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Aviation History
1960
1960 - 0756.PDF
756 FLIGHT, 3 Jtme 1960 Straight and ve I LAST week Sir Charles Boost, princeof British air power, invited me toJ his Belgravia mews fiat for a drink and a chat about the chairmanship of BOAC. Sir Charles is part-time chair- man and part-time chief executive of Plummet Air Lines. "If you want my candid opinion, old boy," he said, lovingly spinning the wheels of the S.E.5 that hangs from the ceiling of his drawing room, "the last man we want is someone with an air- line background. Masefield? He's too much of an air transport man. No, we want an Establishment figurehead with wide non-aviation interests, someone with plenty of strings to pull in White- hall when things go wrong—you know, a chap who has a way with people, eh laddie? . . ." "... But Boostie, BOAC deserves better than that. Think what such an appointment would do to staff morale. SmaJlpeice has got a good team going now, and . . ." "... Fiddlesticks, old boy, and rasp- berries," he retorted, kicking his labrador, Blue Streak, off the delta-wing steel sofa. "BOAC's job is to show the flag and to get a supersonic plasma jet airliner into service next year. It's a State-owned prestige outfit, not an air- line. As usual, my dear fellow, you've got it all wrong, all wrong. Have another drink." • Did you read in the papers last week accounts of the extent to which take-offs are being delayed by heavy traffic? At New York recently a BOAC 707-420 burned off two tons of fuel before it was cleared to take off, and it very nearly had to return to the ramp for refuelling. On the morning of May 10 a colleague flew from the same airport to Phila- delphia by American Airlines DC-6. The aircraft taxied away from the ramp right on schedule at lO.lOhr local time. It was in the queue for just over 25min. My colleague jotted down his observa- tions as follows: "American Airlines Convair 340 in front of us. TWA 707 takes off. UAL DC-8 lands. American Airlines DC-7 behind us. BOAC 707-420 takes off. MATS Provider lands. Unidentified Convair 340 takes off. Piper Aztec executive lands. Eastern DC-7B taxies in. TWA Super-G Constellation taxies out. Delta DC-8 takes off. Unidentified DC-6 or DC-7 takes off. BWIA Viscount takes off. New York Airways Veftol 44 takes off [from the terminal area]. Eastern DC-7 takes off. Eastern 340 takes off." This, he gathered, was quite routine. It was just bad luck that he should have been on the approach to Philadelphia when he was taking off from New York. • "The aircraft is supplied with a set of indispensable tools"—from the Polish PZL-102 Kos brochure. • You may recall my plea last week that the Ministry should try to make the London Airport shantytown a friendlier place. A colleague who last week passed through Hamburg airport tells me that prominently displayed there are big notices addressed: — "Dear passenger: Our terminal hasbecome too small and we are extending it for your better convenience. Please bearwith us during the rebuilding and excuse some inconveniences. We are building youa really nice terminal to maice your visit more agreeable and we are doing it asquickly as we possibly can." • The president of Eastern Air Lines, disclaiming Eastern's interest in the Caravelle, says: "Here is an airplane built in a foreign land 4,000 miles away. We have trouble enough with people on our own doorstep, service-wise and otherwise." One assumes that Eddie Rickenbacker says this in the knowledge that Douglas are supporting US domestic Caravelle operations, and that Douglas are also jointly developing the aircraft with Sud Aviation. (A new version, the Caravelle 14, with RB.141/llAs, is being planned to cruise at Mach .84.) But his remark does seem to emphasize the main obstacle to extensive sales of foreign aircraft in the US market, no matter how good they may be technically. Can it thus be assumed that there is substance in reports of DH efforts to obtain an American manufacturer's support for the D.H.121? The effort is well worth making. Not only Douglas but Boeing also (with the 727) and Convair (with the Model 60) are pre- paring to repel the D.H.121. A reader sends me this postcard from Prestwick, entitled "Floral Picture, Belleisle Park, Ayr" with the comment: "I believe Pan Ameri- can pay a man to keep this garden in good condition." Passing thought: Is there really room for four contenders in the short-haul jet market (five if you include the German HFB314 project)? It seems to me that there is not. And it also seems fair to say that DH have at least as much to offer as they have to gain from an Anglo- American 121 programme. The aircraft has advanced some way beyond the brochure status of its competitors. It is in production. For the first time since the Viscount and the Comet 1 we have an airliner that is in advance of its US competitors. The original caption says that these sportsmen, on the wing of a DC-7C, are "members of the KLM Airliner Fencing Club, and this is one way of attracting members." I should have thought myself that a spirited bout of thrust and parry round the polished contours of a NACA 23014 wing section, twelve feet above the Schiphol concrete, would be a particularly effective method of getting rid of existing members. Anyway, in this sort of boundary- layer fencing, blade-stall must cause a serious falling-off in thrust. Moreover, the employment of such flexible aero foils must make some form of duel control an absolute necessity. The most anomalous vestigial remain of the old aircraft industry is the Aircraft Manufacturing Company. Airco, a con- sortium of de Havilland Aircraft, Fairey and Hunting Aircraft, was formed in January 1958 to build the D.H.121. But it is now confirmed that Hunting are part of the British Aircraft Corporation, so it seems that Airco has a foot in each of Britain's three airframe camps—D.H. in Hawker Siddeley (to be called Hawker de Havilland?), Fairey in the Westland helicopter group, and Hunting in BAG The fact that Fairey is part of West- land may not prove too awkward; but Hunting's membership of BAC may strain its allegiance to Airco if BAC goes ahead with the VC11. • A certain well-known aeronautical librarian was asked the other day for the date and place of the Wrights' first flight. Having supplied the answer, he tells me, he was "somewhat taken aback" to be further asked: "Where did they finish?" ROGER BACON
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