and without, apparently, caring over-much—into the shade. It is America's show not only because the great U.S. aircraft and engine builders have pulled out all the stops of their mighty publicity organs, but because the U.S.A.F. is at Le Bourget in massive strength (massive, at least, compared with the lone, lorn Hunter tucked away in a secluded corner). Could it be symbolic that the Globe- master looms over all? We find ourselves devoutly hoping that next week-end this sad situation may be in some degree redressed: that "le Raf' may remind our good French (and American) friends that the lion still has wings and that, through having been clipped, these may prove all the stronger. And what of France's own industry. Certainly it is going ahead—and in a more rational manner that at some earlier phases of its history. Several of its products, as will be gathered from this and our preceding issue, are not merely competitive: they are unrivalled. The French are putting up a good show; they are also putting on a good show. Whatever their domestic troubles, these are little in evidence at the 22nd Salon. We in Britain must see to it that Farnborough 1957 betrays no fear of the future, no suspicion of decay. And let it be seen that we have only regard for —not fear of—the big-thinking, big-doing, big-hearted Americans. The Moment of TruthT HE fly on the wall of B.O.A.C.'s board-room, and the other one in the Minister's office, know much more than the official statements disclose about the reasoning which resulted in the Corporation's order (reported on pages 722 and 729) for 35 Vickers VC-10 jet airliners. The two insects must have had a puzzling time during the past few months: but whatever they may know that others do not, they cannot have been able to resist a buzz of applause when the final choice was made. The decision is momentous, for it means that the British aircraft industry's strongest airliner building team, Vickers and Rolls-Royce, has entered a contestant for a place on the next plateau of air transport—the 600 m.p.h. plateau of high- subsonic, swept-wing, pure-jet travel. The word "plateau" should not be pooh-poohed as the cachet of a transatlantic jet-promotion stunt. The Americans are not hoaxing the world's airlines and the public into accepting aeroplanes they would be better without. We have said before, and we say again, that the future of Britain's industry as a major exporter of first-line transport aeroplanes depends upon its grasp of the word "plateau's" full implication—which is that, for better economics or for worse (and probably there will not be a ha'p'orth of difference either way in the relative profitability of jets and turboprops) the airlines will be earning most of their money on the 600 m.p.h. plateau for perhaps 20 years after 1960. And, according to our own recent estimate, they will want about 1,100 jets of VC-10 calibre during that period. Plateau or no plateau, the news that the VC-10 is to be privately financed—to an extent which we believe is unprecedented in Britain—merits particular applause. Private venturing tends to breed good products, much more so than do the com- mercially unhealthy requirements of prestige and flag-wagging: and though the technical task facing Vickers is immense, so is the potential reward of the market.
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