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Aviation History
1958
1958 - 0668.PDF
684 FLIGHT, 16 May 1958 The first B.O.A.C. Comet 4 to take shape in de Havilland's "second- source" Comet production line at 'Chester is seen here. Chester, D.H.'s main aircraft assembly factory, is sharing with Hattield the Comet production programme. B.O.A.C.'s Comet plans are discussed below. CIVIL AVIATION B.O.A.C.'s COMET PLANS A LTHOUGH B.O.A.C. are, quite understandably, maintaining**• a commercial-security blackout on their plans for trans- atlantic jet operation, it is quite clear that they are making deter-mined efforts to meet the threat of PanAm 707 competition. During the last two weeks the two de Havilland Comet 2Es whichthe Corporation has had in operation since September 1957 diverted their Avon RA.29 development flights to the London-Gander route. A total of 11 such flights (via Keflavik) was due to be completed by today, May 16. These flights—the first transatlantic jet airliner proving-flightsto be made—were in anticipation of the possibility that B.O.A.C. will introduce Comet 4s into transatlantic service if and whenPanAm do likewise with their 707s. B.O.A.C.'s American rival will not yet say whether, as reports suggest, they will start Boeing707-120 services between New York and London on November 1. This is not surprising, since the achievement of such a schedulewith the 707 depends upon a satisfactory amount of crew-training and route-proving, not to mention certification (due now inAugust) and—perhaps the biggest uncertainty—acceptance by New York of the 707's noise. According to reports last week, which B.O.A.C. did not deny,the Corporation hopes to begin weekly Comet 4 Atlantic services on December 1, with daily services from January 1. This meansthat Comets will probably not now begin to serve the Common- wealth routes (see Flight of March 28) until 1960. This may be prestige-chasing, and B.O.A.C.'s better judgementmay have been to put the Comet 4 into service on to the routes for which it was meant; but it so happens that, in the present faressituation, it is the jet which will get the North Atlantic traffic. THE THIRD MAN IT is unusual for airline pilots, who like to regard themselves asprofessional men, to strike. It is even more unusual when 263 of them employed by a trunk-route airline ground that airlinefor 84 days (to date), with no reconciliation in sight. Yet this has happened in the case of Western Air Lines, theAmerican domestic carrier which operates 6,500 miles of route over a network based on Los Angeles, California. The reason for the strike goes much deeper than an employer'srefusal to increase pay: in actual fact, W.A.L. pilots are the fifth highest paid in America, receiving an average annual salaryequivalent to £4,560. Their remuneration is exceeded only by that of the pilots of T.W.A. (highest average annual salary,£4,970), U.A.L., Northwest, and American. Western's pilots receive more than their opposite numbers in Braniff, Eastern,Capital, Continental, Delta, and Northeast (the last-named being the lowest paid, at an average of £3,740). The fuss—which could well put Western out of business—isreally about the controversial "third man" issue. The pilots feel that there will be fewer piloting jobs to go round when the morehighly productive turbine transports come into operation. But they feel also that these aircraft, thanks to the turbine engine, willbe simpler to operate, and that they can easily be managed without Emerging from the factory at Dresden, where it will shortly begin flight tests, is East Germany's new four-jet short-range jet airliner, th° B.B.I52. It is the first original transport aircraft to come from either East or West Germany since the war. The most recent details appeared in "Flight" for March 14. Note the bicycle main gear, the rear truck of which permits the aircraft to "pray" on take-off. a flight engineer. They want the third man to be a pilot, withflight-engineering qualifications. But according to U.S. law a flight engineer must be included inthe crew of every transport aircraft weighing more than 80,000 lb, and the position of the flight engineer is, therefore, legallyunassailable. But in any case the engineers feel—and this is a reasonable point of view—that turbine transports will not besimpler from the engineering standpoint, but will in fact be more complex. It is understood that three of America's major carriers, PanAmerican, T.W.A. and American, have all acceded to this point of view, and that they have contracted to keep the professional flightengineer on their payrolls. It appears that America's airline pilots, through their club, theAmerican Air Line Pilots Association, are fighting a losing battle. The Western strike is a test-case; it is easy to understand the rea-sons for their pilots' objections, and to feel sympathy for their proposition that the third man should be a pilot with flight-engineering qualifications. Many pilots regard flight engineers as "passengers," cluttering up already overcrowded cockpits, anddoing jobs which the pilots feel they could just as easily and safely do themselves. It could still happen that A.L.P.A. will ground the whole ofAmerica's air transport industry; but, even assuming that they win, the airlines will still be grounded by a strike of flightengineers which would almost certainly ensue. So it looks very much as though the status quo will continueand the third man will be a professional flight engineer. And whatever happens in America is likely to provide a precedent forthe rest of the world. RUSSIAN WEDGE IN ARAB DOOR T™1 HOUGH only the sparsest details are available, it is now clear•*• that the two airlines of the United Arab Republic—Syrian Airways and Misrair—are to be merged into one airline. "Finaltalks" to settle details of the amalgamation have, according to an Egyptian broadcast last week, begun in Cairo. Even without the merger, it has been fairly obvious for sometime that these two airlines were unlikely to do their future air- liner-shopping in the West. The economic influence of theU.S.S.R. in the United Arab Republic is now so strong that the possibility of Tu-104s being ordered is highly likely. Indeed,unofficial reports in Egyptian newspapers last week suggested that three Tu-104s have, in fact, now been ordered. If this is true, it marks the first occasion on which the Russianaircraft industry has captured a market hitherto the potential preserve of the West. Misrair operate two Viscounts, with twomore on order; Syrian Airways operate DC-4s and DC-3s.
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