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Aviation History
1958
1958 - 0369.PDF
FLIGHT, 21 March 1958 385 WHO BELIEVES IN HELICOPTERS?... necessity, would provide splendid dividends in the form of fullydeveloped helicopters that would be equally suitable for civil use, whereas only space-dogs have yet made a journey (one-way) bythe still-more-costly ICBM. This brings us back again to Russia, whose military leadersappear to be fully convinced of the value of helicopters, if we are to judge by the vast numbers of Mi-Is, Mi-4s and Yak-24s thatdispense troops, guns, trucks and equipment at each Tushino display. And these same aircraft are in parallel production forAeroflot. The Helicopter Airways. No statistics are available showingthe extent to which Aeroflot is already using helicopters; but it must be fairly great if we include such work as spraying anddusting, for which this airline is also responsible. However, it is probably safe to assume that no other operators in the world havethe scheduled service experience of Sabena and America's three pioneer companies, New York Airways, Chicago HelicopterAirways and Los Angeles Airways. Study of their results shows once more that the helicopter isnot doing too badly, despite the critics, and despite the fact that it operates only short stages, which are traditionally uneconomicaleven with fixed-wing aircraft. In the single month of July 1957, New York Airways carried 9,190 passengers in its nine com-paratively small helicopters. This was 18 years after the first flight of the first practical "single rotor" helicopter. Yet in thewhole of 1926, which was 23 years after the first practical aero- plane flight, the eight scheduled airlines then existing in theUnited States carried a total of on'y 5,782 passengers. Further- more, New York Airways also hauled 60,000 Ib of freight,122,000 lb of express and 250,000 lb of mail in that same peak month last summer. So popular are the services run by the three U.S. companiesthat last year their passenger traffic increased by 118 per cent and freight by 114 per cent—which is not bad by any standards. Of course, the cynics will say that the more passengers ahelicopter airline carries, the more money it loses, and to a large extent this is so. Economic aspects are discussed in an article onpage 388, but we can add another sidelight here. According to Jules Naom6, Attache a la Direction of Sabena. "direct operating costs, including depreciation but excluding hull insurance, of theS-55 on the Sabena network was about 17 cents (say 14.6d) per seat-mile, while the seat-mile on the S-58 costs about 14 cents(12d). Although this may seem an appreciable reduction in operat- ing costs, the true picture is given when costs per seat-mile arerelated to the average income per passenger-mile. The real income per passenger on our network is about 7 cents (6d) perpassenger-mile or, at a 50 per cent load factor, 3.5 cents (3d) per seat-mile. This means that the deficit on direct operating costsalone and at a 50 per cent load factor is around 81 cents (69.4d) per mile for the S-55 and around $1.26 (108d) per mile for theS-58." New York Airways have the good fortune to operate in a citywhere the Port Authority believes in helicopters. As a result, its present heliports at Newark Airport, La Guardia, Idlewild andWest 30th Street will be supplemented progressively with new heliports at Brooklyn, the Battery, East Side Manhattan, S tat enIsland and Newark, at a cost of $20 million, as its services build up. A first major step towards the goal of economic independence wastaken recently when New York Airways ordered five tandem-rotor Vertol 44Bs to replace its present fleet of smaller aircraft. Eachwill carry 15 .passengers, plus mail, freight and baggage in a 45 cu ft cargo compartment, and the first is expected to bedelivered in April. Later, possibly in 1960-61, the airline hopes to begin re-equip-ping with what it calls "Ship X." This is seen as a twin-turbine helicopter carrying 20-25 passengers over a range of 125 miles at100-125 m.p.h. and corresponds with the first of the two "specifica- tions" that resulted from the I.A.T.A. Helicopter Meeting at SanRemo in May 1956. Its initial cost is expected to be around $500,000 (£180,000), with a direct operating cost of not morethan $95 (£34) an hour and maintenance cost of $95 (£34) an hour. Nor is this a mere dream, for Vertol are building an aircraftto meet this sort of specification, and hope to have it flying in the next two or three months. Assuming the availability of efficient all-weather navigationaids (the company decided recently to fit the Decca Navigator to its fleet), it is hoped to have five "Ship Xs" in service by 1962 andto carry nearly one million passengers in that year. Doubling the fleet and operating at a load factor of 60 per cent, New YorkAirways believe they would carry nearly 2\ million passengers in In scheduled service: A Sikorsky S-58 of Chicago Helicopter Airways. 1111111
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