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Aviation History
1959
1959 - 1181.PDF
574 FLIGHT, 2A April 1959 The Aircraft Industry—A National Asset . . . of these figures indicated that the higher labour costs of the Americanindustry were offset by longer production luns. Only five new types of British manned military aircraft were onorder and we had, therefore, to look to civil orders—plus diversification —for our health in the future. The U.S.A. was building a preponder-ance of aircraft in the heavy and light classes, but the middle range was not so fully covered and this might well be the most fruitful province forfuture British efforts. The two most important markets for the British aircraft industry appeared to lie in (1) the transport aircraft and (2) theguided missiles category. A point of fundamental importance in the British transport field wasthe "fly British" policy. Recently, Government support for British transport aircraft had languished and we were now at a critical stagein the provision of future bread and butter types. Experience of pro- ducing the Vanguard, VC,10 and D.H.121 without government support,even though ordered by the Corporations, might well result in making future aircraft development impossible without government assistance. Strong reasons why British airlines should "fly British" were (1) largecapital sums needed for aircraft and spares were spent in the home market; (2) exports were developed on the basis of a healthy nationalmarket; (3) national prestige was built up; (4) there was an indirect benefit to national defence; (5) no drain on foreign currency was in-volved and (6) new British transport aircraft could only come by this course. It might well cost a British airline £jm to place a new aircraftin service, but from the national viewpoint it formed a basis for civil exports of many times this figure. An order for B.E.A. or B.O.A.C."primes the pump"; it does not provide the wherewithal for a manu- facturer to "wash his face." The sums involved in developing transport aircraft were very large,the risks very great, potential profits small. "Can the British aircraft industry," Mr. Masefield asked, "hope to survive economically onsuch a basis of predominating civil orders unless government support is forthcoming?" His own answer was an emphatic "no." Howevermuch rationalization or amalgamation went on, against the vast military backed effort of the U.S., we as a nation could stay in the Big Leagueonly on the foundation of a comprehensive national policy towards future British transport aircraft. It all added up, he said, to just this: "Unless a clear and concisegovernment policy towards research, development and procurement of British transport aircraft is formed ivithin a very short while, there willbe no further major British transport aircraft beyond the generation now going through its labour pains." This was the burning question-of-the-hour. Development costs hadapparently been estimated by the Supersonic Transport Committee at a little less than £100m each, which might well be an under-estimate.The types suggested had relatively low supersonic speeds, because it was said that the technical problems involved were likely to be less THE IMPACT ON OTHER INDUSTRIES By S. P. Woodley THE third of the prepared papers, Mr. Woodley's lecture discussed insome detail the influence of the aircraft industry on technological progress. "Despite the multiplicity of problems with which it has beenbeset, or perhaps because of them," said the lecturer, "the impact . . . has been a fruitful one. From research into production developmenthave sprung new ideas, know-how and techniques of direct benefit to other industries." Enlarging on his theme, Mr. Woodley suggested that the benefits theaircraft industry brought about might be classified as a stimulus to over- all technical education, scienific progress and contributions to alliedindustries; wide-range impact on development in the field of general engineering and in the development of new materials; and the develop-ment of by-product industries. The aircraft industry, he said, was among the first to establish andfinance apprentice schools—a contribution to the country as a whole and, judging by the inducements offered to men trained in the aircraftindustry, to the world at large. There were parallels between the aircraft industry and nuclear engineer-ing, both of which absorbed a high intellectual content. Dynamic heating, heat-flow transfer and aerodynamics had parallels in the nuclear field,and mathematical solutions evolved by the aircraft engineer to solve his own problems could be applied with little modification. The problemsof remote control and servo operation were also encountered in reactor design. In the application of electronics and instrumentation bothindustries required large numbers of identically trained technicians and the background of aircraft design had proved tailor-made to the nuclearindustry. The training of engineers that had been necessary, said Mr. Woodley,had been accompanied by a striking improvement in the status of the engineer. "Our future, indeed our survival, depends upon the develop-ment of new techniques and new industries. Without adequate rewards the qualities that make this development possible will wither—a fact wellrecognized by the aircraft industry to the benefit of others." difficult. But the fact was that the United States already had bombersflying (B-58 at M = 2)—or about to fly (B-70 at M = 3)—of substantially better performance. Whatever the merits of particular speeds, it wascommercial folly to shut one's eyes to what was proceeding elsewhere. The United States now has experience of long range cruise at M = 2.Hence we came to the point of whether M = 2 was of interest if somebody else was at the same time—or earlier—flying an M = 3 aeroplane. WouldB.O.A.C., for