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Aviation History
1958
1958 - 0217.PDF
FIRST AERONAUTICAL WEEKLY IN THE WORLD FOUNDED 1909 »^ and AIRCRAFT ENGINEER No2561Vol73 FRIDAY 21 FEBRUARY 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 • Blackfriars 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. 111 Broadway, 6 Telephone • Digby 9-1197 ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION Home £4 15s Od, overseas £5 0s Od. Canada and USA. $15.00. Second Class Mail privileges author- ised at New York, N.Y. In this issue 230 Report on Defence 232 Explorer 234 P.181andl82 236 Towards Astronautics 239 Fighter Design Philosophy 244 From the Cameras of Coastal Command 246 Pakistan Air Force 259 The Control of Air Traffic Interdependence and IntelligenceT HE principle of interdependence in defence planning, enunciated by President Eisenhower and the Prime Minister in Washington last October and endorsed by the heads of fifteen NATO governments, will unavoidably raise, in each of the countries concerned, military, economic and political problems of varying kinds. So, at least, declares the Defence Minister in his White Paper Report on Defence. And the declaration is one upon which the Minister is unlikely to be challenged even by his most impassioned critics, for the White Paper itself bears evidence of a notable discrepancy between British and American military thinking. Having remarked—reasonably enough—that Russia could not hope to knock out strategic air bases in the U.S.A. with manned bombers, the Paper goes on to assert that it would take the Russians several years to complete the development of an accurate intercontinenal rocket and to produce it in sufficient numbers. Compare this belief with testimony by the U.S. Army, who conceded before the U.S. House Armed Services Committee (we quote Aviation Daily) that Russia may have a 5,000-mile ballistic missile in operation by July this year. Compare it further with an official American declaration that squadrons of Atlas ICBMs will be in service with Strategic Air Command a year after the IRBMs become opera- tional (i.e., in December 1959). And relate this last declaration to the general post- sputnik belief that the Soviet Union has assumed the lead in IRBM development. It may be, of course, that Britain's own assessment of the situation, as proclaimed by Mr. Sandys, is more realistic—based upon more positive, and more accurately evaluated, information. But in a world wherein peace is "being uneasily main- tained by a balance of arms" (we quote the White Paper itself) a pooling of Intel- ligence must surely be, as in the late war, a keystone of defence planning. "Know your enemy" is a precept as old as warfare. But "Do not under-rate your enemy" is an equally commendable one, and one especially apt for the times. The R.A.F.'s Next Bomber In this same matter of Intelligence we are reminded that White Papers can usually be counted upon to provide a tit-bit or two of information not previously on public record. This year it was the disclosure by Mr. Sandys that the low-level tactical bomber being developed for the Royal Navy [the carrier-based Blackburn NA.39, with two de Havilland Gyron Junior turbojets] is being considered for adoption by the Royal Air Force also. It had been widely conjectured, of course, that a compact aeroplane of this class, of relatively low all-up weight, having an exceptional speed range and with atomic capability, should prove of interest to the R.A.F., especially for overseas operations. Indeed, Mr. Eric Turner, chairman of Blackburn and General Aircraft, had expressed his view that it seemed suitable for the R.A.F., NATO and the Commonwealth "as either a land or ship-based bomber." But it was also widely supposed that there was a definite R.A.F. requirement for a supersonic low-level bomber (nowhere has it been officially stated that the NA.39 is, itself, supersonic) suitable for operation over longer ranges and having extremely advanced naviga- tional aids. This, it was thought, was the aeroplane in Sir Matthew Slattery's mind when he alluded, at a recent Air League conference, to a type now in prospect which is so complicated that no single team in the British aircraft industry would be capable of handling it. Whether or not Mr. Chapman Pincher of the Daily Express is right in asserting that "air chiefs" argue that the range of the NA.39 is so short that there are no worthwhile targets for it, and insist that it is useless for their purposes, remains to be seen. It is, however, tolerably clear that an R.A.F. requirement has been stated for an aircraft in a different performance bracket from that of the NA.39, and a persistent Air Staff demand for such an advanced bomber could well erupt into public notice in the months ahead.
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