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Aviation History
1958
1958 - 0561.PDF
25 April 1958 577 Straight and ve I PRESSING for higher fares, theU.S. domestic airlines point out thatair fares today are no higher than they were in 1938. The flaw in this argument is that it ignores improvements in technology. That an electric light- bulb cost £1 in 1890 is no argument for pricing it at £1 today. Likewise, the U.K. trade unions will fight redundancy in B.O.A.C. by point- ing out their big increases in produc- tivity over the years. Certainly produc- tivity has increased, but employment cannot be related pro rata to production in an industry which is developing so rapidly, thanks to advances in tech- nology. As I remarked a few weeks ago, if B.O.A.C. were to man their 707s according to the productivity-standards of H.P.42 crews, they would need about 70 pilots in control of each aircraft. But frivolity apart, the business of relating labour to production is one of the grave social problems of our time. It is all summed up in the word automa- tion. Personally, I feel very sorry in- deed for the skilled and loyal B.O.A.C. people whose jobs are to fall before the .cruel sickle of advancing technology. • Ten out of ten to Harold Caplanfor writing recently in Flight: — "National sovereignty is an invaluableprinciple for dividing the surface of the Earth into economic or defence units. Itbecomes a dangerous disease of the mind when used to stifle individual liberty ofthought, or when it is used to project nationality from the surface of the Earthup into space itself." The international air lawyers havebeen Sputniked. Who cares any more about the sovereignty of territorial air-space? Sovereignty extends as far as it can be enforced, and no further. If weare going to be bombed, we shall be bombed by ballistic missiles fired fromthe ground. • Maj-Gen. Howze, the Director of U.S. Army Aviation, has a poor opinion of those little one-man "personal heli- copters," or vertical-lift devices, to accord them their proper name. He is on record as saying "you immediately think of whole divisions or regiments crossing rivers with these things, but second thought suggests that most of the troops would wind up in the river." Up the creek with two paddles, in fact. Talking about army vertical-lift devices, the U.S. Army have a wonder- ful term for their projected VTOL for battlefield operations. It is ZPGV, standing for "zero-pressure ground vehicle." • This naturally leads us on to theother end of the scale. Guess what is the "maximum pressure ground vehicle"(excluding a railway locomotive or travelling crane)? It is a female of the human species, wearing spike-heeledshoes. Remember, ladies, when next you board an airliner, that fear of yourheels has probably put several hundred pounds dead-weight into the structureof the floor, in order to accept a point load of some 200 lb/sq in. In fact, ifyou happen to weigh 200 lb, and are ill- advised enough to buy shoes with heelsof 7 sq in ... • Military aircraft cannot be sold tocivilians, according to U.S. Government regulations. So what does Bob Kamensky(above, left) do? Why, he travels around between Alaska and the Saharafor about three years, buying and col- lecting spare parts, and then he buildshimself a T-33 Shooting Star. How many separate parts? About 15,000. Iwonder when the Popular Flying Asso- ciation will get around to approvingthe T-33 for amateur construction in Britain? The picture, by the way, showsthe J33 engine which Kamensky also made himself. • Last week I propounded a simpleteaser involving a training mission with a B-52. I suggested that a 400,000 lbaeroplane flying from west to east lost some 3,500 lb weight and gained a likeamount when flying westwards. This is the difference accounted for by thevariation in centrifugal (or centripetal) force as the aircraft flies around theearth. The aircraft starts off with a rotational and peripheral velocity dueto the rotation of the earth and super- imposes on this its own true groundspeed. The variation between the two speeds (equal to twice the true groundspeed resolved along a parallel of latitude) results in the difference inapparent weight. Anybody disagree? • Again and again I hear the plea forbetter cockpit visibility. Personally, I do not see how bigger windscreens are go-ing to help solve the growing collision problem. Pilots have too much to do,and in any case they find it optically im- possible to keep the sky under constantsurveillance for hours at a time. Even if they could do so, there is not much timefor action at today's closing speeds. The see-and-be-seen principle is asdead as the many conscientious aviators it has already killed. Responsibility forthe safety of air navigation is upon the ground controllers and the designers ofnavigational and safety equipment. I suggest that, except for the take-offand landing, windscreens might just as well be plated over for all the use theyare. • Here's the old, old argument again:Courtland S. Gross, who is now presi- dent of Lockheed Aircraft, is quoted assaying that "primary air weapon-system responsibilities" should be awarded tocompanies that have "historically demonstrated capacities in the aircraftbusiness." You know, I'm certain that in 1458 the president of the True-YewBow Corporation said that "primary responsibility for army systems, includ-ing artillery, should be given to firms who have demonstrated their ability tomake the best bows and arrows." I am not saying that Gross is wrong; merelythat one cannot be dogmatic about such things. After all, Lockheed started fromscratch once. • From my friend Favonius in SantaMonica comes this thought for the day —extracted, he claims, from the Douglascompany's philosophy in the design of theDC-8: — "We have not succeeded in answeringall of your problems. . . . Indeed, we feel we have not completely answeredany of them. The answers we have found only serve to raise a whole set ofnew questions. In some ways we feel we are as confused as ever, but we be-lieve we are confused on a higher plane and about more important things." • What is a sandwich ? I see that thetransatlantic airlines are bickering, as I thought they would, over the definitionof this homely comestible. Some air- lines are apparently offering theireconomy-class passengers a slice of bread mountainously piled with bacon,eggs, mushrooms, and even peaches and cream. Why don't the airlines who are stick-ing to the rules (they include B.O.A.C. and PanAm) admit that you cannotdefine a sandwich without making I.A.T. A. look childish? The thing whichmatters to the economy of lower-class service is the weight and extent of cater-ing equipment, and the number of cabin crew on board. This is what should bedefined, not a silly old sandwich. • Let me tell I.A.T.A. what a sand-wich is. It's the man in the middle of a triple-seat airliner chair. ROGER BACON
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