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Aviation History
1959
1959 - 0712.PDF
13 March 1959 351 pretty intolerable. But if the Federal Government subsidize all, ora greater part, of the development costs, then the cost comes down to a mere $20 million, which might be acceptable in view of thehigh productivity of the supersonic aeroplanes. One more adverse factor militating against the optimism of theaircraft constructors: the latter have all been thinking in terms of 7i to 8| hr daily utilizations. The airline operators are fairlyunanimous that, even with vastly improved loading and en-route servicing capabilities, it will be difficult to achieve such utilizationsin view of the short flight times. Pan American suggest 6 hr as a more realistic figure. Conclusions. Summing up, the American aircraft constructors'attitude to the supersonic airliner is expressed in the Convair view that "this supersonic transport will be a pleasure to design andbuild...." The American aircraft engineers, in fact, are raring to attack the fascinating technical problems involved. The airlinesare looking forward hopefully to the acquisition, some 12 years hence, of a magnificent piece of equipment that will "have a moreprofound and far-reaching effect on our way of life than any form of transportation our technological society has produced to date,"in the words of R. M. Rummel, vice-president (engineering) of Trans World Airlines. But both airlines and industry are sufficiently hard-headed torealize that this lovely prospect will remain a pipe dream unless somebody else can be persuaded to foot the bill for the develop-ment costs. Thanks to the technological prestige competition with Russia, the American taxpayer will probably pay out gladly. Now what does this signify to the British aircraft industry?Though an R.A.E. report is now completed, very little has been heard about the activities of the committee who are looking intothe prospects for a British supersonic airliner; but the general impression is that British aircraft engineers, too, are keen to getto grips with the supersonic transport challenge—again, provided that the taxpayer subsidizes the venture. ' Before the Government decide to back the development of aBritish supersonic transport aircraft, they have to consider some unpalatable facts. American supersonic-transport sights appearto be set at Mach 2 to Mach 3; a British airliner with a capability of less than Mach 2 would therefore not be competitively worth-while. On the evidence presented by the world's most experienced aircraft constructor—Douglas—the supersonic airliner, as foreseentoday, is intrinsically not a truly commercial proposition—that is, it will never pay for itself unassisted by subsidy, even on the mostoptimistic forecasts of future air traffic demands. Because one Mach 3 airliner could carry the same yearly traffic as four present-day long-range jet transports, its market is limited and it would seem that there is scope for only one such aircraft type in pro-duction. Building costs will soar if two or more constructors attempt to split the market. On the face of it, Britain's aircraft industry would be moreprofitably employed in concentrating on the freighters, air "coaches" and agricultural aircraft for which the prospects ofexpanding markets seem much brighter. There is, however, the factor of technological progress to consider; the advances that aremade in the course of developing a Mach 3 transport aircraft may well have repercussions on the whole field of aircraft equipmentand in many associated industries. The Government will have to decide whether the value of keeping in the forefront of all themany techniques that go to the making of a supersonic aircraft is worth the cost, measured in hundreds rather than tens of millionpounds; and the decision must be made early because, if the answer is "yes," there is already much lost ground to be made up.And if the British aircraft industry is thinking of doing a technical leap-frog—going to a VTOL/supersonic airliner in one jump, forexample—then a development contract is not nearly enough. The airlines will want to see such unfamiliar beasts in regular serviceoperation over a period of years before they risk paying out some 100s of million dollars on them. But it seems likely that Britishaircraft engineers have, by now, learnt by experience that the process of developing a commercial transport aircraft is, in thewords of the Douglas engineers, "evolutionary and not revolu- tionary in nature." THE COST OF DEVELOPMENT (continued from page341) SEA VIXEN. In November 1953 the M.o.S. obtained Treasuryauthority for development, within an estimated cost of £1,325,500, of a naval version of the D.H.I 10, later named Sea Vixen. A contract wasaccordingly placed in December 1953 for the supply of a prototype and certain other work. Further development was to be carried out on thefirst two or three production aircraft In March 1955 the contractor, who had originally estimated the costof the contract at £1,118,000, notified the Ministry that all his previous estimates had been ill-founded, and that he now estimated that the costwould be £3,092,000. The Ministry informed the Treasury of this increase in April 1955. In January 1957 the Ministry reported a furtherincrease of £3,675,000, attributable to an extension of the programme of work under the contract, and in February 1957 told the Treasury thatin