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Aviation History
1962
1962 - 0357.PDF
Armstrong Whitworth Argosy studies and do this as well as their American counterparts. There may have been a tendency in the past for British salesmen to make only courtesy calls on those airlines who had never bought British, but these days seem to be over. Airlines like Braniff, TWA and United have shown that they are quite prepared to consider an aircraft of foreign make, provided it is well promoted. The approach made by British salesmen is generally thought to be more conservative in manner but no less sound in technique. American salesmen never let an opportunity slip when they can promote their products technically, socially and even politically. This approach has brought success, but it has—in the Americas, at least—made power salesmanship look commonplace. American prospective customers are only too pleased to welcome the British salesman who promotes a sound product in a conservative manner. One aspect of salesmanship that wins no friends is the under quoting of performance figures. It is not apparent whether British companies are given to this habit, but it is clearly a most inadvisable one: an airline operations manager said he did not mind if the manufacturer erred slightly on the side of exaggeration as long as he presented performance data exactly as estimated. A comparable point is the salesman's promise about after-sales support. Airlines who have bought a particular British airliner say that salesmen promised more than their company was prepared to honour. The financial arrangements that British manufacturers are able to make in selling their aircraft seem to differ according to the airline. Three airlines state positively that they have not been able to buy British aircraft because of inferior financing; others say that British financing has been good. This is a question of some impor tance, as there is no clear industry approach to financing export sales. One well-known criticism of British aircraft manufacturers is their failure to bring out their aircraft at the right time. Airlines refer to the Comet 1, Britannia, Comet 4, Vanguard and VC10 as examples of good enough aircraft appearing at the wrong time. This criticism has never been properly understood in Britain. We tend to think that no aircraft can be brought out too early; and that bringing out one too late is the result of delays in production rather than of incorrect timing. In attempting to analyse this criticism the writer may perhaps be departing from his intention of refraining from personal comment; but as long as it is realized that only in this one aspect of the subject is he giving his own opinion the lapse may be excusable. An airliner is brought out at the right time if its ayailability matches the time when the equipment already in service should for reasons of passenger appeal—and occasionally of economics—be replaced. It is not enough that the aircraft should possess charac teristics of passenger-appeal and economics superior to those of existing types. It must be available at a time when the airline decides that from these angles its existing fleet is obsolete. Short Be/fast "swing-nose" freighter Handley Page Herald The pertinent point is that an airliner is obsolete from a passenger- appeal angle only if there is a faster type in service or on order with a competing airline. Therefore, the manufacturer can persuade an airline to buy its product only if that product is already in service with a competing airline, or if the manufacturer is powerful enough to play one operator off against another: "If you don't buy it, your competitors will, and you will be left with obsolete equipment." Unfortunately, no British manufacturer has yet been powerful enough seriously to scare several airlines into buying its aircraft. The American aircraft is timed right almost because it exists. It creates a market; airlines think they will benefit by having it because they believe the manufacturer when he says they will be uncompetitive if they do not have it. So the only way British manu facturers can time their aircraft correctly is by being successful at making the same approach (and only Vickers with the Viscount and possibly the One-Eleven have been), or by bringing out their aircraft at the same time as the Americans (as in the case of the Trident and the Boeing 727)—which puts the British airliner at an immediate disadvantage in American markets. To test the truth of this theory, it is worthwhile looking again at the airliners the Americans thought were incorrectly timed. Did the Comet 1, Britannia, Comet 4, Vanguard and VC10 have an American competitor? None of them has an exact American equivalent; it could be supposed, then, that American airlines saw no need for retiring their existing airliners. After all, there was little danger of a competing airline equipping itself with one of these aircraft. Delay in delivery is a matter altogether different from timing. In the past British companies have earned themselves an indifferent name in this respect. The Americans do not think the recent mergers have done any more than to improve the situation slightly. In the same category as delays in delivery are development times. Designs have had to be frozen several years before roll-out, so manufacturers have been unable to build-in new advances. This resulted in aircraft of up-to-date performance (British aerodynamic design is good) appearing with outdated ancillary equipment. Although development times of aircraft like the Avro 748, Argosy, Trident and BAC One-Eleven are very short, it is probably too early totally to reject this point of view. After all, both the Britannia and the Vanguard were late in entering service because of delays between roll-out and certification. And neither the Trident nor the BAC One-Eleven is beyond this stage at which delay so often occurs. Would it not also be true to say that the Trident Mk 2 (the real competitor of the Boeing 727) will have a longer time —start of design to delivery—than will the 727 ? This may be con nected with finance and production capacity rather than develop ment time. But enough has been said to show that we are far from being out of the wood as far as production goes. Continued overleaf Short Skyvan 2
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