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Aviation History
1961
1961 - 0137.PDF
2708 VOLUME 79 FRIDAY 3 FEBRUARY 1961 Editor-in-Chief IAURICE A. SMITH DFC Editor H . F . KING MBE Technical Editor W. T. GUNSTON Air Transport Editor J . M. RAMSDEN Production Editor ROY CASEY Managing Director H. N. PRIAULX MBE IN THIS ISSUE From All Quarters 138 Missiles and Spaceflight 140 America and the Supersonic Airliner 143 Exports: 196O Results 145 Piper Colt in the Air 146 Sport and Business 148 Malaya to Middle Wallop 15O Five Score DC-8s and Fifteen 152 Straight and Level 154 Correspondence 155 Flight System Survey 157 The Industry 158 Dunlop's Aviation Jubilee 159 Service Aviation 161 Air Commerce 162 Hifle Transport Publications Ltd, DorsetHouse, Stamford Street, London SKI; ' • I'l'hmie Waterloo 3333. TelegramsJlmhtpres London SKI. Annual'sub- scriptions: Hume £•( lfis. Overseas £5.Canada and USA $15.(10. Second Class .Mail privileges authorized at JSewVnrk, NY. Branch Offices Coventry: 8-10 Corpora-tion Street; telephone Coventry 25210. Lirminuhani: King Edward House. Newstreet. 2: telephone Midland 711)1. ' Man- chester: 2C0 Deansgate 3; telephoneillackfriars 4412 or Deansgate 3595. (.liispiw: 62 Buchanan Street Cl; tele-J!l'"iie Central 1265-6. -New York, NY : Thomas Skinner & CoUublishers) Ltd, 111 Broadway 0; telephone Digby 9-1197. .[jl'iffe Transport Publications Ltd,1W1. Permission to reproduce illustra- tions and letterpress ran be granted onlyunder written agreement. Brief extracts * comments may be made with due•"-Kumvledgeinent. AIRCRAFT, SPACECRAFT, MISSILES Official Organ of the Royal Aero Club First Aeronautical Weekly in the World Founded 1909 Include Us OutA PARTICULARLY significant contribution by a respected American correspondent is printed on pages 143-144. The subject is America and the supersonic airliner, and we have appended the sub-title " 'Include Me Out,' says Don Adams." There is cold comfort in what Mr Adams has to say. Cold for himself, for the USA, for Great Britain, and potentially for human society. What has happened is that the US Government has indicated its willingness to subsidize the development of a Mach 3 commercial transport. Of such an aeroplane Sir George Edwards has lately said that if the USSR decided that they wanted to make an all-out attack on the airline and aircraft manufacturing industries of the West, then the cheapest way in which they could bring chaos to both would be to produce a so-called supersonic transport flying at an alleged 2,000 m.p.h. [Mach 3]. As things appear to have turned out, it is not the Russians who have panicked the Americans: it is the Americans who are stampeding themselves, and perhaps other nations, in a frantic effort to make work for their aircraft industry. Without ascribing to Sir George Edwards oracular propensities, we find it impossible in the present context not to recall another of his recent utterances. It was this: "By virtue of a lot of concentrated work the British just about know how to do the slower one [Mach 2] and I think have every intention of doing it. The Americans could undoubtedly find out how to do it. Neither of us knows how to do the 2,000-m.p.h. one [Mach 3]." Lurching into the Future But there is a further profound significance here for us in Britain. When Sir George expressed his views—as recently as last November—he had just returned from the USA, where he had put the proposition that both the supersonic transport and international collaboration were good things. He had found the Americans "not unsympathetic." In contrast with his finding, however, we remarked that Mr James T. Pyle, Deputy Administrator of the Federal Aviation Agency, had declared that he expected to see a supersonic transport aeroplane either in th z air or approaching operational use by the end of this decade. He hoped that the USA would be first in producing a successful design, and he made it clear that the aircraft would cruise in the region of Mach 3. A leading article on the theme we titled "What Price Collaboration?" The same question must now be asked again with greater urgency. Consider the picture: Britain is diligently, if frugally, pursuing her studies of a usable and economic transport for Mach 2 or thereabouts. A scale model, the H.P.I 15, is soon to fly as a research tool in a programme wherein it was hoped to win American collaboration. The Americans, on the other hand, seem deter- mined to spurn such base degrees and are lurching forward into unknown, perhaps unattainable and seemingly unwanted realms. Things may yet alter. Decisions—even when made in time of stress, fear and need—can be reversed. But for the present Britain is included out. This journal is in good company with Mr Adams, for we too believe that no one desires to see a once-proud industry crumble overnight, and that some kind of forced activity might serve to tide across some difficult times. But this support, as Mr Adams says, should be directed at potentially fruitful ideas. And the fruits of the Mach 3 airliner could be bitter ones indeed. I
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