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Aviation History
1961
1961 - 1171.PDF
FLIGHT, 24 August 1961 witness was Mr Grumbridge. He presented, in detail, figures forcapacity and traffic increases on each route. Mr Marking asked Mr Grumbridge to state the financial positionof the four routes. In 1960-61 the London - Edinburgh route made a profit of £35,000 and this had been the second profitable year.The accumulated net loss stood at £673,000. On the London - Glasgow route the profit had been £95,000. This had been the thirdprofitable year but the accumulated net loss on the route was £2,210.000. The Manchester route had made a profit of £7,000 and1960-61 had been the second profitable year. Accumulated net losses on the route were £841,000. The revenue on the Birminghamroute had been £93.000 and the loss—slightly reduced compared with previous years—£20.000; accumulated net loss was £300,000. The Board asked Mr Grumbridge to comment on a suggestionfrom the Scottish Advisory Committee that the present capacity of the BEA services was inadequate and the proposed increases in-sufficient. Mr Marking asked Mr Grumbridge whether BEA had discussed long-term capacity and traffic estimates with the ScottishAdvisory Committee. Mr Grumbridge thought they had not. In the old Council days they used to go to Scotland twice a year fordiscussions. They had no contact with the new committee and therefore did not even know whence the committee got its informa-tion on BE A plans. In any case, the BEA capacity more than covered the estimated traffic. Mr Marking commented on previousevidence about the shortage of first class capacity and asked his witness to confirm that the CEA proposals were for all tourist classservices. Mr Grumbridge confirmed this and suggested that the Scottish Advisory Committee had possibly been referring to first-class capacity and had written without the most recent information on future, proposals. It was probable that businessmen were able toget the seats they wanted at short notice in the winter when traffic was lighter but found that they could not do so in the summer. This" concluded BEA's evidence in objection and Mr Oswald wasinvited to proceed with his objections. Mr Oswald called several witnesses, as he was representing not only the railways but also theroad services concerned. The operators of coach services felt that all facilitiss already existing should be considered before decidingwhether the need for a new facility existed. Although accepting that progress must be made in civil aviation, he felt that the presentproposals were unnecessary. He asked the Board to look on trans- port facilities as a whole. Mr Marking was invited to make a final speech for BEA's objec-tions. He said that he did not agree that international and domestic routes should be considered on different bases but the Board mightthink that they should weight the evidence differently. The BEA monopoly on "domestic routes entailed certain benefits such as thelow passenger rate per mile. There had been no indication that the traffic potential was greater than that for which BEA had provided.The public had benefited from cheap fares which had been obtained as a result of high load factors; these would not have been possiblewith a second operator on the routes. Any second operator would provide wasteful duplication of BEA's services with results whichthe Board should consider. The evidence of Mr Wheatcroft and Mr Grumbridge had shown how duplication of services must leadto higher fares. Duplication Not Yet Justified BEA were not opposed to duplication when the traffic was suffi-cient to justify it, but the time was not yet. The Board might ask when duplication might be justified—the only estimate had beengiven by Mr Wheatcroft. who had said in not less than five years. No evidence had been adduced in justification of the proposedservices, nor had there been any suggestion that BEA's services were inadequate or the BEA fares unreasonable; Cunard Eagle proposedto use the same fares themselves. There had been no evidence that the facilities provided by BEA was unsatisfactory. There was aplace available for the independents, but there was no need for them to try to take advantage of BEA's spadework and the routedevelopment which they had accomplished at a cost of substantial accumulated losses. BKS had provided an excellent example of howan independent airline could prosper by its own unaided efforts. As a final point he suggested that this was the age of specializa-tion: the Atlantic routes which CEA had been granted and the short domestic routes they were seeking were not the ideal mixturefor efficient operation. In his final rejoinder, Mr Ashton Hill said that there was nodoubt the need existed and competition would fill it—the only dif- ference of opinion was on when. Both Mr Wheatcroft and Gilland Bates were in favour of competition in the right conditions (here Mr Ashton Hill repeated quotations from both sources). Gilland Bates stated that competition was in the public interest and was an important factor in stimulating public interest. Cases in whichcompetition had led to adverse