FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1960
1960 - 0064.PDF
64 FLIGHT, 15 January 1960 FROM ALL QUARTERS Major Merger LAST Tuesday,"unamalgamated" January 12, the three largest remainingmembers of the British aircraft industry announced their decision to merge. Long predicted, the movecompletes the major rationalization of the industry which Duncan Sandys, Minister of Aviation, has so strongly urged. The followingis a slightly abbreviated form of the official announcement: — "Vickers, English Electric and Bristol Aeroplane have decidedto amalgamate their aircraft and guided-weapon companies. For this purpose they will form a new company [not yet named—Ed.],which will have diree wholly owned subsidiaries: Vickers- Armstrongs (Aircraft), English Electric Aviation, and BristolAircraft. The shares of the joint company will be held by the principal companies in the following proportions: Vickers 40 percent, English Electric 40 per cent and Bristol Aeroplane 20 per cent. The financial adjustments required have been agreed; theywill involve no new issue of share capital. "Bristol's helicopter interests will not be included in the merger.Financial responsibility for types of aircraft and missiles already in production will remain with the appropriate principal company. "The board of the new company will control policy. Directorsfrom the three principal companies and from the three subsidiaries will be on this board. Day-to-day operational responsibility willbe exercised through the three subsidiary companies, which will retain their own names and identities. The Minister of Aviationhas been fully consulted; it is understood that he welcomes the proposed amalgamation and that he would regard the new com-pany as constituting one of the major aviation groups which would qualify for Government support. "Vickers, English Electric and Bristol Aeroplane furtherannounce that negotiations are taking place with the Hunting Group with a view to their aircraft design and manufacturingcompany, Hunting Aircraft, participating in the new company announced above." A concurrent announcement gave news of the plans for Bristol'shelicopter interests. Their directors and those of Westland Aircraft had "reached agreement in principle for die sale of Bristol'shelicopter activities to Westland." The financial details of this agreement are that Westland would issue to Bristol 2m Westlandshares of 5s each, and approximately £lm in cash, to be paid in instalments as the proceeds of certain contracts to be taken overby Westland were received. The Bristol-Westland announcement added that the two com-panies had previously consulted with the Minister of Aviation, who "assured them that he welcomed these new arrangements, which RAeS Anniversary Luncheon MORE than 400 members and guests of the Royal AeronauticalSociety heard the guest of honour, Duncan Sandys, Minister of Aviation, reply to the toast "British Aviation" proposed by thepresident, Peter G. Masefield, at a luncheon in London on January 12. The luncheon was given by the president and councilon the occasion of the 94th anniversary of the founding of the Society (as the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain, onJanuary 12, 1866) and to celebrate the jubilee of what the RAeS terms the "golden year of British aviation, 1910." The year 1910,tne Society feels, is significant in British aviation history because it was that year which saw the real beginning of the Britishaviation industry, with British pilots flying British-designed and -built aeroplanes, engines and equipment. / Guests at the anniversary luncheon included, as well asMinisters of the Crown and leaders of industry, several pioneers such as Brig-Gen Sir H. Osborne Mance, who has been a memberof the Society since 1899, Dr A. P. Thurston, who worked with Sir Hiram Maxim in 1902 and has been a member since 1908, and(it need hardly be added) Lord Brabazon of Tara, a member since 1909. Mr Masefield read messages from the Society's patron, H.M.the Queen, and from the IAS, CAI, AFITA, and the Aeronautical Society of India. He believed that 1960 would prove to have beenas great a year as was 1910—"the golden year of British aviation." Alluding to the Society's new lecture hall, he said that there werealready a hundred bookings for meetings. Recent events, he added, gave cause for encouragement, and he was confident that we couldleave the future in the hands of Mr Sandys. Mr Sandys made no direct allusions to mergers but remarkedmat today the Government was putting £300m a year into various aspects of aviation. His White Paper had been exaggerated in manyquarters, but other powers were now having to take the same decisions. Now that military expenditure was being reduced therewas a cause for more assistance on the civil side. He estimated that this would be forthcoming. In the 1970s, he said, we could look forcommercial speeds of two to three times the speed of sound; though the cost would be heavy, it would be largely off-set byfrequency: one supersonic airliner carrying a hundred people across the Atlantic in two to three hours and making a thousandcrossings a year would have the same capacity as the Queen Elizabeth. the EE Group— Vickers Ltd- THE ALIGNMENT OF THE INDUSTRY GROUPS Latest group Bristol Aeroplane! Hawker Siddeley Group -English Electric Aviation -Vickers-Armstrongs (Aircraft) Bristol Aircraft2 Hunting Group—Hunting Aircraft Westland Bristol Siddeley Engines Bristol Cars Short & Harland (minority holding) Bristol Helicopters Saro (aero)—Saro (non-aero) Fairey Aircraft Manufacturing Co. Notes: this family tree includes only firms which are part of a commercial alliance with one or more companies in the aviation business; 1, now only a holding company, owning no manufacturing potential as such; 2, includes Bristol guided weapons; 3, includes D.H. Aircraft, Engines, Propellers and D.H. Canada (D.H. Aircraft, Fairey Aviation and Hunting Aircraft are partners in the Aircraft Manufacturing Co.). were in full accord with the Government's policy of concentratingthe resources of the aircraft industry." Total work-force in the British airframe and aero-engineindustry is approximately 245,000. Precise figures for individual firms are classified by the Ministry of Aviation but it is possibleto estimate the totals for the Hawker Siddeley Group (UK aircraft firms) and the new group as approximately 38,000 and 35,000respectively. The family tree above shows the approximate manner in which the various alliances are ranged. ... , . • .• _ YOUTHFUL INTEREST in a model of the Institute of Aviation Medicine's man-carrying centrifuge was displayed at the Royal Society of Arts on January 7. The occasion was an excellent RAeS young people's lecture on "Flying versus the Human Machine," by Dr G. Melvill Jones. RAeS president Peter fnasetield (with badge) stands next to the lecturer Pan I of a historical review of the RAeS as reflected in pages of its Journal appears on pages 69-71 of this issue. On the Bristol 188 INFORMATION about the structure and systems of the Bristol188 supersonic research aircraft has so far been severely restricted, but it is now known that companies of the Dowty Group aresupplying a considerable amount of equipment. The undercarriage, for example, is built by British Messier Ltd. The exceptionallyhigh temperatures at which this stainless- steel aircraft is intended to operate neces-sitate extensive use of steel in the landing gear instead of the more usual light alloys,and special test rigs were built to meet the problems involved. The hydraulic system consists mainly ofcomponents made by Dowty Equipment and British Messier, and certain of theDowty items incorporate the Moog valve, a miniaturized valve designed for use inadverse environments, e.g., in missiles. In the powerplant, Rotol Ltd are "representedby several important ancillary units," but no details are yet available. The configuration of the 188 wasanalysed in an article in Flight for December 11 last. Armstrong Whitworth Avro Blackburn -de Havilland Enterprise3 Folland Gloster Hawker A. V. Roe Canada, etc.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
