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Aviation History
1958
1958 - 0209.PDF
FLIGHT, 14 February 1958 219 Straight and vel IT seems to me that whichever of thetwo opposing factions gets theB.E.A. jet order, the work-hungry British aircraft industry will not have contracted, but will—nominally, any- way—have expanded. One new com- pany will have been added to its ranks. The Government have never precisely denned their policy about industrial re- grouping; but they have never spoken of "amalgamations" or "mergers"—only of "associations." These they will have achieved; but it remains to be seen whether the members of these associations continue to fly their own flags, and to disband when the B.E.A. job is finished. For example, if Airco gets the order, obviously Hunting and D.H. salesmen will continue keenly to compete for, respectively, President and Heron orders. Oddly enough, if the Hawker Siddeley-Bristol joint company (a pity it has not been given a name) gets the order, there will be practically no conflicting interests. But whichever association wins, I have a feeling that the firms concerned, in order to survive in a cold, harsh world of diminishing contracts, will stay huddled together for warmth. • One of these days somebody will have to explain, once and for all, exactly what the Americans have meant for the last eight years when they have talked about a "weapon system." The other day I actually saw a reference to a well- known British aeroplane, describing it as "a fully supersonic single-seat fighter with a very advanced weapon system." The author of this statement clearly thought that his weapon system con- sisted solely of guns, guided weapons, electronics and their associated auxiliary services. He might be surprised to learn that to an American—and, I devoutly hope, most of us on this island—a weapon system includes tools, trestles, servicing manuals, protective covers, ground starting units, chocks, pilot clothing, and a thousand and one other things, in addition to—in this case— a vehicle, to wit, an aeroplane. • One of the founders of the present Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, Ran- dolph C. Walker, died recently at his Beverley Hills home. He was one of the group, led by Stearman and including Lockheed's president, Robert E. Gross, who in 1932 bought the firm from Detroit Aircraft. Lockheed was then in the hands of receivers and its assets were worth $40,000. This is no mean sum; but I think it is worth pointing out that Lockheed's assets today are worth a great deal more. The December 31 balance sheet has not yet been pub- lished, but I expect it will show fixed assets of about $480m—twelve thousand times as much as on that bleak day 26 years ago. • There is precious little glory left now for the aeronautical soloist: every- thing worth doing (except manned orbit) has been done by men and women whose illustrious names are forever re- corded in aviation history. But stay: no one has ever flown non- stop round the world in a home-made motorized glider. Mr. Jim Bede, a 24- year-old aeronautical engineer from Cleveland, Ohio, intends to do just this. My picture shows him with a model of his machine and a globe depicting his route. The trip, which will take place next June, will last 6^ days: Mr. Bede will sleep every other hour, aided by a reclining seat, an autopilot, and an alarm clock. • American airline president to Vickers engineer: "Viscount? Say, that's the airplane that's been having all those pressure-fatigue failures, isn't it?" I guarantee that this remark, made only a few weeks ago, is truly reported. It points two morals: (1) The firms in the British aircraft industry, so far as the export market is concerned, have a collective reputation. In other words, they are all tarred with the same brush, and they can squabble domestically at their collective peril. (2) The industry should never imagine that its potential customers overseas are well-informed about even the most blindingly obvious matters. • I'm thoroughly exhausted trying to straighten out misunderstandings caused by silly newspaper reports about missiles. Some people seem to think these things are so new-fangled that nobody knows anything about them and they needn't even bother to get their facts right. Already this week I've seen Navaho described as a medium-range weapon and as a ballistic weapon, Snarkdescribed as a giant rocket, Thor called "intercontinental" and Atlas describedas a "failure" because it only went 600 miles (the programmed distance) in-stead of the design figure of 5,500 miles. How long does it take "special corres-pondents" to learn as much about these devices as the average schoolboy knows? • "Go! Go! Go! At 12:35 Big Annie wasready. On the north beach, three miles away, the wife of a man on the firing crewcrossed her arms and said softly: 'Oh, God, please make it go. Help Jerry makeit go right.' In three minutes flame welled up in the launching stand. 'She's going!'howled a woman on the beach. Down dropped the last of Big Annie's moorings.A man cried: 'She's off!' All along the beaches the chant picked up new voices, asoaring, surging chain reaction sent them into a recitative: 'Go!' they yelled. 'Go . . .Go . . . Go . . .'" This stirring text is taken from a recent issue of Time, the weekly news- magazine. Big Annie, by the way, is Convair's SM-65 Atlas. I thought it worth repeating here because it shows how different are the American and British outlooks on such things. When we start firing our "medium-sized Annie" in two or three years' time, nobody will shout "go" at all, and in all probability only "authorized personnel" will know about it. As a race we're phlegmatic—or perhaps most of us aren't really interested in big Annies, and regard them merely as noisy horrors which ought to be stopped. And per- haps they should be. • Come on, you pilots, how about transferring to the Navy? I don't mean carriers, I mean the "fish-head" navy. Submarines. I've just been reading about the future submarines of the U.S. Navy, in which hydrodynamic refine- ments and tremendous power—peroxide or nuclear—will allow underwater speeds of up to 60 knots. In these giant craft the crew will all wear seat-harness to protect them during high-g man- oeuvres. Loops will be entirely feasible —even the U.S.S. Albacore, an early development craft, is reported to have been looped—and a present-day tor- pedo could be dodged as easily as a crack matador avoids a bull. What's that? You prefer to fly in air? • Collectors of curious facts will be interested in the following item from a recent D.H. publicity release: — "Comets have flown 20 million miles, equal to 800 times round the world or a fifth of the distance from Hyde Park Corner to the Sun." Fortunately, D.H. are grown-up enough to laugh at themselves; and I hope that this quotation will appear, without comment, on the famous back page of the de Havilland Gazette. ROGER BACON
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