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Aviation History
1959
1959 - 1468.PDF
FLIGHT, 22 May 1959 709 The Brains of the Industry Forty-seventh Wilbur Wright Memorial Lecture of the R.Ae.S. LAST Thursday, May 14, the 47th Wilbur Wright MemorialLecture was read before the Royal Aeronautical SocietyJ by Mr. Charles J. McCarthy, S.B., F.I.A.S., chairman of the board, Chance Vought Aircraft Inc., of Dallas, Texas. Heentitled his paper Managing Aviation Technologies, and in it covered a vast compass in relatively few words. Much of the earlier part of his paper was concerned withan analysis of the manner in which aeronautics has progressed from the turn of the century to the present. After conductinghis audience swiftly through the first sixty years of a technology which, he thought, had surpassed all others in making contribu-tions to general progress, he focussed their attention upon the effect of recent major changes within the manufacturing industry.Today new weapon systems were being developed before their predecessors had become operational, leading to the curves shownin Fig. 1. The expenditures indicated were those paid for work performed or products delivered, and were not the totals fornew orders placed. The predicted totals were estimates by the lecturer. As military systems branched out into the interplanetary realmso did the proportionate number of skilled engineers—and the levels of skill and experience required—increase. In Fig. 2 itcould be seen that in the past six or seven years the ratio of engineers to the total work-force in the U.S. industry had roughlydoubled, and Mr. McCarthy predicted a continuation of the trend. He quoted Mr. Ralph Cordiner, board chairman ofAmerican G.E., as writing: — "Where the need was once for production of existing designs, theprime need now is for designs that afford large increments of technical and military advantage over the weapons and systems they replace. . . .Where the need was once for facilities that could readily be converted to military production, the need is now for special facilities which areessentially non-conveitible. . . . Where the need was once for a large number of general purpose components and sub-systems, the demandis increasingly for complete systems and even super-systems. The need for components of very high reliability and advanced design remains,but they must more and more be planned in context with the concept and design of the system of which they are to be a part." Such a situation demanded highly educated specialists, inten-sive research in many sciences and a more flexible organization. The "technical man," said the lecturer, demanded recognition—particularly by his associates in his own field. In general, engineers tended to accept responsibility for the work of their groups, andso enter the managerial field; but many had neither the inclination nor aptitude to become supervisors, and it seemed reasonable thatthey should be able to climb the ladder of salary and prestige without having to assume a supervisor's administrative duties.Moreover, they needed increasing help from assistants, the most modern tools and the opportunity for advanced study andprofessional development. In such fields as missile controls, fuels, satellites and "outerspace," experienced research men were at a premium. From Fig. 3 it could be deduced that by the end of 1965 there would be some10,000 too few engineers coming on to the American market; and this might be an underestimate. According to Dr. Edward Teller,"Within 10 years, the Soviets will have the best scientists in the world. I am not saying this will happen unless we do this orthat. I am simply saying that it is going to happen. The time has come to talk about the U.S. recovering the world lead in science,not to keep that lead." After deliberating upon the basic importance of education, andseeing a ray of hope in the National Defense Education Act, Mr. McCarthy turned to the growth of, and importance of,research in the aircraft industry. The industry's customers had stressed the importance of sheer technical competence, and the Fig. 1: American expenditure on air- craft, missiles and space vehicles Fig. 2: Growth of engineering em- ployment in major American airframe companies latter could be translated directly into "company research." Suchresearch produced not only new concepts but also the perception to interpret and make use of the vast output of other researchagencies. An accurate appraisal of research costs was not readily obtainable, since published surveys normally included government-sponsored work. Source-material for Fig. 4 came from the National Science Foundation and Dept. of Commerce; the curvereferred to all industry, and the portion of industrial research performed by the aircraft industry had probably increased at arate greater than that depicted. It was essential that research should be flexibly managed, conducted with continuity andregarded as a long-term investment. Co-ordination of company long-range objectives with properly guided research "must occupya good share of management's time." It was to be expected that Mr. McCarthy should touch on thematter of finance, and he took pains to show that the U.S. aircraft industry is by no means "featherbedded." Its profit margin, aftertaxes, had dwindled to 2.6 per cent (1958), exactly half the figure for other major U.S. manufacturers. Moreover, some 60 per centof the aircraft industry's net profit was being ploughed back (the highest reinvestment rate of any industry); yet even this wasinsufficient, as was evident from the fact that the sum borrowed by 15 major aircraft firms had climbed from $25m in 1950 to$689m at the end of last year. He went on to discuss other factors which tended both to depress the balance sheet and intensify theneed for "diversification." In the concluding part of his paper Mr. McCarthy dwelt brieflyupon the weapon-system management concept. He included a quotation from J. Lee Atwood, president of North AmericanAviation, to the effect that, "There is really nothing new about the system apart from the name. It has always been the objectiveof a nation to bring together all the skills available to it in preparing the common defence."Mr. McCarthy ended with these words: "Carrying the weapon system team concept one step farther, it is reasonable to anticipatethat co-operation of firms on a weapon system will extend beyond national boundaries and be international in scope. We have seenthe successful exchange of licences both ways between England and America. We read that several countries are joining withBritain on atomic power developments and there has been an impressive and inspiring example of world-wide teamwork duringthe International Geophysical Year just ended." NUMBER GRADUATN YEARLY Fig. 3 (left): Engineering c Fig. 4 rbelow): Engineering research costs (U.S. private firms) 1940 S9-45 1950 1555 YEAR5
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