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Aviation History
1960
1960 - 0763.PDF
FLIGHT, 3 June i960 AIR COMMERCE . . . In all this, it is believed, the UK has Italian support. Moreaid more is Europe forming a sort of cabotage bloc against the US. The Americans guard their domestic airlines from foreigncompetitors: the Europeans now seem to be guarding their 'domestic" airlines from US competition. Air Union bears witnessto this. The British further offered the Americans all that Seaboardend Western and PanAm wanted in the way of scheduled cargo rights beyond London into Europe. This was accepted by theUS side. What else besides the South Pacific did the British want? Therequirements do not appear to have been particularly greedy. Eagle (Bahamas), a one-Viscount operator to Miami, wantedtheir US operating permit to serve Fort Lauderdale, Tampa and Palm Beach from Nassau. They are entitled to this under theBermuda agreement. But the Americans stalled because Mackey, the US operator concerned, claims that the existing designatedBritish carrier, Bahamas Airways, caters adequately for the traffic. Eagle (Bermuda), with the Colony's blessing, wanted deeperpenetration tourist traffic-generating routes to Atlanta in addition to its existing routes to New York and Washington. This, itseems, was refused also. BOAC apparently asked for the right to add Winnipeg as anintermediate traffic booster on its projected London - Los Angeles transpolar route, and more access to Chicago. This was notrefused by the US, but it was not agreed to. It might be fair to guess that the UK delegation found theState Department representatives reasonable. Though the US team was actually led by a State Department man, Laurence Vass,real traffic-rights power seems to be vested in the CAB. This THE BILL IS THROUGH ""THE Civil Aviation (Licensing) Bill completed its progress-*- through Parliament with the third reading (see page 773) on May 26. The report stage had been passed on May 24. Lord Mills, Paymaster General, remarked during the thirdreading that the Divisional Court's recent decision (see Flight last week) on the Milbanke Tours case had "opened the door wideto uncontrolled competition with the established operators." It was not now possible, he said, that the Bill could come into effectin time to bring under control similar operations planned for the present summer season, but it was unlikely that the court decisionwould lead to any substantially greater number of uncontrolled flights. The arrangement for transitional licences would coveroperations for next summer, when the Bill would be in force. ROOM FOR ONE MORE? ANEW applicant has approached the ATAC for approval tooperate a scheduled cross-Channel car ferry service. Overseas Aviation (C.I.) have applied to carry vehicles and associatedpassengers, incidental passengers and supplementary freight on a vehicle-ferry service between Gatwick and Luxembourg withBristol 170s. Initially, frequency would be six return flights weekly, stepping up later as demand increased. Approval hasbeen requested for a period of seven years. Overseas thus join Silver City and the Channel Air Bridge(Air Charter), the two established cross-Channel vehicle ferry operators, in applications to carry cars much deeper into Europethan the Channel ports. Last summer, both established cross- Channel carriers applied to operate what have become known as"deeper penetration" routes; Silver City to Cologne, Cormeilles and Auxerre, and Air Charter to Paris, Dijon, Lyons, Strasbourg,Tours, Dusseldorf and Bremen. No decision has yet been announced by the ATAC, although itis understood that the two earlier applicants have now reached compromise decisions over most of the points that they wish toserve; it was always unlikely that approval would be given for them all. These earlier applications will presumably be settledbefore a decision is reached on the later application. Overseas' application is one of a number just placed before theCouncil. Others include requests to serve destinations such as Malta, Porto Santo (Madeira) and Shannon. Applications in bulk 771 organization, as it is required to do, certainly protects theinterests of its airlines. In doing so, and being a cumbrous bureaucracy, it tends to conform to the strict letter rather thanthe spirit of America's international agreements with other nations. The CAB is also a slave to economic statistics. Since internationalagreements are essentially matters of goodwill, their rigid inter- pretation in the light of statistics and the quibbles of US Federallaw is likely to lose