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Aviation History
1960
1960 - 0546.PDF
546 FLIGHT, 15 April u AIR COMMERCE . . . SELL AND REMEMBER A PREREQUISITE of the sale of a commercial aircraft to a•**• new customer is for the manufacturer to explain exactly what he intends to provide in the way of after-sales service. Then theobject must be to provide that service and nothing less. At a recent meeting at Baginton, attended by Capt R. G. Gibsonand M. Ebbett, respectively general manager and chief engineer of Trans Arabia Airways, and by the representatives of 18 majorsub-contractors to the Argosy, Armstrong Whitworth undertook to establish a parts stores at Beirut, with the object of providingover-the-counter service to Trans Arabia for all AWA-manufac- tured parts required to keep the Argosies flying. In addition"almost all" the sub-contractors represented at the meeting have agreed to provide a 24hr AOG service, either by locating stocks inBeirut, or by guaranteed delivery from London within 24hr. Thus it seems that AWA are determined to learn from the pastexperience—and from the mistakes—of manufacturers older in the business of selling commercial aircraft abroad than themselves.Ample evidence of this determination is provided in the recently published second edition of their After Sales Service brochure forthe Argosy. This booklet covers in some detail the many services to beprovided to the customer after sale, field service, airport handling in the overhaul and loading bays, customer training, technicalpublications, X-ray inspection, warranties and service instructions. For parts service a relatively simple system of provisioningcards, coloured pink, yellow or green, to indicate the degree of anticipated usage, has been introduced for the small operator.These cards, used in conjunction with a fully illustrated catalogue of replaceable parts and a set of microfilmed drawings, are sup-ported by a carefully controlled modification record system. This should give the operator a comprehensive picture of the Argosyparts breakdown for provisioning and re-ordering purposes. A more advanced parts provisioning and ordering system, developedto ATA 200, is intended for larger operators possessing data processing equipment. AWA further intend to maintain an "off-the-shelf" parts service,which should enable them to provide the guaranteed delivery so important to the commercial operator. A list at the back of thebrochure covers the after-sales services which are available for the ancillary equipment in the Argosy. There are more thanone hundred manufacturers on this list, and it is the availability of the washers, springs, seals, brushes, etc, for their productswhich will ultimately prove the success or failure of AWA's carefully laid plans. Further encouraging news is that the Air Ministry have adoptedAWA's provisioning scheme for the 660, and that Short Brothers & Harland are thinking along the same lines for the Britannic.This could be a pointer to the direction to be taken by the whole industry. Footnote: "Sell and Remember" is the title of the release accompany-ing AWA's new brochure. An article on after-sales service in the industry, "Sell and Forget?", appeared in Flight, October 16, 1959. WHEN PRESSURE FAILURE THREATENS TPHERE can be no indecision when pressurization failure appears•*• likely; the only safe recourse is in immediate descent to a lower altitude. This was the situation which on April 3 faced anAir France pilot in a Boeing 707 with 55 passengers and seven crew on board when 25min out from Paris on a flight to New York. The aircraft was at 23,000ft when the captain discovc eda crack in the laminations of his windshield. He decided imme- diately to spill the cabin pressure and to descend as quickh aspossible to 10,000ft. Drop-down oxygen masks were ejected fio mtheir containers and the hostesses and stewards helped the passengers to don them, only to be overcome themselves by ackof oxygen before they could regain their own seats and apply their masks. They were unconscious for about two minutes butrevived at the lower altitude. Some of the passengers were said to be slightly affected by the rarefied air and some experiencedbleeding from the ears, due to the rapid changes of pressure. The aircraft returned to Paris but was not able to land imme-diately because of a faulty fuel dump valve; 10,000gal of fuel had to be burned off before the 707 was down to landing weight. VANGUARD CALYPSO UPON the aspirations of the West Indies for its flag carrierBWIA will depend the type of aircraft to be ordered by the Federation. As recorded in a paragraph on these pages on March 4,the airline is shopping for a US jet with which it hopes to capitalize on the forthcoming tourist boom to the Caribbean. But BWIAalso have hopes—when independence is achieved, perhaps less than two years hence—of becoming transatlantic operators, andit is with such services in mind that equipment