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Aviation History
1959
1959 - 1687.PDF
816 FLIGHT, 12 June 1959 Correspondence The Editor of "Flight" is not necessarily in agreement with the viewsexpressed by correspondents in these columns. Names and addresses of writers, not for publication in detail, must in all cases accompany letters. Flight-deck Staffing T HAVE read Mr. Becu's letter on the above subject published in-•- Flight for May 29 and am concerned about the references to B.A.L.P.A. in the final paragraph of that letter. I can well understand Mr. Becu's desire to protect the interestsof those members of the flying staff who constitute the bulk of the civil aviation section of the membership of the InternationalTransport Workers' Federation, but I take exception to the reflec- tions cast on the integrity of the pilot groups contained in thatletter. I have no doubt, however, that I.F.A.L.P.A. will deal with that aspect of Mr. Becu's letter. In his references to B.A.L.P.A., Mr. Becu stated that B.A.L.P.A.had been "publicly rebuked" for negotiating agreements involving the take-over of navigating, flight engineering and radio dutieswithout any attempt at consulting the other unions concerned. The "public rebuke," so called, was contained in a resolution ofthe trade union side of the National Joint Council passed in December 1956. In that resolution B.A.L.P.A. was jointlyarraigned with B.O.A.C. and the Employers' Secretariat of the National Joint Council. B.A.L.P.A., B.O.A.C. and the Employers'Secretariat separately rejected the terms of that resolution. In so far as B.A.L.P.A. is concerned, the Association has at alltimes offered to discuss matters of crew complement with unions representing flying-staff officers other than pilots. It is an unfor-tunate fact, however, that agreement has rarely been reached; indeed, on occasions before December 1956 the Association'soffers to discuss these problems were not accepted. London, W.I. D. FOLLOWS,General Secretary, British Air Line Pilots Association. \7ERY little, in my view, is to be gained by one international* organization attacking another by means of public correspond- ence and I very much regret that Mr. Becu, by his letter in yourissue of May 29, has taken this course. I can, however, hardly let the issue pass without some correction to the impressions ofI.F.A.L.P.A. policy on crew complement which the letter may have left. First of all, Mr. Becu raises the question of the representativecharacter of the two organisations and claims that the I.T.F. represents 40,000 flying staff. It is well known, however, thatmany of these are stewards and stewardesses (who are not, of course, directly concerned in the operational crew-complementissue), and I doubt very much whether there are 1,000 pilots or 5,000 operational personnel all told. This is a long way from the40,000 claimed by Mr. Becu or from the 21,882 active airline pilots of this organization. Mr. Becu goes on to say that specialist flight-crew membershave been "recklessly dispensed with on the alleged grounds that technological development has made them unnecessary". This, ofcourse, is as much an attack on company safety policies as it is on I.F.A.L.P.A. The facts are that dispensing with the specialistcrew-member has been by no means a reckless affair, and there have been many cases (e.g., the radio operators of Qantas,B.O.A.C., K.L.M., Sabena, T.W.A., South African Airways) where the specialist was retained on particular sectors mainly atthe insistence of the pilot group who, in their evaluation of the facilities and the workload, did not consider the developments atthat time adequate to dispense with him. It is, therefore, quite wrong to say that there has been pressure by the pilot group todeprive the specialist of his job. On the other hand, we have not felt it right to support thecarriage of unnecessary crew members purely for the sake of maintaining "good" trade union principles. We do not think thatthe principle of resistance to technological advance is applicable to the twentieth century—particularly to the aviation industry—and that the answer to it must always be in adaptation and more adaptation. The whole trend of the industry and the design of theaeroplanes dictate these changes, and this is, indeed, recognized by the majority of companies. For example, T.C.A., Qantas, B.O.A.C.,B.E.A., Aer Lingus, S.A.S., U.A.L., A.A., Braniff, Delta, P.A.A. and almost all operators who are buying large turbine-poweredaircraft have come to the conclusion that the basic navigational crew should be three pilots. In some cases an additional crew-member will also be carried. I.F.A.L.P.A. has no objection to this; indeed, particular aircraftdesigns, particular routes or lengthy flight stages may well demand an additional crew-member—either a specialist or a pilot. Howcan it then be said that our members "have threatened the jobs of other crew members''? All we have said is that large turbine- powered aircraft demand a basic operational crew