friends. An example was the request by the UK that Eagle Airwaysshould be granted the right to a share in the transatlantic charter business. The CAB found a rule which required Eagle to limitits annual charter mileage to 10 per cent of its scheduled mileage into the USA. Eagle of course operate only two Viscounts intoUS terminals from Bermuda and the Bahamas, so that Eagle's transatlantic charter business would have amounted to a verylimited number of flights—notwithstanding the tremendous amount of charter business generated by US carriers in Britain. Where do we go from here? The Ministry door, as we havesaid, is open; but any American team which came to London with- out a more flexible approach to negotiations would probably bewasting its time. One satisfactory aspect of these unhappy events is that the UKteam, which was led by Alison Munro, carried with it throughout Britain's Commonwealth air transport partners. In the re-shapingof the Caribbean pattern British policy had the full support of the West Indies Government, for whom it was acting as trusteein anticipation of Federal independence next year. And, so far as is known, there were no differences of opinion—rather thereverse—with Commonwealth airlines or governments. In this fact perhaps, and also in the possibility of closer British air trans-port ties with Air Union, lies hope of a more flexible American attitude in the future. j. M. R. have also recently been made by Dan-Air, seven for UK internalservices (including Bristol - Edinburgh and Manchester - Liver- pool) and eight for oversea crossings. Among the latter are requestsfor Bristol - Rotterdam, Bristol - Knocke and Bristol - Barcelona, and three applications for a Bristol 170 vehicle-ferry service to theIsle of Man from Liverpool, Blackpool and Valley. THE ROLLS-ROYCE DOUGLAS thing that jumps to mind when the DC-8 is mentioned isthat this aeroplane is down on its brochure performance. This is doubly unfortunate, for not only is the discrepancy relativelyinsignificant, but it tends to mask the fact that the -8 is a superb transport. And, as Gordon R. McGregor, president of Trans-Canada Airlines, hoped when he selected the Rolls-Royce Conway to power his Douglas DC-8s the British by-pass engine gives theaircraft greater power and economy and appears to make it significantly quieter internally. TCA eventually ordered ten DC-8 Series 40 aircraft. The threein service have been flying Vancouver - Toronto - Montreal since April 1, and on May 28 CF-TJC, the third aircraft, crossed theAtlantic. In the process it set up an Ottawa - London point-to- point observed record of 5hr 55min (3,341 miles, 562 m.p.h.,approximately 20kt tailwind) which is being submitted to the FAI. The next day Flight flew to Prestwick and back in the aircraft,cruising at around 550 m.p.h. at 26,000ft. Leaving Prestwick (sea level, practically no wind) at 216,5001b we reached lOOkt in 16secand broke ground at 26sec. Compared with other big jets in which we have flown the initial climb seemed steep, and generaltractability excellent. It must be admitted that, like all DC-8 operators, TCA havehad to use slightly higher power settings than had been anticipated in order to achieve a given cruise performance. At present the onlypalliative introduced by Douglas is a series of leading-edge slats inboard of the four pylons, which are covered by a door in theupper surface whenever the flaps are fully retracted. These slats are particularly effective with higher flap angles and reduce stallingspeed by 8 or 9kt. A future modification will be the extension of the leading edge from the root to just beyond the inboard engines.This "Boeing 720-type" modification should slightly reduce drag and, although TCA do not make such a claim, should furtherimprove field performance. On June 1 the airline started Toronto - Montreal - London services using aircraft with 99 economy seatsand 28 first-class. Using normal high-speed cruise at M0.825 the schedule times are 7hr 5min westbound and 6hr 5min east-bound. The 1049G schedules were 12hr 50min and lOhr 55min. Frequencies are essentially daily. , "Orders for the Dart Herald," say Handley Page at the end of the aircraft's 34,000 mile Brazilian tour, "are expected before the end of the year." Several airlines are said to be seriously interested, particu- larly (according to an American source) Navegagao Aereo Brasileira— NAB. Here Handley Page director E. Manley Walker shakes hands with the pilot, Capt R. Shilton of Silver City, after the Herald landed back at Woodley on May 27
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