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Aviation History
1958
1958 - 0591.PDF
FLIGHT, 2 May 1958 607 Straight and Level IT is fashionable to bait the AmericanCivil Aeronautics Board. The U.S.airlines do it, I.A.T.A. does it, every- body does it—except me. Clearly, I am out of step: but Iwill readily become a C.A.B.-baiter when somebody convinces me that air trans-port and its users suffer as a result of the CA.B.'s actions. Is it so wrong that there should be agovernment authority charged with the economic expansion of air transport?Some say that the C.A.B. are still living in the horse-and-buggy era. Let methrow this analogy back at them by liken- ing the horse to the air transport industryand the buggy to the public. Without hands on the rein the whole speedingapparatus would soon be out of control, to the detriment of the buggy and thehorse. Of course, too much rein arrests pro-gress : but too little—on the assumption that the horse knows best—invites aneconomic pile-up. The C.A.B., in my opinion, exert just the right amount ofcontrol. We don't like planners in this country.Planner is a snarl-word. We like vaguely defined institutions like cricket and theHouse of Lords. The idea of a C.A.B.- equivalent to foster and promote Britishair transport, and to protect the interests of its users, is complacently pooh-poohedwith remarks like, "Too complex for us, old boy. We don't want a lot of tameeconomists and lawyers messing about with our airlines." In the meantime, we "regulate" our airtransport with a Ministry which is think- ing three-quarters of the time aboutroads, ships, railways, buses and barges; and with seven grossly overworked menon the Air Transport Advisory Council with cramping terms of reference andno executive authority at all. Let no one forget that the economyfare was the result of C.A.B.'s lone stand against the impetuous "raise-the-fares"school in I.A.T.A. I don't expect that, when economy travel proves a big suc-cess, anyone will remember that. • Though this weighty pronounce- ment by Juan T. Trippe, president of Pan American World Airways, has already been quoted in the daily Press it is well worth repeating here: "prob- ably the most important barrier to sur- mount in bringing about the four billion dollar level of tourist travel is the lack of adequate hotel accommodations abroad. ... New tourist-type hotel con- struction abroad since Pearl Harbor has as yet not equalled the hotel capacity bombed out or abandoned during and since World War 2. On the other hand, foreign travel as a whole has increased some 400 per cent." More power to your arm, Mr. Trippe; and if I were a multi-millionaire I would build some hotels myself. • Ever study the mechanical propertiesof pure metallic crystals? Quite a few men in the industry have heard aboutthe almost fantastic tensile strengths of truly pure metals—laboratory resultswell in excess of 1,000,000 lb/sq in are now being achieved—and wish theycould have such stuff in bulk. Assum- ing that it could be worked, and madeavailable in all standard forms, such material could do startling things for air-craft and missile designers. I have done a few sums which show that one couldmake a bare DC-8 airframe (less under- carriage) weighing about 9,000 lb, com-pared with the current figure of about 58,000 lb. • One of the airlines' biggest problemsis how to occupy the customers. This is quite a job; how do you keep peoplehappy in the confined space of an airliner cruising for hour after hour throughsceneless sky? One airline at least has found theanswer, as this imposing photograph (guaranteed authentic) of satisfied cus-tomers testified. I don't know how the airline did it—but there is no doubt thatit did. I just wish I understood the significance of the globe. • For many years I have maintainedthat engineers are usually by no means among the beasts that perish throughbeing unable to appreciate the arts. Several highly technical people of myacquaintance are accomplished musi- cians and I would go as far as to say thatmore engineers know more about the arts than there are artists (in the widestsense) with any clues about science or technical affairs. The other day I thought things weregoing a bit too arty when I heard an American aerodynamicist talking about"having a model in B minor." I have since learned that B-minor isthe name of the 50in supersonic tunnel at the Arnold Engineering DevelopmentCenter. • A tip for senior executives who have little time to spare to prepare the lectures which they are so often called upon to deliver. Get your management infor- mation office to prepare some basicslides and illustrations; dictate and tape- record your thoughts around them;then edit the transcript. Perhaps you have no managementinformation office ? I think you ought to have; but be careful it doesn't tend tobecome more executive than infor- mative. • I am surprised that I.A.T.A. has nothad a shot at trying to establish, once and for all, the relative potential meritsof turbojet and turboprop propulsion in air transport. I emphasize the wordpotential because we all know how in- conclusive it is to compare actual types. Let the airlines' leading techniciansand economists throw away all the brochures, and get down to an unbiasedassessment of what modern technology can achieve in optimizing each form ofpropulsion. Air transport is going to be built upon both forms of propulsion, soshould not the airlines get down to prov- ing whether or not there is a case fordifferential fares? • A colleague suffers from jets at thebottom of his garden, and he is in full agreement with the distinguished en-gineer who foresees "mass legal action" against what I described a few weeks agoas the growing social evil of jet noise. Reductions in decibel level of five orso, so far achieved with such ingenuity, are not enough. The public will wantat least 15 decibels lopped off the noise levels of the big jets. How enginedesigners will do this without loss of performance is anybody's guess. I am fairly sure that communities liv-ing near airports, and particularly those beneath the take-off and climb paths,will find that, under the common law of most countries, they will have a right ofaction against the appropriate Ministry (or airport owners) for unreasonabledisturbance of the peace. It is fascinat- ing to speculate upon the outcome ofsuch an action. • The thoughts aired above promptthe following reflection. If you had to redesign an existing straight-through jetso that its efflux was slowed down suf- ficiently to make its noise acceptable,would the penalties be very great? My guess is an increase in diameter of notmore than 10 per cent, and an increase in weight of perhaps 20 per cent—interms of cost in payload, say 30 pas- sengers on a big 170-seat jet. That'squite a penalty, though certainly not so great as having your aircraft groundedby legal action. Anyway, it is too late now. Even if jetengines were redesigned in this way the airlines would want designers to stuff inmore air, and we should soon be back where we started. ROGER BACON
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