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Aviation History
1960
1960 - 0668.PDF
668 FLIGHT, 13 May 1960 Pictured during demonstrations at Galeas Airport, Rio de Janeiro, the Handley Page Herald is flanked by Brazil's modern buildings and a rather less up-to-date Beechcraft 17. For details of the Herald's current tour, see story below AIR COMMERCE... CAPITAL ARE FIGHTING AS we go to press, Capital Airlines are still searching for ways**• in which they can avoid bankruptcy, a Damoclean sword which hangs over them on a very slender thread indeed. Its twostrands comprise further appeals to the Civil Aeronautics Board for subsidy and a stay on the foreclosure petitioned for by itsalready over-patient creditors. Hopes of achieving the first alternative, an injection of subsidyby the US Government, has never been great and now are fading. The CAB appears to be completely unmoved by Capital's distressbecause it holds little brief for "subsidizing bad management." Instead an investigation has been demanded into the causes ofCapital's financial problems. According to Aviation Week, the CAB are anxious to deter-mine : (1) Whether Capital's operating certificates should be modi- fied or suspended; (2) whether the transfer of the airline's routesto another carrier would be in the public interest; (3) whether the integration of Capital's routes with those of other carriersby merger or transfer of routes is needed; and (4) what other remedial action should be taken to rectify the present situation.Each condition, it might be noted, is qualified as being a decision "in the best public interest," but it seems clear that the CAB'sinterpretation of this is not to resuscitate Capital's depleted finances. It is reported that the airline's current operatingexpenses are being met only by deferring provision for payment of interest and depreciation charges. The other thread keeping Capital from the receiver is the hopethat it will be possible to stave off bankruptcy by reaching an agreement with the British noteholders which would allow fore-closure to be postponed. It is being argued that Vickers have the most to gain by helping Capital to reach some sort of solutionto their immediate problems, in the hope that reorganization would lead the way to the notes eventually being repaid. It is understoodthat the greater part of the outstanding notes are insured by the Export Credit Guarantee Department but that claims can only bemade on the insurance guarantee provided that Vickers have taken "steps to minimize the losses." Here is the first general arrangement drawing of the Potez 840 (four Turbomeca Astazou) a French turboprop of a class much in the news. First flight should be early next year. Two prototypes are under con- struction. A broadly similar design, with civif and military applica- tions, is being considered by Sud and Marcel Dassault Meanwhile, the Capital Airlines Shareholders' Associationcomposed of about a thousand of the airline's employees—are hoping to arrange a meeting with Vickers themselves. CaptCharles Beatley, a Capital pilot and the president of the association, said in Washington last week that he was going to ask Vickers topostpone mortgage foreclosure proceedings (Vickers hold a £12 million mortgage on 89 of the airline's 96 aircraft) until the nextshareholders' meeting. As this will not be for two months, Capt Beatley is asking for a substantial breathing space. "We believe,"he said, "that the Association has a logical plan that will be acceptable to the British interests that hold the notes." Detailshave not been given, but it appears that his suggestion is to cut all salaries by one per cent and pay this amount monthly toVickers. This would amount to about £178,000 a month and by this method alone full repayment would take 5£ years. COMETS FOR AIR LATIN AMERICA? TPHE projected supranational airline of South American car-•• riers—proposed name Aerea Latinoamericanas—might, it is rumoured on the South American continent, purchase Cometswith which to replace the assorted piston-engined equipment of the five or six individual operators. The Comet has an appeal inSouth America as a jet of compact size which could be used on premier services in face of the increasing seat capacity that isbecoming available with the US jets. Meanwhile, the collectively powerful non-I ATA Latin Americanoperators have met again to discuss opposition to the Association, whose rate-making policies they regard with disfavour. No SouthAmerican airline is particularly friendly towards IATA today, writes a correspondent, as the international fares structure "defi-nitely favours more sophisticated markets and living standards." Non-IATA international airlines have been contacting IATA-member national lines "with the object of forming a solid front against the Association"; there is a feeling that some lines joinedIATA because they feared to be left out or possibly out of a feeling of good fellowship. But in South America perhaps more thananywhere the need is to reduce fares rather than to increase speed. GLOBE-TROTTING HERALD TWO more tours in the Herald's world series have been plannedfor this year, it was announced by Handley Page last week. These will be the fifth and sixth, and will undoubtedly makeG-APWA, the production Dart Herald now in South America, the most extensively travelled turbine demonstrator ever. But the position of the company vis a vis British industryamalgamations must be causing some concern abroad, in particular among operators who want to be able to guarantee after-sales partsand service over the whole of the aircraft's life span. This problem is still an important one on the day that the aircraft is sold secondhand. It might be a sound suggestion just now for Handley Page to make a special point of selling not only the excellence of thenaircraft but also their ideas for after-sales support. An extra effort could perhaps be made to show that Handley Page's Herald cus-tomers would benefit from factory backing regardless of any changes which the firm might be put under pressure to undergo. The fourth, current, demonstration tour has so far coveredGhana, Nigeria and Brazil. As previously reported, in Brazil the eleven-week tour was interrupted to fly food for flood-relief opera-tions in the Fortaleza area. Elsewhere, the aircraft has been oper- ated under particularly difficult conditions. Typically, simulatedengine failure before unstick has been demonstrated from "awful airfields, but the aircraft, in the words of the pilot, Capt R. Shiltonof Silver City [as quoted on page 665] "has continued its superD performance with literally no snags at all." Demonstrations have been given—among others—to tne
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