FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1962
1962 - 0051.PDF
v FLIGHT International, 11 January 1962 51 f£) Straight and THIS week Straight and Level is four years old, and this is the 202nd edition of the world's leading aviation column written by R. Bacon. It should be No 208 (you know, 4 x 52 and all that) but there was a six-week printing strike in 1959. May I take this opportunity of accepting your good wishes, respect, admiration, awe, congratulations, etc ? • The thing about Britain's nuclear deterrent, i.e., the RAF's V-bomber force, is that it must be credible. This is fairly basic. What worries me is the credibility of our deterrent when every V-bomber runway in the realm is flooded with slush. Half an inch of this draggy stuff is enough to make the airline boys think twice about taking off, especially if they've got bogie under carriages. So far as I can make out, the Air Ministry (though not, I think, Bomber Command) is a bit complacent about the take-off performance of the V-bombers in slush. Does half an inch of thawing snow render Britain's deterrent incredible? Is the country defenceless during the slush season ? I wouldn't recommend a potential enemy to put my question to the test; but I would respectfully recommend the Air Ministry to do so. • Thinx Feasibility Studies Ltd. the economic intelligence branch of the great industrial aviation group of which Sir Harold Digit-Smith is chairman, has com pleted its long-awaited investigation into aircraft purchasing and financing. "Frankly, the whole business of aircraft purchasing has got out of hand," Sir Harold told Straight and Level's City Editor last week in an exclusive inter view. "Things have now reached the point where manufacturers are actually paying the operators to take their aircraft. "So we in Thinx have invented an entirely new system of payment. No more long- term credit facilities, trade-in schemes, hangars full of cocoa and corned beef and what have you. Our plan is simple, original, brilliant and revolutionary— manufacturers should offer to accept cash!" • The other week 1 said that a certain airline had "made a loss." Mr Frank Smith, librarian of the Royal Aeronautical Society (and who seems to think he is this column's English master) wrote, as I told you: "sustaineda loss, surely?" Now Mr Maurice Curtis, of Curtis Greensted Associates Ltd, the air transport consultants (one of whose services includes reports on Air Trans- An American friend sends me this picture of a Vought F8U-2, with the comment: "To think it all started out, years back, with the simple words near the tailplane: LIFT HERE" port Licensing Board proceedings), writes to suggest that I could have been right—are there not some airlines which deliberately do make a loss? • 1 must have been in Sir Charles Boost's luxurious Mayfair office for quite ten minutes the other day before 1 noticed the difference. That great allegorical painting The Minister of Aviation Awakens The Spirit of Material Diversion, which com pletely covered one wall, and which was commissioned at a cost (if Air Power Club gossip is to be believed) of at least £500,000. was missing. And in its place was another painting. I asked Sir Charles about it. "I was just waiting for you to notice that," said the great man. "If you know anything about art, which of course you don't, you'll see that it's based on Rembrandt's masterpiece, Aristotle Contemplating The Bust of Homer. I had it done after hearing the Minister say that BOAC's £10m loss this year is a situation which simply cannot be ignored." "What is it called?" I asked, fascinated. "Thorneycroft Contemplating The Bust of BOAC," was the reply. • A Continental aeronautical company recently assessed the average time to get a reply from a certain English aeronautical company during a year of routine commer cial dealings. Believe it or not, it was SIX WEEKS THREE DAYS. • Straight and Level is to invite a party of world newspapermen to witness a spec ially arranged aircraft accident. It will take place over the sea before an invited audience of 200,000 highly experi enced, handpicked aircraft accident eye witnesses. We have hired Chorleywood Pier for the occasion, and what will happen is this. A large pilotless aircraft, specially built for the experiment, will take off under radio control and fly slowly past the end of the pier at about 500ft altitude. On board will be a huge bomb, which 1 shall detonate personally myself by radio just as the doomed machine passes the end of the pier. Every eyewitness will have a perfect view of the ensuing explosion and crash. The newspaper editors and air correspondents, helped by the eyewitnesses, will then be asked to write up the story. I predict that the story will, perhaps for the first time in the history of aircraft accident reporting in newspapers, accurately state that there was an explosion before the crash. • "Great people to Fly with PIA" runs a Pakistan International Airlines' advertise ment. This could mean that people who fly with PIA are great. It could mean that great people are about to fly with PIA. It could mean that great people to fly are about to fly with PIA. It could also mean lots of other things. What I think it means is that PIA are great people to fly with—or, if you prefer it. with whom to fly.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
