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Aviation History
1959
1959 - 0182.PDF
FLIGHT, 9 January 1959 83 Qj Straight nd Level YOU know how difficult it is evenin the quietest turbine airlinersto eavesdrop on neighbouring conversations. The other day mypricked-up ears were tantalizingly as- sailed by the following snatches of con-versation from the seat row directly behind me: — "Shocking, shocking . . . don't youthink? . . . dear, oh dear, oh dear . . . tut, tut ... how am I going to get ridof all my piston airliners? ... any ideas? ... oh dear, oh dear . . . and how amI going to pay for all these jets? . . . you don't think I have gone crazy, doyou?" Although it was frightfully bad-mannered of me, I couldn't resist a quick glance over the top of my seat. I justhad to see who was talking to whom. There, all alone, and still clutchingthe shield and trident of Britannia which he had worn at the Chelsea Arts Ball theprevious night, was Sir Charles Boost. He had been talking to himself.Dreadfully shocked, I sank back into my seat, stricken with remorse at havingthus violated the privacy of this great man's innermost soul. I felt as thoughI had been eavesdropping at the keyhole of a confessional. Could Sir Charles, thehigh-priest of air transport bravura, be wobbling and weakening in his faith? • When I had composed myself I tried to salve my stricken conscience by trying to work out an answer to the problem of how the airlines can dispose of their prematurely retired piston equipment. In a flash of brilliant inspiration the answer came to me. Melt them all into a gigantic alumin- ium obelisk, for permanent enshrine- ment near the International Aviation Building in Montreal. Upon each face of the monument emboss bas-relief scenes symbolizing the grotesque con- sequences of airline quality-competition —emaciated airline presidents in a bread queue, perhaps. Or happy men, women and children clambering aboard steam- ships and trains. Or ugly scenes of dele- gates at an I.A.T.A. fares conference locked in savage combat. And at each corner of the obelisk erecthuge torches, immortal fires forever fuelled by heaps of supersonic-airlinerbrochures. • It must have been rather a shock forCranwell to hear A.V-M. Sir Richard Atcherley, C in-C. Flying TrainingCommand, declare that the passing-out parade he was taking was "as valid asa marriage in Las Vegas." Only an Atcherley could get away with that sonof remark at the Sandhurst of the R.A.F.; and Sir Richard, of course, hada perfectly reasonable explanation. He and his twin brother David had been rejected at their preliminary Cran- well medical in 1922, Dick because of his eyes and David owing to kidney trouble. When they returned for another exami- nation the doctors got them mixed up (which sounds rather like a W. S. Gilbert plot, but this is exactly what the C-in-C. said happened). As he put it: "I passed in with flying colours on David's eyes, and he on the strength and quality of my —er—slightly more vulgar but none the less useful contribution." • In the next few weeks I expect two far-reaching decisions to be made. In Paris, I.A.T.A. may succeed in reaching agreement about jet fares. And in Mon- treal I.C.A.O. may agree upon the futureinternational navigation aid—Vortac or Decca. Enough, for the moment, has beensaid about jet fares. But what about VOR versus Decca? The Americjnswant VOR, the British want Decca. Some brute force and ignorence can beexpected, because—as in the jet v. turbo- prop controversy—big business andpolitics are involved. Quite a lot has been said on this subject too—except just onething. The American conference-table argu-ment will be that hyperbolic systems (i.e. Decca) are technically inferior to rho-theta (VOR) systems. But if indeed they argue thus it will be extremely difficultfor them to promote their hyperbolic system when it becomes available. But to be thoroughly cynical, tech-nical somersaults are aviation's No. 1 sport. "This is a changing world,"people say as they prepare themselves— and you—for the next somersault. • Problems of security classificationwill, I suppose, always be with us. One of the most vexing things is that themajority of security-classified docu- ments are never declassified—even aftera dozen years. Those who might be able to learn from them perhaps never evenknow of their existence. In America an excellent scheme is be-ing introduced. After stated periods of either five or ten years all documentswill automatically be declassified en- tirely. The sponsor has to decide inadvance which ones he must continue to protect—his reasons must be demon-strably sound—and then take action to reclassify them. ROGER BACON We know about the Comet as a symbol of British leadership, etc. Here it is as a symbol of food and drink. I would like to have said British food and drink, but "The Comet" pub on the right—D.H.106 Comet, not D.H.88—is in Dublin. (Just down the road, incidentally, is "The Viscount.") On the left, all iced-up though a piece of cake, is a Comet atop Shell's Christmas cake. In the picture are G/C. Douglas Bader of Shell and Capt. Jerry Shaw of de Havilland
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