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Aviation History
1958
1958 - 0033.PDF
FIRST AERONAUTICAL WEEKLY IN THE WORLD FOUNDED 1909 ^^ and AIRCRAFT ENGINEER No. 2555 Vol. 73 FRIDAY 10 JANUARY 1958 Editor-in-Chief MAURICE A. SMITH D.F.C. AND BAR 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.1 Telephone • Waterloo 3333 Telegrams • Flightpres Sedist London BRANCH OFFICES Coventry 8-10 Corporation Street Telephone • Coventry 5210 Birmingham King Edward House, New Street, 2 Telephone • Midland 7191 (7 lines) Manchester 260 Deansgate, 2 Telephone • Blackjriars 4412 (3 lines) Deansgate 3595 (2 lines) Glasgow 26B Renfield Street, C.2 Telephone • Central 1265 (2 lines) New York, N.Y. Thomas Skinner and Co. (Publishers),Ltd. Ill Broadway, 6 Telephone • Digby 9-1197 ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION Home £4 15s Od, overseas £5 0s Od. Canada and U.S.A. $15.00. Second Class Mail privileges author- ised at New York, N.Y. In this issue 36 H.M.S. Victorious 39 New York International 41 The State and the Industry 42 Atlas 44 Thoughts on WS-110A 45 Manufacturing Practice 46 The American Scene 47 Making the P.I Wing 52 Anglo-French Ultra-light 53 Straight and Level 56 The New Year Honours, 1958 A Dawn Like ThunderA NYONE who has flown at daybreak in the Far East and has peered out at the soaring cu-nims as "the dawn comes up like thunder" might well have been reminded of the experience as 1958 broke upon the aircraft industry. Anxieties and disappointments range sullenly along the sky. The SR.177 cancella- tion hangs menacingly not over Saunders-Roe alone but over the collective economy of the Isle of Wight; and the scene is the more sombre because this pro- ject had been going ahead with the utmost faith and hope. Seen too, in stark reality, is the cloud of conflict still boiling, as we write, round the order for the B.E.A. short-range jet; and as these and other phenomena loom up on track directions and warnings are being received. Thus in this issue we have a contri- bution from Frank Beswick, the well-informed Labour M.P. for Uxbridge, wherein he contends that the country needs an aviation policy, and a recognizable body capable of formulating and executing it. He dismisses nationalization, but advocates a form of part-ownership. We print also an Air League manifesto, designed to direct the attention of public and Parliament to the importance of air power before the Estimates are presented in the spring. Air power, as the League's deputy president expresses it, "is one," and an all-embracing view must be taken of it. From such familiar general principles the League's spokesman goes on to par- ticularize on more controversial lines. While he correctly observes that America and Russia are continuing to develop bombers and fighters his assertion that the SR.177 could have filled the "dangerous gap" between the P.I and the missile could hardly pass unchallenged on technical grounds. His advocacy, it emerges, is not specifically for the 177, but for some fighter more advanced in concept than the P.I. Whatever the validity of this argument—and there is a strong current of opinion* in its favour—it must be recognized that the P.I itself promises high development potential and that, in any case, the White Paper actually said that "the R.A.F. were unlikely to have a requirement for more advanced types." As for the large civil aircraft, the League's reaffirmation that these must be "closely integrated" with bombers and transports is platitudinous. Rear Admiral Sir Matthew Slattery, a member of the Air League council, gets more to the point in declaring that there will be no supersonic airliner (and no jet-lift airliner, though the two might be one and the same) until similar machines have been "tried out on the military." This last consideration arraigns for re-examination the decision to cancel the Avro 730 supersonic bomber, an aircraft of extremely advanced design, though perhaps less so than America's WS-110A (page 44). And, of course, the R.A.F. may yet have a supersonic bomber, though they call it a low-level strike aircraft. This machine must have been in Sir Matthew's mind when he alluded to an air- craft, now "in view," which was so complicated that no one team was capable of handling it alone. Any firm putting a proposal for it had to "indicate its willing- ness" to work with a partner; and that, in Sir Matthew's view, was very sensible. Which brings us to the B.E.A. jet and to another comment by Sir Matthew that any Corporation airliner must now be backed by adequate financial, as well as technical resources, to ensure that the project goes through without having to be "rescued." Though de Havillands stoutly affirm that their proposals will have a strong monetary foundation, the order remains engulfed in its turbulent cloud of doubt. And the H.S./Bristol 200 may yet emerge from the thunderhead instead of the D.H.121 for which B.E.A. had expressed its requirement. So does the industry steer into its stormy future. Its chart, the Defence White Paper, is too stark a document for present circumstances, and more specific data must be fed into the navigational computer by the Government itself. With this information the industry should be able to press ahead with confidence—even without the services of the new "top-level minister" called for by the Air League.
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