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Aviation History
1961
1961 - 1677.PDF
FLIGHT, 16 November 1961 781 TWA's new terminal at New York International Airport, due to be opened in March next year, is designed to "capture all the grace and beauty of flight." The terminal is located just to the left of the international arrivals building other operators also have acquired these aircraft, including theUS supplementary airline President, and the UK independent Caledonian. The two BOAC DC-7Cs that were converted byDouglas to DC-7F standard have been doing a useful all-freighting job, achieving results that have been beyond the corporation'sexpectations. The eight DC-7Cs have not been employed on scheduled services for some time but have, say the corporation,been fully employed on charter work. During the 24 weeks begin- ning April 1, 1961, the corporation's eight DC-7Cs flew 7,659hron charter work. At the same time the corporation's Britannias have not been idle, fewer hours though they have been flying onscheduled work. For example, 13 Britannia 102s during the 24-week period beginning April 1 flew 4,064hr on charter work,whilst 17 Britannia 312s Hew 5,687 charter hours. But, as Sir Basil Smallpeice says, these propeller aircraft "areno longer earning any significant contribution towards their obsolescence." DC-8's NEW WING APPROVED APPROVAL of the FAA has been given to the DC-8's leadingedge wing modification. This approval permits installation of the reshaped leading edge on aircraft already delivered as well ason those scheduled for delivery. Six airlines, including Alitalia, Japan Air Lines, KLM, National, Trans-Caribbean and PhilippineAir Lines, have already signed contracts for 16 of the modified DC-8s. In addition Alitalia, Canadian Pacific and United willmodify 12 aircraft already in service. During flight tests of the new leading edge the DC-8 became,Douglas claim, the first transport to fly faster than Ml. The aircraft flew in fact slightly beyond M1 and also exceeded the officialaltitude record for jet transports by carrying the equivalent of its normal payload above 52,000ft. According to Mr Jackson R. McGowen, vice-president generalmanager of Douglas Aircraft Division, "sharpening the leading edge and extending the chord or width of the wing 4 per centstretches the range of the DC-8 and increases the margin of speed between the Douglas transport and other passenger jets now inservice. Despite the leading edge re-design, the outstanding low speed stability characteristics of the DC-8 remain unchanged.These new jets can take off and land at lower speeds than any other passenger aircraft of comparable size." The DC-8F Jet Trader,announced earlier this year as a combination cargo and passenger carrier, would," Mr McGowen said, "have both the new leadingedge and turbofan engines to achieve maximum efficiency." MEA's BUSINESS BOOMSD URING a difficult period for world air transport, Middle EastAirlines reports a 37 per cent increase in traffic during the first nine months of 1961. The most spectacular increases duringthis period were on the London - Beirut - London routes which recorded increases of no less than 245 per cent. Total traffic onthe route rose 66 per cent, from 10,665 passengers in 1960 to 17,716 in 1961, of which ME A carried 11,558. MEA traffic in and out ofFrankfurt was also up by over three times, and on the airlines' Rome services the number of passengers increased by 50 per cent. Total passenger traffic carried by all airlines on MEA's Comet 4Cand Viscount routes, serving 26 cities on a 20,000-mile network, rose by 15 per cent, and MEA captured more than one-third of thisincrease compared with the same period last year. From May to September MEA's share of traffic in fact rose by 40 per cent. As already recorded, one of the first consequences of MEA'sdivorce from BOAC was an alignment with Jordanian air transport, which has been completely reorganized by the Jordanian Govern-ment by the formation of a single carrier, Jordanair (see Flight, October 5, page 565). JET NOISE IN COURT?W HAT rights have local residents against airport owners andusers whose noise can make life unbearable ? There is nothing in the statute book of England which gives the citizen any specificrights. The Minister, by enforcing noise-abatement procedures and by limiting jet activities by night, has done a great deal to fulfilhis obligations as guardian of the public interest. But in the view of the Noise Abatement Society he has not done enough. Indeed,this society is now contemplating an action in the High Court against the Minister. The society's secretary, Mr John Connell, s:iys: "We arebasing our argument on a case in which the Esso Petroleum Co was taken to the High Court for causing noise." Mr Justice Vealeheld that "a man is entitled to sleep during the night in his own house." INDEPENDENT SAFETY STANDARDSO NCE again the subject of air safety has been raised in the Com-mons, and the Minister has published some statistics. These are given in the table below, as published in Hansard for November 6.It will be seen that no attempt has been made to draw any conclu- sions, nor even to add up the figures. Pressed by Mr Mason toindicate whether the figures prove that the independents have a higher accident rate than the corporations, the ParliamentarySecretary, Mr C. M. Woodhouse, said: "I suggest that the hon Gentleman should study the figures before asking further questions."Glaringly omitted from the statistics are the recent independent fatalities which have prompted all the fuss. Scheduled Passenger-carrying Flights by UK Operators Year 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 I960 Corporations Passengers killed 61 84 13 29 17 26 — Independents Passenger-miles Passengers flown (millions) 1,206.4 1.379.9 1,432.4 1 681.5 1,955.2 2,200.7 killed 38 2.378.2 ! — 3,055.5 _ 3.691.7 ' — Passenger-miles flown (millions) 26.6 52.5 800 II?.? 148.8 174.0 186.5 214.6 272.3 Non-scheduled Passenger-carrying Flights by UK Operators rinailtlar Year* 1952-53 1953-541954-55 1955-56 1956-57 1957-58 1958-59 1959-60 1960-61 BOAC* Independents! Passengers killed — Passenger-miles ' Passengers flown (millions) | killed 35.1 33 ( + 6 non-BIATA) 56.9 —31.3 50.2 54.4 91.6 98.5 112.2 355.8 47 33 35 29 Passenger-miles flown(millions \ 229.2 401.8492.2 677.5 717.8 596.2 672.4 616.1 875.7 •Such passenger-mile figures as are available for non-scheduled flights are for financial years. The corporation figures are for years ended March 3 I; the figures for independents are for years ended June 30 up to 1958-59 and for years ended March 31 from 1959-60 onwards. t British European Airways do not maintain records of passenger-miles on non- scheduled flights. There were 22 passenger fatalities on British European Airways non-scheduled flights in 1957-58. X The only figures available of passenger-miles on non-scheduled flights by inde- pendent companies are those published by BiATA and the passenger-mile figures shown therefore exclude operators not belonging to the Association. For the sake of comparability, passenger fatalities have been confined to those on services of BIATA members except in the one case specially noted. [Ministry footnote] Fatality rate per 100m passenger-miles, scheduled and non-scheduled, for the corporations (excluding BEA in respect of non- scheduled operations—see footnote to table) works out at 1.16.The equivalent figure for the independents, scheduled and non- scheduled operations works out at 3.32. On the basis of passenger-miles flown, therefore, the independents' safety record appears to be nearly three times worse than that of the corporations. A Flight assessment of the comparative safety rate, published inour issue of October 19 (page 643), was based on total capacity ton-miles on all services from June 1955 to mid-October 1961.The comparison on this basis suggested a record for the independ- ents eight times worse than that of the corporations. Clearly, much depends on whatever index is chosen; every indexhas serious shortcomings, as was discussed in our analysis. But it is probable that, by whatever standard the two sectors of Britishair transport are compared, the safety record of the BIATA inde- pendents as a whole is inferior to that of the corporations. It was expected that, last Tuesday, air safety would be debatedby the House.
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