instance, order a British 1,200 m.p.h. transport aircraft when PanAm was about to compete with a 2,000 m.p.h. one? History-provided the answer. If we were to engage in the supersonic race at all, the decision as tothe right speed to select was critical. M = 3 (2,000 m.p.h.) is more difficult £nd more expensive than M= 1.2 or 1.8 and would take longer—but it was competitive. If we should, in fact, decide to address our- selves to the task of developing and producing a British 2,000 m.p.h.transport for service by 1970, we should have to face a pre-production sum of perhaps £150m with no supersonic bomber experience availableas a foundation. Should we challenge the U.S.A. in its own field? If we did, it might demonstrate the level of our national technicalcompetence, although the cost would be very heavy. If we did not, we should be out of this particular field for all time.We were in competition for a slice of the business represented by the replacement of 250 civil aircraft per year against American types pro-duced in parallel with orders for military versions of the same aircraft. In this connection a clear responsibility of the British Airways Corpora-tions was to give a lead to the industry on the types of aircraft they would require to operate six to ten years hence; and in the future thesetypes would certainly include a supersonic transport. Should we in the U.K., Mr. Masefield asked, engage in a head-on competition with theU.S.A. for a supersonic airliner which the Americans will build anyway? Or were there possibilities of a collaborative—and imaginative—Anglo-American approach? Another field for imagination and endeavour was the business ofgeneral aviation; quite how big this was in the United States was hardly realised in the United Kingdom. Manned military aircraft were a lessencouraging future field, and as for mergers, an amalgamation to do less work had few obvious advantages. One outlet for unused fixed-wingskills was, of course, guided weapons and G.W. industry appeared likely to develop as a small, highly sophisticated entity, employing relativelysmall staffs against a high level of technological expertise. Finally, of the "rotating-wing brigade," Mr. Masefield said that "Oneway and another" he believed that we could expect a small but steady helicopter development, with a heavy responsibility on the Governmentto keep design teams together with an adequate flow of forward orders in the military field. In all the 50 years of the British aircraft industry, he concluded, therehad never been a time of decision such as this. "We need that clear statement of a Government lead which can be the only means of point-ing the way ahead and of building on a foundation established through fifty years of endeavour." A second classification of benefits was the impact of engineering tech-niques on general engineering and on the development of new materials and processes. Had it not been for the aircraft industry, it was doubtfulwhether aluminium (for example) would have reached its present state of development. Its commercial and domestic applications had beendirectly stimulated by the initial search for lighter and stronger struc- tures. And if titanium, once described as a wonder metal, were everapplied commercially or in the general engineering sphere it would be entirely as a result of development for the aircraft industry. In the development of machine tools the impact of the aircraft industryhad been most marked. At first there had been almost no machine tools available which could produce complicated "sculptured" componentsrapidly and economically; but within a short time new tools employing high-speed milling heads and copy-milling techniques had been devised.A new method of metal removal recently developed by the aircraft industry would without doubt find uses in other industries. This waschemical erosion; it was so simple and economical of labour that it must have a wide appeal.The aircraft industry's ready acceptance of new ideas was exemplified most recently by the development of electronic tape-controlled machiningprocesses with their distinctive advantages in production of one-off jobs and in the elimination of tooling necessary to manufacture highly special-ized piece parts. The aircraft industry recognized almost immediately that this technique was tailor-made for its requirements, but it waspossible that as a result of the recession with which the industry was now faced the rate of development in the employment of this new techniquewould be drastically reduced. The machine tool industry itself had benefited considerably from theproblems which had beset the aircraft designer and producer, from their readiness to exploit new avenues of approach and from the initialmachine tool development that they had undertaken. Many inventions and new techniques would have remained undiscovered, undevelopedand unadapted had it not been for the specialized requirements of the aircraft industry. Development of turbojet and turboshaft engines, for instance, had alsoinfluenced other industries. Exclusively an aircraft development, these engines had been used as prime movers for the propulsion of boats, ships,cars and trains, for the driving of pumps and generators, and for other industrial power requirements. And design studies into the applicationof nuclear propulsion for aircraft would undoubtedly result in lighter and better shielding techniques, contributing to the future efficiency ofcommercial powerplants. This country had an enormous investment in the aircraft industry,which had yielded much in the fields of research and knowledge and in the establishment of a vigorous growth that was now withering throughlack of support. Without support the general tenor of research and development would decline, to the detriment not only of the industry
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