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Aviation History
1958
1958 - 0173.PDF
FLIGHT, 7 February 1958 183 (T) Straight and Level I LIKED Mr. Kruschev's remarklast week to Sir Patrick Reilly, theBritish Ambassador in Moscow: "You see how easy it is for me, a formercoal-miner, to argue with you, a trained diplomat." His point, I imagine, wasthat arguments can only be as strong as the policy which backs them. But whether a trained diplomat hasa policy or not, he is hard to outwit. I have just made an admiring study ofthe way Ministers deal with, loaded questions about British aviation. Aglittering, tinselly wrapping of good humour and courtesy conceals thedoubletalk, something along the follow- ing lines: The Minister of Planes, the Rt. Hon.Mr. Jeremy Squelch: "I am very glad the hon. Member asked that question.It is a very good question, full of impor- tant and valuable points. But perhapshe did not hear me—obviously I did not make myself clear, which was stupid ofme, and for that I apologise—when I said that I will always welcome sugges-tions from any quarter—I repeat, any quarter—which will help to resolve thisproblem. I want to be perfectly frank about this . . ." • But let me give credit to Ministerialutterances which are forthright and to the point. The Minister of Transport,Mr. Harold Watkinson, referred in the House last week to B.O.A.C.'s cost perton-mile. Now this is a matter to which die Corporation is particularly atten-tive, because it is a measure of effi- ciency. One would therefore expect theMinister to be tolerantly circumspect when referring t® it—at least in public.But, in fact, he described B.O.A.C.'s costs, which now stand at 39.9d perc.t.m., as "very high"—which are strong words for B.O.A.C's boss to use. • Many a sly chuckle must have rippled through Italy's erstwhile Com- munist aircraft industry the other week when Ali Nuove burgeoned forth with a handsome special issue dedicated to the United States Air Force. Em- blazoned in full colour on the front cover were the insignia of the mighty U.S.A.F. over the 48 years of its exist- ence. The emblem for the period 1910-1916 was a plain, five-pointed star —in the rosiest of reds. • Airline men—especially aircrew— often discuss the names given to air- liners. In B.E.A., for example, there is a lot of feeling that the present fleet- names are a tremendous improvement over the ghastly Verdant, Vassal, etc., which defaced the old Vikings. But what about B.O.A.C.? Even the present names cannot be termed inspiring, and there don't seem to be any at all for the Britannias or Seven Seas. For my money the best of the lot are PanAm's: there'ssomething about Clipper Bald Eagle (for example) which looks really well on amodern airliner. It must be worth something in traffic, too; certainly themere name Clipper gets PanAm masses of free publicity. • There is no doubt that the VC.lO'srear-mounted powerplant will attract passengers—especially any who happento use the back door while the Conways are turning up more than 2,500 revs or so. But no panic. A similar problemarose on the Viscount: Capital Airlines found that they could not disgorgepassengers from the front door until the port Darts had stopped spinning.British Messier and Dunlop stepped in with a neat idea—a propeller brakelinked with the operation of the airsteps. • The trouble with highly sweptaircraft is that they land at an impos- sible nose-up angle. One very fastBritish aeroplane could do with a deep trench along the centre of the down-wind-end of the runway to take the tail; meanwhile, it just lands faster than itneeds to. There are two ways out: either you can have a hinged tail—likethe F.D.2 but at the other end, and hinging upwards—or you can be likeChance Vought and have a variable- incidence wing. Their Crusader is bril-liant; look at its stubby undercarriage, made possible by the fact that it landswith the fuselage level. • Thought in passing: Is the F8U Crusader an aeroplane? There must be a pedant somewhere prepared to argue that, because it has variable incidence, it does not have a fixed wing. Which reminds me, isn't it about time someone made his mind up about angles of "incidence" and "attack?" Almost everyone these days talks aboutangles of incidence when they really mean the other thing; or am I gettingpedantic myself? • One of my pet aversions is havingtwo names for the same thing—like "tailplane" and "stabilizer," for example.We really must find some way of ration- alizing aviation terminology; and, evenmore important, we must make quite, quite certain that no new tennis broughtinto common use unless it has been agreed among all English-speakingpeoples. Even the recent field of missiles—sorry, I mean guided weapons—is giving rise to all manner of unnecessary com-plications. In America an anti-aircraft guided device is a surface-to-air missile—a self-explanatory term which fits in with air-to-air, air-to-surface and sur-face-to-surfaee systems. In Britain we are unaware of anything called "sur-face"; it is the ground. Hence "ground- to-air weapon" (not missile). As for aBritish air-to-surface missile, that un- happy device relishes in the incredibledesignation of "stand-off bomb." This is quite self-explanatory; it must be anordinary bomb which somehow "stands- off" from its target. Or could it meansomething utterly unlike a bomb which doesn't stand-off, but whose carriervehicle does? The trouble is, once a term has become accepted we use itevery day without realizing how crazy and ambiguous it may be. • American firms are pretty shrewd,but the atmosphere surrounding some very prosperous outfits over there seems(to put it mildly) a little unreal. Literally billions of good dollars are beingspent on "system-concept-evaluation," "design-efficiency-investigation," "cy-bernetics," and heaven knows what else. It all involves thousands of highly quali-fied chaps getting into a huddle and coming up with an idea rather than aproduct. I'm for the good old days. Rememberhow Andy Willgoos and George Mead sat down in a garage and designed theWasp—first Pratt and Whitney engine? They did it for a total cost which todaywould perhaps buy the blading for one compressor stage on a J57. You can'tbeat the good, old-fashioned mechanical engineer, whatever the Ph.D.s get up to. • Mr. Farey Jones, M.P., said in thecivil aviation debate last week: "We already know that helicopter servicescan be made to pay." I am sure that the hon. Member forWatford, whose enthusiasm for heli- copter services I share, intended thereto be no double entendre when he made this remark. ROGER BACON
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