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Aviation History
1960
1960 - 0656.PDF
656 FLIGHT, 13 May 1960 Straight and Level TO make a loss of £1 million and toget the headlines reproduced be-low is a brilliant piece of manage- ment-staff relations. But the impression which most of BOAC's shareholders (the public) might be forgiven for gaining from these headlines is that BOAC, like BEA, is a profit-making concern. The year's results are a tremendous improvement on the previous year, when a real loss of £11^ million (not the £5 million declared) was suffered. And B.O.A.C.'s £4m ^OPERATING ,w PROFIT B.O.A.C. makes its highest operating •y, profit *• ""'•'• B.O.A-C. RECORD PROFITr B.O.A.C. EARNS OVER £4M. OPERATING PROFIT From top to bottom, headlines from The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Times, and The Financial Times it is a fact that, on BOAC's own opera- tions—which is what the staff at London Airport are concerned about—a profit of £100,000 was made (not £4 million, because capital interest payments are no less an operating cost than fuel, main- tenance, insurance, etc.). But it is also a fact that BOAC made a loss in 1959-60 of £1 million, and not a profit. This loss was due entirely to BOAC Associated Companies. So long as the corporation thinks it wise to invest in associated companies, should it seem to suggest to shareholders that the losses they suffer are sort of incidental? Anyway, full marks to BOAC's PRmanship. Who can blame them for putting their undoubtedly improved results in the best possible light? I feel rather mean for removing the rose- tinted filter, and I do not want BOAC's strong recovery to be undersold. But a loss is not a profit. I hope and believe that next year it will be a real profit. • Who's afraid of the EuropeanCommon Market? If anyone in Britain's aircraft industry is feeling a bit restiveabout the threat of combined Franco- German competition, let him consider the HFB314, Hamburger Flugzeugbau's short-haul jet airliner project d la Cara- velle, in whose development Lufthansa are said to be more than mildly interested. Haven't the Germans heard of the Caravelle? To project a competitor for it would be silly enough even if there were no Common Market. To do so regardless of the Rome treaty, which was drawn up on the principle that Europe must be economically united, seems to suggest a division of Common Market purpose. The Germans are also projecting a competitor for another Common Market aircraft (the Dutch- built Friendship) in the shape of the He211 project. Most encouraging. • Some people, and I'm one of them, think that Convair may have been a trifle over-imaginative in some of their prog- nostications about supersonic airliners. But their manager of transport systems development, C. L. Blake, has come out with some remarks about a Mach 3 machine which are well worth pondering. So costly and complex will the "M3" be, says Mr Blake, that electronic com- puters will be needed not only to design This photograph is printed as received from an agency. It has me worried. Why does this poor chap find himself up to his torso in concrete? Did that belly-landed F-102 melt it? And what is he doing with that missile? Doesn't he realize that there's over three tons of thrust up that spout? And that there's a nuclear warhead at the other end. And that there's only a piece of string holding it up anyway. I do wish he would stop messing about with that thing. And I do hope some- one comes and pulls him out. And jacks up his F-102. He could find himself in real trouble it, but to help to fly it and service it as well. Only after the characteristics of all components and systems have been fed into the computer would systems be. designed in detail. Revisions would be entered as experimental results became available and as the design was refined. Finally, an electronic "reliability model" would be put into operation to simulate prolonged service. I do hope that Mr Blake's computer is going to prove co-operative, because he himself foresees that if the M3 is delayed in service by only two hours (perhaps by a radio defect) the result will be "like a line of falling dominoes all along the airline's routes"—similar, in fact, to what happens now if twelve piston- engined transports are weathered-in at one airport. Any advance on Mach 3? • Do you remember the plaintive Flight leader the other week about Transport Command and Exercise Starlight? "Too Little, and Rather Late" it was called; and it asked, "What sort of fire brigade is it that takes 38 days to get its appliances to the conflagra- tion?" Reading it one yearned for the might of MATS—sinecure of military transport services, the best and the most. At least I thought it was until I read that Lt-Gen William Tunner, the head of MATS, has declared that 90 per cent of MATS aircraft are obsolete; that the Command's airlift force "cannot meet the time limitations established for the airlift of army forces"; and that in last month's transport exercise between the US mainland and Puerto Rico the lift took 4,000 hours longer than had been planned. A jolt such as this is a healthy re- minder that the grass isn't always greener on the other side of the Atlantic. • British offer to foreign government: "If you are interested in this fighter we will keep the project going for another six weeks while you make up your mind. But please pay us £40,000 for the employees' wages." American offer: "If you buy this fighter we will put $10,000,000 into its development for your specific require- ments." Guess who will finally foot the $10,000,000 bill.. . and how many other countries will follow suit and buy the same fighter . . . and whether the first licence-built version will fly within a year of the target date. - Not For Crop Spraying? • "The DC-8 was designed specific- ally for passenger service"—United Air Lines advertisement. ROGER BACON
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