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Aviation History
1961
1961 - 1826.PDF
940 FLIGHT, 21 December 1961 Safety, Economy, Comfort IN AIR TRANSPORT LORD DOUGLAS interviewed bv FRANK BESWICK THIS is the third in a special series of interviews in which Frank Beswickis seeking authoritative opinions on these three vital factors in air trans- port. In the November 30 issue he recorded Sir Frederick Handley Page'sviews, and last week those of Lord Brabazon of Tara. Here he talks with Lord Douglas of Kirtleside, British European Airways' chairman. NATURALLY it was necessary to get the opinions of anoperator on these matters of safety, economy and comfortin air transport, and it is impossible to think of a more sturdy spokesman for the industry than Marshal of the Royal Air ForceLord Douglas of Kirtleside. Through all the changes of British civil aviation he has continued to watch over the affairs of BEA. Maybe his greatest single contribution to BEA's success was thesense of confidence which he engendered in a much-troubled organization in an unstable industry. Readers will see, from theanswers below, that there still runs the same steady confidence in the field for which he is responsible. And, as always. Lord Douglascan point to the record as justification for his judgments. Apart from any general consideration of the possibility of safermachines for air transport [I asked], do you think that the public concern over safety, stimulated by recent accidents, is justified ? The scheduled services of British airlines are safer today thanthey have ever been. The public concern you mention is a result of recent accidents to charter services. BEA's safety record is verygood. Do you think there is any one feature of the series of crashes which merits special attention ? If you want a feature, then the fact that there have been quite somany is important. The trouble may partly be due to the fact that on a scheduled route the pilot must have adequate route experience,and that does not apply in the same way to charter operations. For this reason, BEA now spends about a million pounds a year ontraining. You think the present requirement in the Air Navigation Order aboutthe pilots' knowledge of route characteristics is not enough? I think there is all the difference between studying these things inAir Pilot and actually going down the route to see for yourself. Would you say that in the last decade and a half with all the technicaladvances which we have made, there has been a corresponding advance in air safety ? There has been a steady improvement, as statistics show. Of course, you can point to this recent batch of accidents to charter aircraft, but I hope they are just a temporary phase. But do you think there are the same reserves of safety, or the same margin for error, as there was in your day as a pilot ? I am thinking particularly of the lower stalling speeds, lower speeds for take-off and landing, fewer things to go wrong and fewer passengers herded together if they did go wrong. Has there not been an undue emphasis on speed? With that I entirely disagree, and the figures will bear me out.True, the machines are faster but there are so many more aids. The improvements in navigation and landing aids more than offsetyour point about speed and complications. Just look at the annual safety figures since 1946, and you will see that I am right. / am not sure we should take 1946 as our reference year; but now mayI turn to comfort ? There is a growing school of thought which holds that flying is not so agreeable a means of transport as it was ten yearsago; would you agree to that ? Of course, we are flying faster, which means we are not sitting for so long. The question of comfort really boils down to a question of fares and what the passenger is prepared to pay. One way of bringing fares down is to pack more people into one compartment. Either you have less room to spread out or you pay higher fares. But can't we get a better balance as between comfort and speed? Lord Brabazon, for example, suggested that another J8in of fuselage width, even at the sacrifice of a few knots, would be a more civilized utilization of the available power; isn't that a reasonable thought ? One way of advancing the cause of civil aviation is to get as many people as you safely can into one aircraft with reasonable standards of comfort. There is a straightforward clash of interests here. Even if you did design your aircraft with more space, you would still come up against the same problem of how you were going to use it. The passenger would still want to travel more cheaply, and if it took him only two hours to get down to Nice he wouldn't complain. If you had to travel up to Birmingham by train in a seat as narrow asthose in your aircraft, wouldn't you complain ? And may I ask if you have yourself travelled tourist in the air ? I don't think aircraft seats are so narrow; I have often travelledtourist on BEA and I did once travel one-way tourist to America. 1 found it reasonably comfortable. And on a long-haul journey like that would you not have had a com-pletely different sense of comfort in the flying-boat, or the old Strata- cruiser ? On the contrary. I once went to Australia in one of those flying-boats; it took nine days to get there; we were wallowing about in all sorts of weather, and I was absolutely exhausted when we arrived.I don't think there is any comparison at all between flying-boats and the comfort of, for instance the Boeing 707. Less noise, and lessvibration—which is very important. BEA's share of London - Paris traffic (moving annual basis) in relation to introduction of new equipment by the corporation and Air France . EPICUREAN j j SERVICE LANSUEDOC I j D DC-3 II I I V.708 I VISCOUNT ELIZABETHAN V806JMIXED <*• V.8OS IVISCOUNT YEW 46-47 47-48 4S49 49-50 50-51 51-52 52-53 53-54 54-55 55.56 56-57 57-58 58-
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