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Aviation History
1962
1962 - 0537.PDF
535 FLIGHT International, /. April 1962 New Olympian Heights Photographs have now been released showing the Vulcan R.I test bed of Bristol Siddeley Engines Ltd which is currently flight testing the supersonic Olympus under development for the British Aircraft Corporation TSR.2. First flown on February 23, the new engine was discussed on pages 194 and 218 of our February 8 issue. Derived from this engine is the Olympus 593, for supersonic airliners No Touchstone Lord Caldecote, deputy managing director of BAC, said last week that there was no touchstone for success in building aircraft for the world market. While it was easy to be wise after the event in the case of failure, it was also true that in achieving success a big element of risk could not be avoided. Delivering the 1962 Lord Sempill Paper at the Cranfield conference on the problems of aircraft production, organized by the Institution of Production Engineers, Lord Caldecote commented that development costs of new aircraft had risen rapidly, production problems had multiplied and the break-even point for manufacturers of civil aircraft had become more difficult to forecast accurately. Present difficulties had been spotlighted by the staggering losses recently incurred by some major manu facturers in the USA. Except in rare circumstances, he said, there was no alternative to stopping an aircraft project or pressing on at full speed. It was unlikely that we should ever again see a production run solely for the home market, though it was possible that trans port aircraft could be financially successful on home orders alone if they were suffici ently flexible to be ordered by one or more of the Corporations, a major Independent and the Services. Lord Caldecote gave four criteria for success: efficiency, adaptability, reliability and availability. For an aircraft to be successful it must be exactly timed to its market. A large American airline had estimated that the six months' delay in getting its DC-8s into service, compared with its competitors' use of 707s, cost $8m in lost revenue. Too often was it forgotten that cost, performance and time scale were closely linked together and it was not possible to alter one without at least one other. On military aircraft, Lord Caldecote said that as their cost increased and the number bought by any one country fell, adaptability for different roles became increasingly important. Commenting that, with Government contracts, there were no long production runs on which it would be possible to make a reasonable profit, Lord Caldecote said that in development the manufacturer was encouraged by enthusiastic experts from Government establishments or the Services to include every possible improvement, and when costs and time to completion rose above the original estimates he was critic ized first in private and later openly by the Public Accounts Committee. Lord Calde cote criticized present arrangements in having an independent MoA responsible neither to the Ministry of Defence nor to the Service departments. The advantage of having a Cabinet minister responsible for both the procurement of military aircraft and for civil aviation were now seen to be outweighed by the disadvantage of separating the Service customers from the supplier, and of divided responsibility. The cumbersome machinery created was far from being the ideal environment for British industry to produce aircraft for the competitive market. It is hoped to make reference to other papers at the conference in a subsequent issue. Industry Contraction Rolls-Royce Ltd announced on April 6 that, despite a run down in employment of more than 1,000 since November, and a reduction in over time and a withdrawal of work placed out side the company, the Aero Engine Division will have to shrink by a further 3,000 from its present level of 39,500. Redundancies will apply to "all areas and functions" of the division. On the same day, Whitworth Gloster Air craft announced that 26 of their aircraft design staff will receive one week's notice at the end of April; and they added that, unless—as seems unlikely—further orders are received, 200 more designers will become redundant. Meanwhile, diversifica tion brings its own difficulties, for "the changing nature of the work" is the reason given by Vickers-Armstrongs for a reduction of about 35 in their design staff at South Marston (home of the VA series of Hover craft) and Southampton. Yeovil Change Mr D. L. Hollis Williams, BSC, FRAes, Westland Aircraft assistant managing director (technical), is retiring from his executive duties as from May 1, but will continue in a consultant capacity and remain a director. RAF Light Cargo Equipment A con siderable amount of information on the Dart Herald v Avro 748 controversy, aris ing from the decision to order the latter type for the RAF, was forthcoming in the House of Commons on April 4. The Par liamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Aviation, Mr C. M. Wocdhouse, said the additional development cost for the Dart 12 engine was still being assessed, but so far as could be foreseen it was likely to work out at about £5,000 per engine. "The time scale," he said, "is that it would need about eighteen months for development from the date of contract, but the important point which I wish to emphasize is that the recommendation of the Ministry of Aviation experts was that, whichever of the two aircraft were chosen the Dart 12 engine would have to be installed if either aircraft were to meet the specification. With the Dart 10, the Air Ministry speci fication would not be fulj^met. The subse quent cost of stocking and maintaining engines would be substantially the same, whether it was the Dart 10 or the Dart 12, because from the Royal Air Force's point of view both are new engines." Mr Woodhouse concluded: "I should like to reiterate, as the hon Member for Loughborough (Mr Cronin) has very rightly said, that these are both very fine aircraft, and I should like to pay a personal tribute to the technical and engineering skill that has been put into the Herald as well as the Avro 748." Peers Debate Air Estimates Much of what was said in the recent House of Lords' debate on the Air Estimates—about the viability of the V-force, the need to augment Transport Command, and whether
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