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Aviation History
1958
1958 - 0473.PDF
FLIGHT, 11 April 1958 Straight and Level IF I had a pound note for every occa-sion on which I have argued abouttarget dates, I would be rich. It must be generally agreed that target dates—for the completion of a particu- lar phase in the development or manu- facture of an aeroplane or any other product—are essential. The big bone of contention is: should they be opti- mistic or pessimistic? I believe strongly that one should always try and pro- gramme one's operations according to what one genuinely thinks one should achieve, without consciously trying to set a severe schedule. Obviously the schedule must be rapid enough to be competitive, but far too many people— especially, I feel, British aircraft con- structors—have erred in the past by consistently under-estimating the time they take to do things. Is there anybody prepared to stand up and dispute my suggestion that to most aircraft builders on this side of the Atlantic a target date means less than it ought to? It should be something which a manufacturer moves heaven and earth to meet. Instead, a missed target date is the rule rather than the exception; and—this is the acid factor— nobody regards such an occurrence as in any way unusual or horrifying. I'm not only getting at the aircraft industry: I sent in an electric iron for repair eleven weeks ago and it has so far been promised "tomorrow" six times. • What makes a ballistic missile bal- listic? Two points of view appeared recently in the correspondence columns of the Manchester Guardian concerning a stone dropped from the top of the Tower of Pisa. Question: is this stone a ballistic missile? To one reader, the stone's velocity of projection is equal to the Earth's peripheral velocity of rota- tion, and the stone describes a ballistic trajectory. To another, the word missile is derived from mitto (I send or I throw); the stone is not associated with the idea of propulsion, and an object merely dropped is therefore not a mis- sile. The Technical Editor suggests that any moving body which describes a free- falling path must be a ballistic missile. The fact that its initial acceleration is that due to gravity does not worry him at all. According to his reasoning, if he were to jump out of his sixth-floor Dorset House window (or from the top of the Tower of Pisa), he, too, would be a ballistic missile. But, then, that's his problem. • Recently I met an American engi- neer whose present job is the completion of a "weapon system feasibility study." This means thinking in general terms about al the pros and cons of some sug- gested offensive or defensive "system" and deciding if it could do a job and if it could be actually produced. The curious thing is that he is now getting a far higher salary than he ever did when he was really using his talents as an engineer. In his present job, he says, he is doing precisely what any reasonably intelligent human could do —merely thinking and applying com- mon sense. There are millions of people who would jump at the chance of having a job where they could get a high salary for doing just this; but they have to go on being garage hands, butchers, sol- diers, bank clerks. . . . • According to the news-agency cap-tion which accompanied this photo- graph on to my desk, "the swept-backwings of the Comet jetliner provided the idea for this new hat, called 'Jet'worn by Ann Gyrsting during a preview of the spring hat collections of GinaDavies. . . ." The sweep of the brim is said to suggest "Flight." Ah well,that's fame, I suppose. Magazines obviously suggest different things todifferent people. • Did you ever hear about the Reichenschmutz It seems that the N.A.C.A. proposed that the third in their series of post-war research aircraft should be a supersonic straight-wing (double-wedge-section) aircraft with an integral ramjet for propulsion. When it was being planned the American scene was being turned upside-down by captured German data, and many American engineers (unlike their oppo- site numbers in Britain) found that they could not promote projects which did not bear some kind of German name. The X-3 ramjet was accordingly dubbed with the name above to help it along. Even this did not help it, and the X-3 designation was finally given to a Douglas design. • Cadets at the U.S. Air ForceAcademy—until later this year located at Maxwell A.F.B., Alabama—seem tohave access to some very erudite pro- fessors. "Arnold Hall," runs a report,"is used by upper-classmen once a month ... for dances." • British salesmanship was the targetfor pungent criticism recently from an industry figure well qualified to speakon the subject. The occasion was the Senior Common Room dinner at Cran-field (see p. 482). "Add a course on sales- manship," the speaker suggested; "com-pared with other countries we don't even know how to start." Best bewarethe traditional British philosophy of being decent types and not hitting belowthe belt, he added, otherwise "we'll be so old-fashioned we'll all die of starva-tion while we're poking the guy above the belt." No prizes for guessing who the speaker was—how many British manag- ing directors do you know whose firms have sold over 450 turbine airliners? • What I term the "monocle" approach to the promotion of Britain and things British abroad is all right up to a point. But foreigners are not im- pressed with the more extreme British symbols. These nowadays are admis- sible only when employed by men who know their business, and their competi- tors' business, absolutely. And perhaps not even then. In a market as tough and as technical as aviation there is no place for a hand- kerchief elegantly tucked in the shirt- cuff : the sleeves must be rolled up. • One of this country's leading glider pilots told me an interesting thing over dinner the other night. Apparently the wing area of his Skylark 3 sailplane is just about equal to that of the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter. And that seems to be where the resemblance ends—the Star- fighter's wing loading is perhaps 40 times greater, and its aspect ratio of just over two compares with over 20 for the Skylark. I don't suppose designer Fred Slingsby is really worried that his Sky- lark cannot fly at supersonic speed for over an hour, as a Starfighter recently did—just let them try soaring the F-104 on the ridge at Dunstable. • A colleague recently asked a direc- tor of a big aircraft firm what he thought about the Grumman Gulfstream. He had not heard of it—nor, it seemed, was he interested to hear of it. And his firm was studying projects for the executive market. . . . ROGER BACON
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