addition to the prototype contract, now expected to cost £3,700,000, a further £1,280,000 would be required to biing the aircraft to anapproved release standard. After discussion the Treasury authorized expenditure within a limit of £4.2m for the main prototype contractwhich, having been extended to cover some part of the additional work, was eventually terminated in October 1957. Further expenditure onother contracts to meet new Naval and technical requirements has also been authorized by the Treasuiy, who have since approved a revisedestimate of cost for research and development on the Sea Vixen. In April 1954 the Treasury authorized the Ministry of Supply topurchase three Sea Vixens for development work with the Ministry of Supply Air Fleet. In December 1954 authority was given to place aproduction order for aircraft for the Admiralty. In February 1955 a combined order was placed accordingly. The first four aircraft (includ-ing the three for the Ministry of Supply Air Fleet) were to be manu- factured by special pre-production methods. In June 1957 the Ministry reported to the Treasury that the estimatedcost per aircraft had risen by some 85 per cent. A number of reasons were given for this increase, including more accurate estimating asknowledge of the aircraft became more complete, new manufacturing techniques to cope with weight restrictions, increased complexity ofdesign, wage awards and increased overheads due to a reduced overall level of production. It appears from a routine return of estimated costsmade to the Admiralty in July 1958 that there have since been further substantial increases in cost. The Ministry has been asked for information as to the steps taken by them to check the make-up and substantial accuracy of the contractor'sestimates before the development and production contracts were placed; and on what grounds they were satisfied that these estimates could berelied upon as providing a reasonable basis on which to obtain authority to proceed with development and production. RADAR SCANNER. The development cost of a radar scanner wasset, in 1951, at £60,000 over four years. This estimate was pro- gressively increased until in May 1958 Treasuiy sanction for theexpenditure of £1.9m was given. The reference to this scanner con- cludes: "I inquired whether, and by what means, the Ministry hadbeen satisfied of the reasonable accuracy of the original estimate of cost, and why this had been so greatly exceeded. The Ministryexplained that, when they asked a number of manufacturers to consider this requirement, an acceptable design was provided by only one com-pany, who put forward an estimate of £44,000 for development and the provision of three development or semi-engineered models. To allowfor the absence of previous experience in this field, and the consequent lack of any basis of comparison on which to judge this estimate, theMinistry sought Treasury authority for the work at an estimated cost of £60,000. They stated that the basic reason for the initial under-estimating was an imperfect appreciation of the difficulty of applying untried and complex techniques to equipment of this nature, which hadbeen accentuated by the exacting nature of the additional requirements cal'ed for in 1953. Costs were also very substantially increased by thechange in the number of models required, from three development models to 17 development models and 16 fully engineered prototypes,and by inflation since 1951, which the Ministry had calculated to account for about 25 per cent of the latest estimate. "In December 1953, while the scanner was still under development,a production contract was placed with the development contractor for the supply of a number of units. The estimated cost of production wasstated at that time. The order was, however, considerably reduced by later amendments to the contract, and in August 1956 the major partof the order was cancelled. In March 1957 the contractor estimated the cost of each of the remaining equipments on order at over five timesthe original estimate, excluding the cost of tools and test equipment. The present estimated cost per unit including tooling and test equipmentis eight times the original figure." AGARD MEETINGSM EETINGS announced by the NATO Advisory Group for Aero-nautical Research and Development (AGARD) for the next few months include a Materials Panel (April 13-18) and Structures Panel(April 20-25) in Paris; a joint meeting of the Aeromedical and Flight Test Techniques and Instrumentation Panel in Athens (May 11-15),under the title Medical and Human Engineering Aspects of Flight; a Structures Fatigue Full Scale Testing in Amsterdam (June 7-9); and aCombustion and Propulsion Panel on the subject Chemistry of Pro- peUants in Paris from June 8 to 12. . AERODYNAMICS COURSE APPLICATIONS from suitably qualified graduate engineers andI\. scientists for a one-year diploma course in experimental aero- dynamics (from October 12 this year to July 9, 1960) are now beingreceived by the Training Center for Experimental Aerodynamics, Rhode-St,-Genese, Belgium. Students are required to be fluent ineither English or French; there are no fees for the course and a number of fellowships are available to cover living expenses. Application forms(which should be returned by April 18) are available from the Director T.C.E.A., 72 Chaussce de Waterloo, Rhode-SL-Genese, Belgium
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