FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1958
1958 - 0267.PDF
28 February 1958 9.81 Straight and Level THE president of the U.S. AirTransport Association, Stuart G.Tipton, has at last got approval from the Civil Aeronautics Board for a six per cent (or thereabouts) fare in- crease. Seven of his domestic airline- members asked for this last year. The ensuing pother is a long, long story; but what is Mr. Tipton's reaction to the granting of his members' original request? "Absolutely not sufficient," he growls. Come, come, Mr. Tipton—is this not a little churlish? Is it not unwise to antagonize those who hold you so tightly in their power? And, by the way, is it not economic nonsense to say that refusal of a further fares-boost "will tend to stifle and slow down drastically the remarkable growth of the industry"? I thought that price reductions increased traffic growth. But I must admit that it is all very well for me to admonish the U.S. air trans- port industry. Their commercial effi- ciency—take any index you like—puts the State-owned airlines of the Old World to shame. Even if the U.S. domestic airlines get a 15 per cent fare increase, which is what they now want, their fares will still be hardly more than a half of intra-European airline fares. • First Principle No. 1: Every British aircraft manufacturer would like to see his factories humming with commercial airliner production. F.P. No. 2: The extent to which his factories are full will depend directly upon the future public demand for air travel. F.P. No. 3: The future demand for air travel will depend directly upon the cost of tickets, and upon little else that really matters. F.P. No. 4: The price of the ticket is the only, repeat only, key to the sluice- gates of mass air travel. F.P. No. 5; Mass air travel will bring prosperity to the airlines and to the manufacturers who supply them. If it is all as simple as this, why are not the efforts of every British manufac- turer, and of each airline Corporation, directed towards cheaper fares? By all means let us cater for the first-class traveller: but is he the chap who is going to fill our civil aircraft factories in the future? • One type of research facility which American experience has shown to be invaluable is the precision-laid railed track upon which supersonic test sleds can run. These tracks have already helped no end in the development of missile guidance systems, aeroplane crew-escape mechanisms, the proving of components of all types against high and sustained acceleration, the perfec- tion of surfaces intended to resist rain- erosion at Mach 2, and lots of other fields in which a large (full-scale) device has to be shoved through "free-stream" air at high supersonic speed. Biggest of the tracks is at the U.S.A.F. Air Research and Development Com- mand base at Holloman, New Mexico; when extended to 35,OOOft (almost seven miles) it will run the largest vehicles up to Mach 4. A similar speed can be reached on the 20,000ft track at Edwards A.F.B. Over 2,180 m.p.h. has been achieved on the Navy's 21,500ft SNORT track at China Lake, and other major efforts include the terrifying Coleman track at Hurricane Mesa, which runs for 12,500ft to the sheer edge of a 1,500ft precipice over which escape capsules can be fired. All these tracks cost money, and America has found good reason to build at least a dozen. How many do we have? (Echo answers: Maybe none at present. I wouldn't know what's been built at Woomera, but I'll bet ejection- boots we have a good one inside five years. And this will be ten years too late.) • "Out of deep freeze comes an Otter, . like other equipment, it was kept under snow for a year, until it could be used . . ." That was the caption which the U.S. Air Force Times gave to the picture which I reproduce here—with acknow- ledgements to that journal, and to M/Sgt. Jack Little who took the photograph. The Otter is one of many used in the Antarctic by the U.S. Air Force and Navy in "Operation Deepfreeze." I don't know what D.H. Canada's service department would say about this storage practice, which I should have thought much too considerate for the Otter. Didn't someone once say that it is an aeroplane "designed for the sort of pilot who comes into town once a year for a daily inspection and a shave?" The Neptune propeller, incidentally, was used as a marker. • One of the things most important to British aviation is the Vickers-Arm- strongs Viscount, and one of the most important factors affecting the future Viscount sales picture is the tremendous fact that this aeroplane can be made to cruise, efficiently and reliably, at 400 m.p.h. This is quite fortuitous, and Sir George Edwards himself was recently heard to wonder just who was looking over his shoulder when he and Rex Pierson were laying out the Vis- count wing more than a decade ago. • Lord Brabazon in 1946: "For almost a decade we have had to bend all our energies to the production of military aircraft. This leaves us with much lee- way to make up if we are to catch America in the field of civil airliners." Mr. Carl Hinshaw, member of the U.S. House of Representatives, speak- ing ten years later on the Korean war: "we were doing our best and producing all the military aircraft, even though the Soviets were practically on the borders. They [the British] were building jet commercial aircraft for the purpose of recapturing the transportation market in British-built aircraft. Our people have been so busy making fighting planes they have not had time to build trans- ports of modern design." • Coming from Armstrong Siddeley one day I made the acquaintance of a battery of large portions of vitreous glazed china on Coventry station, and was interested to note that each bore the trade mark "Sapphire". Even in my own office here all the wash-basins are called "Tyne". It just goes to show that you can't think of a new name; but I'm willing to bet there is only one thing designated J57-P-35W—so there may be something in algebraic symbols after all. ROGER BACON
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
