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Aviation History
1958
1958 - 0329.PDF
FLIGHT, 14 March 1958 345 An international incident arose recently when this South Korean DC-3, en route from Pusan to Seoul, crossed the 38th parallel and landed in North Korea. The South Koreans say that the aircraft was "forced" across the 38th parallel; the North Koreans say that it did so because the 30 people on board had "de- nounced" their country's regime. CIVIL AVIATION PANAM'S 707 PLANS PAN AMERICAN are planning to inaugurate Boeing 707 jetservices across the North Atlantic in October—seven months from now, according to a report in Time magazine. The implications of this news, which PanAm do not deny orconfirm, are significant. First, it tends to confirm reports that the Boeing 707 programme is two to three months ahead ofschedule: deliveries to PanAm were originally due in December. (The Douglas DC-8, incidentally, is now a little behind schedule,roll-out having been due last month and first flight this month.) Second, it means that PanAm intend to live up to their reputa-tion for being not just first, but first by a long way. The 707-120 may not be suitable for regular westbound non-stop operationacross the North Atlantic with full payload, but its impact on traffic will be so great that its operation can almost certainly bejustified commercially. The effect on B.O.A.C.'s Britannia services will probably result in a trend from de luxe to T.34 seating.It is significant that B.O.A.C.'s 312s are being returned to Bristol (for about a month each) so that the necessary interior changescan be made. B.O.A.C. also confirm, incidentally, that substantial changes will be made at the same time to the flight deck, wherea proper flight engineer's station is to be installed. If 707 services are in fact inaugurated in October PanAm'sjet domination of the North Atlantic should be complete at least until T.W.A. introduce their 707-120s, which are due to bedelivered about three months after PanAm's aeroplanes. Unless, of course, B.O.A.C. operate parallel token Comet 4 services acrossthe North Atlantic. The Corporation's Comets are due to be delivered in September,a month before PanAm get their 707s. The jet-race being what it is, it may well be that B.O.A.C. will be pressed to put theirComets into transatlantic service—instead of down the Kangaroo The Port of New York Authority's favourable assess- ment of the noise of the Comet 3 was the result of tests made last Novem- beratD.H.Hatfield. A note on these tests appears on this page; here the Comet 3 is seen submitting itself to a noise-level re- cording by the American acoustic engineers. A total of 13 take-offs and six landings was measured. route—as soon as they are delivered. With no limitations on pay-load, the Comet 4 should be a good commercial proposition for a one-stop westbound operation. And at least there should beno objections in New York to the Comet's noise level, as the next news item indicates. New York's attitude to noise is a matterwhich could affect PanAm's inaugural plans. NEW YORK AND THE COMETT HE Port of New York Authority, the world's most noise-conscious airport-owner, is satisfied that at take-off the de Havilland Comet 4 "will produce no greater noise disturbanceto residential areas near airports than exists with currently used large propeller-driven aircraft." The P.N.Y.A. has just issued its report on the measurementswhich its engineers made of Comet noise-levels (as suppressed by Rolls-Royce) at Hatfield between November 18 and 26 last. Onthe strength of its findings, the Authority has granted permission for the Comet to use New York International for demonstrationflights "under controlled conditions" (e.g., in daylight and V.F.R. conditions). The possibility that the Comet 3—or more likelythe Comet 4—will visit New York in the near future is not, however, confirmed as imminent by de Havilland. ALITALIA DECIDE ON DC-8s THE order-book for the Douglas DC-8 rose from 134 to 138on March 6 when Alitalia-Linee Aeree Italiene (now just "Alitalia") purchased four for delivery in the summer of 1960.Cost, with spares, will be $27 million. No indication of the choice of powerplant, which could beeither Pratt and Whitney JT4s or Rolls-Royce Conways, is given. The only hard fact in the formal announcement is the Alitalia'sDC-8s will be able to fly from Rome to New York non-stop against a 60 kt headwind. It is remarkable, incidentally, that the DC-8 delivery-date quotedby Douglas to Alitalia is the same as it would have been if the Italian airline had ordered DC-8s a year ago. Only two other European transatlantic carriers have still todecide on big jets—T.A.P. and Iberia. Though more 707s have been ordered than DC-8s (153 v. 138), Douglas have 16 airlineson their books compared with Boeing's 13. B.O.A.C. TO PARIS APPLICATION No. 1641 to the Air Transport Advisory Council** describes B.O~A.C.'s first public move to include Europe in its international network. The Corporation has requested per-mission to operate between London and Paris, using Britannia 312s, DC-7Cs or Boeing 707s, initially twice a week but later on adaily basis. This development was foreshadowed by last January's agreement between B.O.A.C. and B.E.A. (see Flight, January 31,page 158). At that time it was not clear whether B.O.A.C. would extend its North Atlantic services eastward from London, or pro-vide a through servide between N. America and the Continent by making transit stops in Europe on services to Africa and the East.The aircraft specified in the A.T.A.C. application suggest that, at least as far as Paris is concerned, a straightforward eastwardextension of Atlantic services is envisaged. The extra revenue earned on this new venture has presumably been weighed againstthe costs involved. Superficially, it would appear that the prospects of achieving a break-even load factor on short-haul services thatare scheduled to dovetail in with transatlantic services are small. As B.E.A. have already agreed in principle to B.O.A.C.'s action,it is improbable that the A.T.A.C. will turn down the application. A more likely stumbling-block is expected to be the FrenchGovernment which no doubt will reason that B.O.A.C.'s interests do not coincide with those of Air France. It is understood thatthe French national carrier has already sought additional rights to carry traffic between the U.K. and North America.
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