results had been either when a second carrier had been introduced too soon or when too manyoperators had been licensed on one route. This, said Mr Ashton Hill, brought him back to the nub of the discussion—when could anew operator be licensed? Traffic volume was the paramount consideration. The table which Mr Wheatcroft had produced, purporting toshow the volume of traffic required to support parallel services by two operators, had been prepared in connection with research inCanada and Mr Wheatcroft had admitted that the Board would have to exercise its judgment in considering the table in connectionwith the present applications. Moreover, when cross-examined by Mr Gardiner Mr Wheatcroft had admitted that the first column ofthe table was arbitrary and governed the remainder. Without dis- respect to Mr Oswald, said Mr Ashton Hill, he did not considerthat the question of diversion of traffic from rail services was relevant. Mr Ashton Hill submitted that traffic had reached suchproportions and the potential was so enormous that all the applica- tions made by CEA should be granted. [CONCLUDED] 273 The 50,000,000th passenger to use New York International Airport since July 1948 happened (by good fortune for the Port of New York Authority's publicity depart- ment) to be attractive Mrs James Penson. She is seen here with her husband and (left) Mr Vincent A. Carson, airport manager, and (right) Mr Julien Ogier, station manager of Air France, who were flying the couple off on their honeymoon TCA AND THE CONWAY MUCH hitherto unpublished information on the Rolls-Royce Conway was revealed in a recent paper read by J. T. Dyment and J. J. Eden before the SAE entitled "Trans-Canada's Experience with the Rolls-Royce Conway Turbine Engine." This dealt with TCA's first year of Conway- DC-8 operations, in which over 42.000 engine hours were accumulated. Among the reasons why TCA chose Conways was that this engine's higher initial cruise thrust provides more flexibility of operation because it enables a constant-altitude flight path to be flown as necessitated by ATC considerations instead of the optimum cruise-climb techniques. The Conway's construction also offers superior protection against fire by shrouding the hot sections of the engine with a surrounding stream of cold air. TCA also found that Rolls-Royce guarantees in material cost, warranties and so on were better. TCA have had no trouble with foreign-object ingestion, due largely to the Douglas vortex spoiler. Icy runways have to be treated with sand to provide greater friction for the DC-8. and TCA have found that sand produces a number of indentations on inlet guide vane leading edges. Silicone grit has also been found in the cooling air passages during engine overhaul; this can enter the oil system and might contribute to bearing mal- function. Bird ingestion has been a greater problem than ex- pected. The long Al low-pressure compressor blades have bent as a result of this, but have not fractured, and a large portion of the debris has found its way into the engine by-pass stream. TCA have found that the icy warning light did not give adequate warning under all conditions, and as a result TCA have tended to over-use the anti-icing system as a precaution- ary measure. Fuel heating costs TCA over $50,000 per annum and they strongly recommend a device that will heat the fuel only when fuel icing is imminent. A number of take-off delays have been encountered due to failure of engines to start in cold weather, and TCA's view is that engine manufacturers should carry out environmental tests not on an isolated engine, but on the entire engine system as installed in an aircraft. Only 20,000 hours of Conway running time had been accumulated before the engine went into airline service, and a high initial shutdown rate of 2.3 per 1,000 hours was experienced in the first two months of operation. Ex- cluding these months, the shutdown rate has been a respectable 0.34. Longitudinal cracks due to resonance have appeared in the front bearing housing vanes; the cracks have been aggra- vated by the application of anti-icing air at 70 psi and 300°C. The Nimonic 95 high-pressure turbine blades have shown a large scatter in the important property of reliability and are now being changed to Nimonic 105 blades. High-pressure sixth-stage compressor blade failures have occurred, but only in the outboard engines and only on DC-8s. This has been traced to the use of full reverse thrust on landing, where the outboard engines ingest exhaust gases from the inboard Conways, causing the outer engines to surge and producing blade failures due to rapid fatigue. This has been eliminated by a revised procedure in which only the in- board engines are used for reverse thrust. Some engine re- movals have been caused by problems with the low-pressure compressor bearing, and these have since been cured by modi- fications. To sum up, however, TCA believes that as soon as it can complete the various Rolls-Royce modifications it will have in the Conway an engine that will gradually approach the Dart in its record of reliability.
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