FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1961
1961 - 1736.PDF
842 FLIGHT, 30 November 1961 Safety, Economy, Comfort IN AIR TRANSPORT FRANK BESW1CK interviews SIR FREDERICK HANDLE Y PAGE FR all the great technical advances made in aviation it isdifficult to assert, without great qualification, that airtransport is safer or more comfortable today as compared with a decade ago. True, we can get over the weather, but we usually have to do soin company with a row of four or five other passengers, each squeezed into a seat several sizes too small. It is also true that thejourney time is shorter, but what an austere journey it is! Gone are the days when one could move around and find a more congenialtravelling companion. The spaciousness of the flying-boats is a thing of the past. It is conceivable that extra care and skill goesinto the construction of aircraft, but how many more things there are to go wrong. Often it seems that in the excitement of designinga new generation of aircraft the essential requirements of air trans- port are forgotten. Speed is remembered. But are safety, economyand comfort ? That there is some public concern about air safety is clear.Is the concern justified? The Editor suggested I should put the question to authoritative people concerned in aviation from oneangle or another. The viewpoint of the constructor is obviously important, so 1 asked Sir Frederick Handley Page. After all, hisexperience is longer than that of most. And as far as I know he is the only active individual at the top of the construction businesswho has been more or less continuously concerned with air transport. He has always been a utilitarian among the constructors. As canbe seen, Sir Frederick was not always anxious to be pinned down, but his positive suggestions were as much to the point as ever. Myfirst question to him was:— There are a number of specific questions I would like to put, but firstwould you agree with the general proposition that there is some cause for concern at the way air transport is developing from the point ofview of safety, comfort and economy ? I don't know [he replied] about your specific questions; you mustlet me develop this in my own way. But if we are to compare the safety position with some years ago, then one thing I would say isthat it is a pity the way some people have rushed into air transport. Several organizations are now folding up, for financial reasons andso on. Fundamentally, the trouble is that to run an airline is a costly business, and you are dealing with a very psrishable commodity. Iremember Woods Humphrey once saying that the most perishable goods you could possibly sell are aircraft seats; once the aircraft haveleft the ground the empty seats are unsaleable. But have we done enough to bring down the costs, apart from squashing passengers closer together ? Obviously, the more efficiently you use the available space—the more passengers per square foot, as it were—the more cheaply you can transport them. But is there any other form of transport that has brought down its standard of comfort in the last ten years in the same way as has happened in the air ? It has not happened with buses or with trains, has it? I would say there's less room fore and aft for a bus passenger, and his seat is narrower. Do you know of any bus in which the passengers sit three abreast on each side of a narrow aisle? , It is a question of how long you are expecting the passenger to ' sit. Alec Coryton once said he could sit on the point of a needle—provided it was for a sufficiently short period of time. I have trav£Hed to Paris in the Caravelle, both first-class and tourist, and I would not complain. But I cannot believe you are content to see so-called progress make further inroads in the amount of space allocated to each passenger ? Surely there are other possibilities we should be studying ? Of course, it is a matter of balance. I agree we have gone farenough with passenger squashing, and we do need a new attitude towards air transport. By now there ought to be an air bus fromLondon to Paris. Every hour on the hour—the sort of thing they already have in America. With what kind of aircraft ? With the same kind as now. But if we are really going to have this new attitude to air transport,surely we want a machine designed for the job ? If you were sitting down with a team to consider the problem afresh, what kind of amachine would you envisage; would you put the same emphasis on speed ? Speed? 1 would say something about 275 m.p.h. If you havedouble the speed on the London to Paris service, how much time do you actually save? It's negligible. The real problem is to cut outthe paper work at the airports, the waiting and the processing at each end. No booking, no queueing, none of this gimcrackticketing. Buy your tickets on the bus—that is, in the aircraft in the air—carry your own luggage, and don't expect meals. Youhaven't time to enjoy a champagne lunch on the way over to Paris, anyhow. As for the aircraft, we want something simple; forgetabout Ferraris and Maseratis and come down to the equivalent of the Mini-Minor or the Green Line coach. What about the long-haul aircraft ? Many people look back to theflying-boats, the Stratocruiser, and even the little club bar in the tail- end of the Argonaut and say that air travel was pleasanter then thanit is now. Is it not possible to let a man have a little more freedom to move about if he is on a long journey ? Certainly it was pleasant to go below and have a drink on aStratocruiser, but you won't get cheaper travel that way. And if you cross the Atlantic in seven hours you can accept conditionsdiffering from those when it took seventeen. But is there not a case for sacrificing a little speed in favour of alittle more space and comfort ? Dont you think the pace has been set by the engines developed primarily for the military user? Might wenot have had a safer and more comfortable civil aircraft if the whole machine, including the engines, had been thought of as a transportvehicle from the outset ? You could not develop an engine for civil transports only; itwould be far too expensive. What we must look at is how we can make it possible for the power units to move a vehicle more effic-iently. There is only one way, and that is to reduce drag. And the only aerodynamic solution for that is laminar flow. On a flat platemoving through the air you can reduce the drag to one-ninth if you eliminate the turbulence and have laminar flow. Think what youcan do with all the power saved by cutting drag by eight-ninths. We have achieved a reduction in drag of 50 per cent by laminarflow on a Vampire wing right back to the trailing-edge, and the power required has been reduced tremendously. What we should be doing now is not squashing passengers butdiminishing the resistance of the wings. Have you any other thoughts on the long-distance aircraft we need? Some stupid things are being said about the necessity for »supersonic aircraft. All this talk about striking in support of a supersonic machine is quite dangerous. If we were to concentrateall our resources on supersonics and neglect other research jus* because we could not afford it, we should be no better off. If they want to provide employment, then the important thin?is to reduce costs and enable more people to fly. It is the passenge who pays for the new aircraft. If the operator collected bits o.money from more of them he could amortize his aircraft soone and buy new ones. [Concluded on page 86
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
