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Aviation History
1958
1958 - 0506.PDF
522 FLIGHT, 18 April 1958 Equipment for Air Transport OFF WITH THE OLD, ON WITH THE NEW By A. T. PUGH TO look back upon the British aircraft industry of only a yearago is to see a picture surprisingly different from the onepresented today. In April 1957 the home market—the national Corporations upon which the industry has always reliedfor its first sales—had still to decide about its equipment needs for the 1960s, although it was clear that a medium jet for B.O.A.C.,and a short-haul jet with which B.E.A. could meet the mounting challenge of France's merchant venturer Caravelle, would need tobe included on the Corporations' next shopping list. At a first glance, indeed, competition from foreign equipmentin May 1957 appeared almost overwhelming. Apart from an unrivalled turboprop offering (Britannia, Vanguard and Viscount)in each of the three broad classifications of airliner range, the British industry's foothold in the jet market appeared slenderindeed. Boeing and Douglas, bursting with sales energy and dis- playing great confidence in their ability to meet the tight schedulesthey had set themselves, had sold their big jets at a rate and in numbers that needed an occasional hasty recalculation of thecapacity required in the 1960s for reassurance that the market was not already saturated. The first medium jet—the shapelyConvair 880—had already been ordered in a fair quantity by three operators and Boeing's 717 (now 720) seemed assured of a market.And rumour surrounding the DC-9 and Boeing 727 suggested that the West Coast's ideas for short-haul jets were well advanced. Now, a year later, the sales emphasis has swung from acrossthe Atlantic to Europe. In the U.S., United Air Lines became the first—and so far the only—operator to buy Boeing 720s; andCapital, to the accompaniment of expressions of astonishment (in view of their poor financial position) signed for 15 Convair 880s.Yet apart from these first excursions into the medium-jet field, the American market was quiet in 1957; the big-jet buying spree isover and the airlines are nursing their immense headache as to how to foot the instalments on the bill. It is to Europe that theycan now look for the new pattern of jet transports that is emerg- ing; to France for the first of the short-haul jets that establishedthat pattern, and to Britain for the new shape of aeroplane that betokens the advent—-even before the first of the underwingpodded jets are in service—of a new generation of jet transports. After the stormy controversies surrounding the British aircraftindustry over the past months it is easy to overlook its contribution to the world airliner market. There have recently been revealedtwo designs from the project offices of U.K. manufacturers that, taken together, are comforting evidence of the nation's continueddesign virility. The first is the medium jet with North Atlantic range, a design exercise that at the first attempt (a brief fourteenmonths before) had been called "very difficult" and was later almost thankfully abandoned. The other pace-setting design is the specialized short-haul jet.The characteristic rear-engined configuration may stem from the Continent, but adoption of a three-engined layout (an arrange-ment shown, incidentally, by all three firms tendering for the B.E.A. order and designing to the Corporation's specification)stamps the D.H.121 as being of a new pattern again. Thus in twelve months, the still unfamiliar shape of the under-wing-podded American civil jets has been supplemented by the "European" line: a clean wing, straight tapered and swept atabout 35 deg, and rear-fuselage-mounted engine pods. The American challenge which a year ago seemed so formidable hasbeen reduced to life-size by the diminishing perspective of pro- gress. The familiar game of technical leapfrog is being playedout on the high subsonic speed plateau and the contestants are jockeying to provide the most tempting specification at the momentthe airlines want to buy. It appears at present that delivery of the new dc Havillandshort-haul jet to B.E.A. in 1964 leaves U.S. West Coast manufac- turers with ample scope for delivery date undercutting; Boeingand Douglas are telling the airlines that their 727 and DC-9 could probably be delivered in 1961. If experience has taught us any-thing, it is that American manufacturers have a fine record_ of keeping delivery promises. With break-even quantities dependingnow upon the production of 70-80 aircraft (any significant reduc- tion would price the product out of the market), the prospect oftoo many manufacturers competing for the orders of too few airlines—and only about half-a-dozen carriers are in any positionto develop new aircraft—is a sombre one. This year will be remembered as the one in which the airlinesstood, like eager yet hesitant swimmers on the edge of a bathing pool, awaiting their first plunge into full-scale jet operations. Theexercise has been tried before and found to be very promising, and in turboprop operations early promise has been richly fulfilled.Yet the future historian may find it necessary to remind his own generation that in 1958, when orders had been placed in theWestern world for no less than eight types of jet, only two new turboprops—the Vanguard and the Electra—were on order. The passenger appeal of the pure jet's speed and the airlines'reluctance to offer one fare for fast journeys and another fare for slow is discussed on pages 520 and 521; but it is abundantly clearthat the differential fare issue is the stumbling block in the way of turboprop development. For the carriage of freight, the samearguments do not, of course, apply; and the turboprop A.W.A. Freightercoach appears, by virtue of its present potential mono-poly of an expanding market, to have an important future. The design is made much more valuable and its appeal enhanced bythe offer of a variety of configurations at an early stage in the development of the type, since the choice of optimum fuselagesize is perhaps the most critical early design decision to be made. The Lockheed 282A, civil version of the C-130A Hercules, isobviously restricted in this respect, and it is probably rather too large an aircraft for widespread civil operation at present. Before dismissing the differential jet/turboprop fare issue, itseems worthwhile to ponder a little longer upon the effect that reduced fares for turboprop travel might have upon the pattern ofairline equipment. Undoubtedly the present trend is away from turboprops on the heavily contested passenger routes. There is,for example, no new turboprop design (apart perhaps from Republic's Rainbow) contemporary with the D.H.121 or theVC.10; nor has an advanced Britannia or a replacement yet been offered to the airlines. But if differential fares were introducedin time for the Britannia, Vanguard and Electra to take advantage of them, there would be an immediate demand for a follow-updesign of turboprop, particularly one of very large capacity (to gain the utmost from the low class of fares) and of considerable range(to use the turboprop's economy to best advantage and offer non- stop services over ranges that the jet could not match). There is only one aircraft in die world that approaches thisspecification today, and that is the Tu-114. It has immense capa- city, promises considerable range and is undoubtedly very fast—perhaps beyond the point where it is a good turboprop and approaching that where it is a bad jet. It would thus be idle to overlook the fact that a tussle fordifferential fares (of as much value to the turboprop airlines as the travellers that they carry) might raise unwanted political issues. Itwould be droll indeed if a Russian operational—or even sales— breakthrough were to turn upon this controversy, but it is notunduly rash to predict that Aeroflot applications for traffic rights across the Western world are not so far away; nor is considerablesales effort in the West by Russia's manufacturers. Even if the Tu-110 is dismissed as being unlikely to approach U.S. or Euro-pean jet economy, the Russian challenge with Tu-114, 11-18 and An-10 turboprops is a very real one. It is easy enough, in discussing trends in air transport equip-ment, to forget that only the most modest amount of traffic is yet carried by turbine-engined aircraft, however quickly the emphasismay change in the next few years. It is a sobering fact that numerically about thirty per cent of the world's transport totalair fleet consists of DC-3s. If re-equipment provides a headache for major airlines, for many smaller ones the problem presents a com-plete impasse. There is no general solution, and no single DC-3 replacement. For many smaller and poorer airlines the DC-3replacement really is the DC-3; and the rising engineering costs will have to be offset as best they can by end-of-the-Une disposal [Continued on page 523
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