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Aviation History
1960
1960 - 1813.PDF
Hc 2687 VOLUME 78 FRIDAY 9 SEPTEMBER 19 60 Editor-in-Chief MAURICE A. SMITH DFC Editor H . F. KING MBE Technical Editor W. T. GUNSTON Production Editor ROY CASEY IN THIS ISSUE From All Quarters 402 Air Commerce 405 Twenty-first SB AC Show 4O9 European Congress of Aviation Medicine 423 Straight and Level 424 Looking-in on the Industry 425 The Flying-Display Pilots 435 Testing Circumstances 438 Flight System Survey 439 Missiles and Spaceflight 440 Sport and Business 442 Service Aviation 443 Correspondence 444 lliHe & Sons Ltd, Dorset House, Stam-tord Street, London SE1; telephone Waterloo 3333. Telegrams FlightpresSedist London. Annual subscriptions: Home U ]5s. Overseas £5. Canadaand T1SA $15.00. Second Class Mail privileges authorized at New York, NY. Branch Offices Coventry: 8-10 Corpora-tion Street; telephone Coventry 25210. itniuingham: King Edward House, Newstreet, 2; telephone Midland 7191. Man- chester: 200 Deansgate, 3; telephoneWackfriars 4412 or Deansgate 3595. • •laagow: 02 Buchanan Street, C.I; tele-phone Central 1265-0. New York, NY: Thomas Skinner & Co(I nlilisliers) Ltd, 111 Broadway, 6; telephone Digby 9-1197. © Hille it Sons Ltd, lflfiO. Permissionwi reproduce illustrations and letterpress can he grnnted only under written agree-"ii-iiit. Uricf extracts or comments may be OIIUIP with due acknowledgement. AIRCRAFT, SPACECRAFT, MISSILES Official Organ of the Royal Aero Club First Aeronautical Weekly in the World Founded 1909 The Going ToughensI N proclaiming on this page last week our faith in the products of the British aircraft industry, and in the present constitution of that industry, we were not merely banging the drum for the Farnborough circus. We do not believe that any of our visitors from overseas—not least among them Comrades Antonov and Yakovlev—would seriously contest the views that we then expressed. Rather their presence should do more than that: it should remind us of the stiffening competition now becoming manifest from every other country pretending to air- craft construction, the small as well as the great. Our salesmen have never had it so tough; and if this journal has rendered a particular service we believe it to be in the routine presentation not only of Britain's domestic products but, in equal detail wherever possible, the equivalent offerings of rival constructors. We are nevertheless uncomfortably aware that far too little is known, or heeded, about competing products. Only a few weeks ago we were discussing a forthcoming British aeroplane with someone who is to be largely concerned with its marketing. "It sounds as though it's going to be a direct competitor of the Blank," we remarked, naming a foreign aircraft of which particulars and pictures had appeared in this and other journals. "Don't know it," was the chilling answer. There is not a member of this journal's staff who has not had similar encounters. We recall with the same discomfiture the smugness—even derision—with which our predictions of Russian infiltration into world markets have been met over the years. The smugness remains; but the derision seems to have vanished with the recent order for 11-18 turboprop airliners—by Ghana. Russian helicopters are already at work in many countries; and we must contend also with the mounting challenge of France, Germany and Japan. Let us make Farnborough the occasion not merely for sales talk, but also for inquiry into our visitors' own products and commercial aspirations. Corporation Co-operationT HE likelihood that KLM will associate with the SAS/Swissair consortium will mean that the airlines of five different nations—Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the Netherlands—will be setting aside nationalism and co-operating with the object of cutting costs. The same may be said of Air Union, which is to be the integrated airline of France, Germany, Italy and Belgium, despite all the difficulties of different tongues, currencies, traditions and temperaments. A year ago a Parliamentary Select Committee asked BO AC and BE A to list the ways in which they co-operate. Their list (pages 351-354 of that report) revealed that there is in fact no technical or operational co-operation—and very little in a commercial way that does not exist in the normal way among airlines. The com- mittee took rather a poor view of this and asked the corporations to look again at the possibilities of co-operation. This they have been doing, as noted in each corpora- tion's annual report, and here is a step in the right direction. But we must hope that co-operation in fields other than medical services, motor transport, catering and so on will emerge. Even engineering consultation does not go far enough. By co-operation we mean what SAS, Swissair and KLM mean, and what the Air Union airlines mean. Is it not rather extravagant, for example, for BE A and BO AC, who have the same owner and who are based within three minutes' walk of each other, to have completely separate spares, maintenance, engineering and training organizations for their Comet fleets? There is room for thought here; and room for action. '•_. Y •
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