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Aviation History
1960
1960 - 0420.PDF
420 FLIGHT, 25 March Qj Straight and Level HOW much aviation reading do youdo? Huge sales of Thinx Elec-tronics' BEDSTEAD reading simulators* have done much to keep theindustry up-to-date with its reading. But at the same time there appears to be agrowing demand for human reading simulators — those junior executiveswhose job is to mark up periodicals so that Very Busy Top People can writeletters to editors beginning "My atten- tion has been drawn to . . ." These junior executives—attention-drawers I call them—have a very impor- tant job to do. But how do they knowwhat the head man ought to read? When they write "See pages 24 and 132" onthe circulation list, do they assume, as I suspect, that the head man is interestedmainly in articles about his own com- pany? Do they not realize (let's say)that a particular bit of news from Brazil, which so far as they know is unrelated totheir company's affairs, could lead to a £2m contract? How can they know? So the attention-drawers mark, ingeneral, articles that mirror their own firm's affairs, rather than articles thatopen a window on the world. It comes to this: do Very Busy Top Peopleregard reading as a mirror, or as a window? If they regard it, rightly, as awindow, should they not dispense with their attention-drawers and get downto some solid reading themselves? Note to attention-drawers: Mark this one up. He won't dispense with you. * Busy Executives' Device for SiftingThrough Endless Aviation Documents. • "I repeat only what I have said before on air development and the State corporations. If they lose money, what does it matter?"—Gp Capt C. A. B. Wilcock, MP (Lab., Derby North), chairman of the independent airline Derby Aviation. • I have just seen some figures which show that the highest-paid British air- line captain gets less than the lowest- paid American airline captain. The salaries are, respectively, £387 a month compared with £400 a month. The same applies to co-pilots: the highest paid British co-pilot gets less than the lowest-paid American co-pilot. What about the highest-paid Ameri-can captain? He gets more than £1,000 a month. That's folding money, boy. Good gracious, what am I trying to do—start a strike? [Source: Inter- national Federation of Air Line Pilots Associations, figures converted from $s to £s on my slipstick.] • Talking about captains' salaries, a reader says that BEA's new tail in- signia resembles the 40 m.p.h. road speed restriction signs. For 40 read 400m.p.h., 40 seats, or 40 free drinks—or even the captain's salary to the nearestthousand. • Do you remember that Straight andLevel announced a competition just over a year ago (February 6, 1959) for thebest sculpture symbolizing "material diversion"—a subject which, I said,"lends itself well to abstract art forms." My office is now full of entries. As most of you will know, the expan- sion of British air transport has been restrained not so much by the require- "Friendship Bulletin's" latest front coverf ment that new air services must notcause "material diversion" from estab- lished operators, but by the utterabstraction of these two words. Where is the independent organization capableof scientifically assessing what consti- tutes material diversion in any particularargument about a new service? There isn't one, nor does the proposed newlegislation appear to make provision for one. The phrase brings foam to the mouthsof many people, yet it is embalmed in the new draft legislation. Lord Douglas,making BEA's first comment on it, fastens on the phrase—but not, as onemight expect from a progressive airline like BEA, to implore that someone beappointed to give meaning to it. Instead, the corporation wants more importancethan ever to be attached to the concept of material diversion. This is like sayingthat more importance should be attached to B,)'35?9.?34-5. What on earth doesit mean? t/4 member of the Sheik of Kuwait's body-guard stands beside the Shah of Persia's Fokker Friendship. Did I say friendship? • One for Roger's Thesaurus: —"Broad brush treatment"—We don't know, or we can't be bothered with, thedetails. • Have you noticed how rarely youread in the newspapers these days stories about bomb hoaxes? This column oncesuggested (August 29,1958) that the way to stop bomb hoaxes was for newspapersto agree not to publish stories about them, "to remove the satisfaction whichhoaxers derive from reading about the consequences of their actions, and toprevent the idea from getting around among other would-be hoaxers." I hear that the newspapers last yeardecided to suppress bomb hoax news in the interests of air transport. This must be one of the very fewnews topics which newspapers have agreed should be censored, and every-one in the business should be greatly obliged to them. • "On the mainland the helicopterswill operate from half a 2.5 hectare (six acre) area adjacent to Penzance station."—Guess which aviation monthly. • British troops of the Special Aii Service Regiment, after exercises in Germany, were flown home by the Luftwaffe. The Daily Telegraph reported: — "The West German military attache in London sought permission for the Luftwaffe to bring them home 'as a gesture of friendship.' Permission was given and Transport Command were informed that RAF planes would not be required." The Daily Express reported a British officer as saying: — "When we asked Transport Com- mand to bring us home they said they were too busy flying troops and equip- ment to North Africa." • Did you know that a British inde- pendent airline is now operating 707s between Bermuda and New York? It's true, or at any rate half true: the air- craft are Viscount 707s operated by Eagle Airways Bermuda. Here's an advertising gimmick for them: How big can they get the numerals 707, and how tiny the word Viscount? • "In this case [the fitting of vortex generators to the Convair 880s] vortex generators are a significant aero- dynamic improvement. When someone else uses them they are a crutch, of course."—Phil Prophett, Convair assist- ant chief engineer in charge of flight test, as quoted by Airlift. • News agency message as received: "The order makes it compulsory for an airlines pilot to retire when he reached his 60th birth." ROGER BACON
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