decisions are being taken. First in line is probably the Convair 600. How do these plans accord with BOAC's whole ownership of theFederation's airline? Or the recent sales tour to the West Indies by the British turboprop Vanguard? While the corporation retain their interest in BWIA, thereseems little likelihood that the agreement of BOAC Associated Companies will be given to the purchase of foreign equipmentwithout which, the Federation argues, these long-term aspirations cannot be brought to fruition, although BOAC might operatetransatlantic services for them. So the choice confronting BWIA and the Federation may be either to develop existing services inassociation with BOAC while moving towards an autonomous West Indian airline, or to swing away from BOAC altogether andbranch out—either on their own or in association with another operator—into intercontinental services. Another suggestion isfor a compromise partnership, with majority shares to be taken by BOAC and possibly by TCA, with the remainder of the capitalbeing found by the Federation. If long-haul jet services are BWIA's aim, the present network ofregional Caribbean services might suffer from the new operation and from the employment on these island routes of jets purchasedprimarily for longer hauls. The Vanguard fits into this picture as perhaps the most suitable aeroplane for the inter-Caribbeanroutes and as a vehicle for offering low fares on services to the USA. For BWIA it would be the natural follow-on type withwhich to replace their Viscount fleet and no doubt its purchase (or lease) would readily be endorsed by BOAC. In Trinidad between March 22 and 26 the Vanguard demon-strated its regional capability to the airline's working management (although not to the chairman, H. O. B. Wooding, or the generalmanager J. H. Rahr, who were attending a BOAC associate's meeting in London), and to government officials, public notabili-ties, representatives of other airlines, travel agents and others. The most significant day was probably March 25 when 60 peopleand 10,0001b of freight were flown from Piarco to Barbados and Antigua back to Piarco—1,000 miles of inter-island flying—inthree hours' total block time. Take-off from Antigua's 5,000ft runway was made at ISA+17°. After checking out on the Van-guard on March 24, BWIA captains flew it under Vickers super- vision throughout the following day. BREVITIES Yugoslavia became the 77th member-State of ICAO on April 8. Aer Lingus' Dublin - Yeadon service was inaugurated on Saturday,April 2. The first five Convair 540s for Allegheny Airlines will be converted bythe Garrett Corporation's AiResearch Aviation Service Division at Los Angeles International Airport. The Handley Page Dart Herald now being demonstrated in Brazil hascurtailed its programme to carry clothing and medical supplies from Recife to the flooded Fortaleza area 800 miles away. In a written parliamentary reply Duncan Sandys, Minister of Aviation,has said that the average noise pressure-level of the Comet 4B was 90 decibels, a figure which was exceeded by several piston-enginedairliners regularly operating at night. Last Monday the Minister of Aviation was to be asked "whether heis aware of the unsatisfactory nature of the investigation into the accident to G-AMZD, a Transair DC-3, in Spain . . . and whether he willconsider publishing a more detailed report." A paper on "Power Plants for Supersonic Transport" is to be read inthe central hall of the Hatfield Technical College by J. S. Alford, AFRAes, design engineer of the General Electric Company on May 11. Theoccasion is the second Halford lecture. In Boeing's 1959 annual report, recently issued, it is said in thesection concerning the Transport Division that "the company has sustained a very substantial loss on [Boeing 707] orders received to date." Formal approval was given on April 1 to BOAC for its polar route to Los Angeles. On the same day Air France was formally granted permission to operate into Los Angeles. The FAA has proposed that all US turboprops as well as turbojetairliners should be equipped with aluminium or steel-strip flight recorders, said to cost about £1,000 each. Olympic Airways have ordered a fourth Comet 4B only two weeksafter the decision to purchase a third was announced. Comet 4s now on order or delivered total 48. It was reported last week that RAF Trans-port Command may buy 10 Comet 4Cs. One of BEA's Pionair DC-3s has been sold to Martins Air Charter,the Schiphol-based Dufch independent. Since January others have bec> sold to East Anglian Flying Services, Travelair Southern Rhodesia andCambrian. American Airlines' earnings last year of 7 per cent on invested capital"were not enoueh," according to the airline's president, C. R. Snifh. For financial stability and to enable the airlines to continue to improveservices, he said, a return on invested capital of 10-12 per cent was required.
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