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Aviation History
1958
1958 - 0809.PDF
20 June 1958 825 (T) Straight and Level Q WHEN, in France's gravest hour,General de Gaulle flies to thecentre of gravity—Algeria—he flies by jet. What else but the Caravelle could have been chosen to fly France's man of destiny on such a mission? President Eisenhower orders three jet Boeing 707s, because, to quote Mr. Dudley C. Sharp, Assistant Secretary of the U.S.A.F., "They are needed in the cold war with the Soviets, who fly their top officials in jet airliners. The United States cannot afford to suffer in com- parison, a philosophy which is endorsed by the State Department." Continental Air Lines of Denver, Colorado, paint the words Jet Power on the fins of their turboprop Viscount 812s (a little bit naughty, I think). T.W.A. advertise Jetstream services by piston- powered Super Constellations. There is a magic about the word jet. Prodigal use of fuel, extravagant runway needs, and disturbing noise will never diminish this magic. • Every day, perhaps every hour of every day, airliners turn back with engine trouble. This happens, perhaps, to one flight in ten thousand. When it happens—as it happened on June 7—to a B.O.A.C. Britannia 312 in which the Prime Minister is flying to see President Eisenhower, with subsequent front-page headlines in every national newspaper, the airline concerned can consider itself plumb unlucky—even if the trouble was due, as I believe it was, to a leakage from a reduction-gear oil drain. • I was interested to find a contributor to last week's issue saying that "This country still has enough of the right kind of men .... but we must have the facilities—which means the money." Now a few years ago we were des- perately—almost unbelievably—short of facilities. That is largely why we were so slow to make supersonic aeroplanes capable of doing something other than research, and why so many of our other creations didn't work as well as they should have done. But what do we have now? I think we are reasonably well served by our facilities. We have lots of supersonic tunnels; but no models to put in them. We have lots of clever rigs for advanced systems; but no new aeroplanes that the systems might go into. We have some first-class high- altitude test plant; but no new engines to run in them. What are we going to do? It seems to me we could reap a nice short-term harvest by exporting our facilities to some nation with enough courage to use them. • Temco, of Dallas, are not usually thought of as major builders of aircraft, yet their contribution to the American airframe industry is massive. At the moment they are making rear fuselages for B-52s, B-47s, F3Hs, F-84Fs andF-lOls, wings for F3Hs and P2Vs 5 wing-tips, flaps, ailerons and pylons for F-lOOCs and Ds, photo-noses forRF-lOls and RF-105s, floor panels for C-130s, and a whole lot of other items,besides being one of the biggest overhaul and modification firms in the business.There is no comparable British firm; not even Folland could claim to be makingso many bits of other people's aeroplanes. • Would the gentleman who lost his bowler hat at the Helicopter Associa- tion's recent garden party like to apply to me? I think I can tell him what happened to it. Hats off to the Westland Widgeon— and to Flight's photographer. Just imagine what will happen when helicopters begin large-scale operations into the City of London. • After the opening of Gatwick lastweek, which I thought the Queen did perfectly, a Flight colleague had a lookround the new base of Transair, the independent airline. Two things in par-ticular struck him as original ideas which may well go further (like Trans-air's wheel modification to improve DC-3 performance). One idea was the maintenance dock-ing—or rather the lack of maintenance docking—used for Viscount checks.Like all good ideas, this one is very simple: let the aircraft sink into thehangar floor, so that everything that needs to be got at most—powerplant,controls, equipment-bays, etc.—is ac- cessible from ground level. All you need are three hydraulically-operated platforms let into the hangar floor (and positioned to correspond withthe wheels) and, of course, pits for the propellers. This idea came from Trans-air's projects manager, Mr. Harvey, and was implemented at a cost of £4,000 byWeaver, Ltd., of Bedford. A maintenance dock may cost any-thing up to £50,000, and permanently tie up valuable hangar space. It is apassing thought that with such floor lifts B.E.A. might not have needed allof the hangar extension now being built for them. Admittedly, you stillneed a Giraffe to get at the "fin and top fuselage—but I should not have thoughtthat this was particularly inconvenient or expensive. The second Transair idea costs a fewpounds, and shows no immediate return on investment. But if you have anopportunity to see the new summer uniforms of the company's stewardesses—blue cotton chemise-line dresses and close-fitting straw bonnets—I think youmight reckon they are worth it. Steward- esses are an airline's best advertisement,and worth good presentation. In fact, it might be an idea to put stewardessesunder the control of publicity and advertising departments, instead ofunder the operations divisions—though I don't know what the pilots would sayto that. • The lesson of Capital Airlines hasbeen salutary. The first American airline to undertake large-scale re-equipmentwith turbine airliners (60 Viscounts), they flew into the red despite (1) the factthat they reduced operating costs, (2) had negotiated probably the best re-equip-ment credit-terms in history, and (3) achieved major increases in business—mainly at the expense of competitors. What will happen to the rest of theU.S. industry when it introduces its new equipment? Though they haven't allgot such tough route-networks as Capi- tal, I doubt whethey they will achievebig decreases in operating cost; I am certain that their credit is alreadystrained to the limit (with nearly one- fifth of their capital liabilities yet to befound); and I am sure they cannot count on big increases in business withoutreducing the fares which they are now trying to raise. Obviously they won't,like Capital, get their new traffic at the expense of competitors. I just hope that this is gloom-monger-ing, because I cannot believe that the mighty U.S. air transport industry willtake an economic step backwards on to Federal subsidy. • Those who have studied the aircargo surveys of Professor Stanley Brewer will agree, I think, that his con-tribution to the freighting business has been considerable (see Flight of June 6for example). I don't know how many copies of each weighty document hesends out from Washington University, but they must generate quite a lot of airfreight ton-miles. ROGER BACON
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