of three pilots.Nothing in Mr. Becu's letter would appear to controvert this con- tention, and I would be surprised to hear a sound argumentagainst it from him or from anyone else. On the contrary, many operators of large jets have publicly announced their agreement.For example, when A.A. announced their decision in favour of the third pilot, they made it clear that the action was taken "solelyin the interest of the highest degree of safety". Would the com- pany have taken this action to featherbed the pilot or to provideagainst pilot redundancy, as implied by Mr. Becu? I trust that the above will put the crew-complement position insomewhat better balance, but I should not like it to be thought that this organization is unsympathetic to the I.T.F. in the presenttransitional stage through which the industry is passing. We do, indeed, feel that aviation owes much to the specialist flight crew-member and should, as far as is humanly possible, find a way of retaining and turning to advantage his experience and enthusiasm.In many cases (e.g., T.C.A., S.A.S., B.O.A.C.) suitable retraining arrangements have in fact been made for some categories and wetrust that all airlines will follow and extend this practice. London, W.I. C. C. JACKSON,Executive Secretary, International Federation of Air Line Pilots Associations. The Prestwick Viscount Crash TN his letter concerning the Prestwick Viscount crash report-*- [May 22] Mr. W. H. Hankin must really be running short of excuses when he tries to exonerate himself at the expense of theAir Traffic Control Service, and what a pity it is that he risked tarnishing his reputation by the omission to check just a fewelementary facts; therefore the Guild of Air Traffic Control Officers would ask the courtesy of your columns to permit themto counter Mr. Hankin's erroneous criticism of the controllers concerned. It will be seen from the report that Viscount G-AORC reportedover New Galloway at 2157 and subsequently over Prestwick non- directional beacon at 2205, thereby covering a distance of some24 n.m. in 8 min, giving a ground speed of 184 kt. His initial call to Prestwick Approach (note, not Prestwick Director) was at alittle after 2158 or 19| n.m. from Prestwick N.D.B. At this point, no doubt, the aircraft was under procedural control and the mis-report by Mr. Hankin of 11,000ft would have concerned only those altitudes between say, 10,000 and 14.500ft. As the aircraft was incontinuous descent, standard airways separation would have pre- cluded any traffic being in the vicinity of MPN1 radar coverage.The first contact with the G.C.A. director was at 2303^—one-and- a-half minutes, or approximately six miles, from the N.D.B. IfMr. Hankin had checked a little further on his facts, he would no doubt have discovered that not only would this be in the cone ofno signal of the radar in question, but would also have been in the area of non-discrimination due to permanent ground echoes. He must be aware that the whole system of procedural airwayscontrol is based upon the interpretation of pilots' reports, sup- ported in some cases (not this one) by en route radar plotting andthe acceptance of the philosophy that airways flights are carefully pre-planned and accomplished in a competent and orderlymanner. Surely he does not seriously suggest that the system should be so conditioned that each report should be treated withsuspicion and endeavours made to relate it to every random air- craft return on radar with known traffic just in case. In thisinstance, without the use of CR/DF and height-finding the air traffic ontrol officer would have no way of checking the accuracyof the pilot's report; and even if he did see a momentary aircraft response on his tube just before the permanent-echo clutter it isunlikely that he would have consciously connected this with the Viscount. In answer to Mr. Hankin's question we are convinced that hehad the fullest co-operation which he could justifiably ask from both the Centre and the Aerodrome Control units and that hisaspersions against them are most unfair and unreasonable. His belief that one controller could at the last minute rectify the com-plicated sequence of errors which occurred in the cockpit that night is surely a flight of fancy.London, W.I. K. I. PEARSON,Master, Guild of Air Traffic Control Officers. Air Political Restrictions IN Flight for May 8. page 646, I read the comments of RogerBacon on a speech which I delivered during the Congress of the International Chamber of Commerce in Washington onApril 22. I am quoted as having referred to "the long-standing refusalof the U.K. to allow American airliners to land in Hong Kong". In fact, I did not use the plural sense, but referred only to a U.S.carrier [Northwest Airlines]. This reference served to illustrate the deplorable chain-reaction caused by air political restrictions. The Hague. (DR.) H. A. WASSENBERGH,Deputy Head, Foreign Relations Department, K.L.M. Royal Dutch Airlines.
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