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Aviation History
1958
1958 - 0179.PDF
7 February'1958 First civil aircraft to be produced by the People's Republic of China, this AN-2 was completed in Decem- ber. On the right it is being inspected by State Commission officials before its maiden flight. the drop in earnings which the airlines have reported :s due tothe impact of new equipment and new routes . . ." and that the carriers had failed to produce "convincing evidence" that higherfares were needed to attract capital for financing jet re-equipment. Since being denied this 6 per cent increase, the domestic trunkshave continued to press with even greater vigour for increases in the order oi 15 per cent, and these suggestions are still being con-sidered under the General Fare Case which opened last November. The interim increase announced last week probably means onething: The C.A.B. recognize that the airlines' massive procure- ment programme is threatened by failure to secure funds, and that,much as the Board might wish to see that programme postponed, such delay would be politically unacceptable.The A.T.A. seeks to demonstrate the inefficacy of the CA.B. medicine. But its cheerless adjusted-profit estimates do not appearto take account of a possible drop in load-factors resulting from higher fares. Before the increase was announced an industryspokesman forecast that the growth of domestic trunk traffic in 1958 might be as low as 8 per cent. If higher fares reduced thisto, say, 5 per cent the industry would find itself in sorry shape. When the A.T.A. refers nostalgically to the handsome profitmargins obtained in 1951 and 1952 it is appropriate to recall that those were the years of record load-factor (much spare capacityhaving been siphoned off to satisfy defence needs.) When the experience of recent years is reviewed, two chronicconditions are seen to have infected the domestic trunk industry. The first is a tendency to over-indulge in the latest aircraft, morefor reasons of competition than economy. This over-indulgence has been made possible by the C.A.B.'s policy of allowing fastdepreciation and of encouraging competition. The second con- dition, one arising out of the first, is an over-provision of capacitywhich has dragged load-factors down to a dubious level. In brief, there exists an excess of high-cost capacity. MORE ABOUT THE RAINBOW SINCE we published some preliminary details of Republic's newturboprop transport on December 27, further information has been quoted in America. None of the figures given bear theofficial Republic stamp, but the new Rainbow has been described in amarket research brochure distributed to "most of the world's major carriers"by Robert Hewitt Associates Inc., on behalf of Republic. Similar, but slightly larger than theViscount, the Rainbow is a good deal more expensive, at a price said byAviation Daily to be about £642,000. It is reported that Viscount-type win-dows will be used. Maximum payload is 19,200 lb with either General Elec-tric T64 or Dart RDa.10 powerplants and the payload with 15,420 lb fuel is17,620 lb. The range with reserves at maximum continuous cruising power is 2,000 miles with the T64sand 1,500 miles with the Darts; at maximum economical power it is 2,500 miles and 1,700 miles respectively. Stalling speed is 89 m.p.h.Preliminary figures for direct operating costs are about $1 per aircraft mUe for stage distances of about 1,000 miles, or $0,014per seat mile (with 80 tourist class seats) over a 500 mile stage and $0,011 over 1,500 miles. JUST FOR THE RECORD T AST December bad publicity for the Britannia resulted in the-•—' type being put under the microscope in a way that few air- craft have been before. In the light of these examinations, themost searching of which attempted to put some nine months' operations in comparison with those of other aircraft operatingat similar periods in their development lives, it could be concluded that—although there was room for improvement—things were notas bad as they had been made out to be. The daily utilization figures were shown to be nearly as high as the best that had beenrecorded by other aircraft after 12 months in service; Bristol Aircraft quoted the expected Britannia 102 utilization after ayear in service as 6J hr per day against 6 hr 38 min for the DC-7 and 5 hr 39 min for the Constellation L.1049C. The last figure has been challenged by Lockheed, who say that,after searching their records to see if the comparison was justified "we found that one airline, which we suspect was the one towhich Bristol referred, had 5.5 hr at the end of six months, but this experience was far from typical and resulted only from adeliberate scheduling policy rather than from any operating prob- lems. That same airline had 6.7 hr at the end of the first year.However, figures for three other major 1049C Super Constellation operators showed 836, 10.00 and 10.60 hr of average dailyutilization after the first year." At the end of the Britannia's first year of service, on February 1,B.O.A.C. announced that the daily utilization achieved was 6J hr per aircraft—better than that achieved with any other aircraft inits first year in the Corporation's service. Britannia 102s are now averaging about eight hours a day. More than 100 hours' test flying has now been completed on Lockheed's Jetstar— now resplendent in its first paint scheme. It is seen here taking off from Burbank.
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