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Aviation History
1962
1962 - 2376.PDF
THURSDAY OCTOBER 18 1962 Number 2797 Volume 82 Official Organ of the Royal Aero Club First Aeronautical Weekly in the World Founded in 1909 Editor-in- Chief MAURICE A. SMITH DFC Editor H. F. KING MBE Technical Editor W. T. GUNSTON Air Transport Editor J. M. RAMSDEN Production Editor ROY CASEY Managing Director H.JN.'PRIAUL X >K In this issue • World News Still Time to Learn the Lesson Air Commerce AviationlElectronics: Special Feature Straight and Level Rigid-airship Venture Letters Missiles t, Spaeeflierht Revolutionary Electronic Development 'Industry International Service Aviation 620 623 624 632 647 648 649 651 655 656 658 •liffe Transport Publications Ltd, Dorset House, Stamford Street, London, SE1; telephone Waterloo 3333 (Telex 25137). Telegrams Flightpres London Telex. Annual subscriptions: Home £4 15s. Overseas £5. Canada and USA $15.00. Second Class Mail privileges authorized at New York, NY. Branch Offices: Coventry, 8-10 Corpora tion Street; telephone Coventry 25210. Birmingham, King Edward House, New Street, Birmingham 2; telephone Mid land 7191. Manchester, 260 Deansgate, Manchester 3; telephone Blackfriars 4412 or Deansgate 3595. Glasgow, 62 Bucha nan Street, Glasgow CI; telephone Central 1265-6. New York, NY: Thomas Skinner & Co (Publishers) Ltd, 111 Broadway 6; telephone Digby 9-1197. © IHfFe Transport Publications Ltd, 1962. Permission to reproduce illustra tions and letterpress can be granted only under written agreement. Brief extracts or comments may be made with due acknowledgement. Lessons for the Old Country O F the thousands of documents concerning air transport which pour into our editorial offices each year few have impressed us more than the British Commonwealth Lecture read before the Royal Aeronautical Society last week by Mr John Watkins, director of engineering, Trans-Australia Airlines. He is one of the most respected— and courted—airline engineers in the business, and there was a good load factor in the lecture hall at 4 Hamilton Place. Mr Watkins' account of Australia's air transport confirmed our opinion that when it comes to running a domestic airline industry, the Australians are perhaps as professional as they come—technically, commercially and politically. Three impressions in particular stand out from the paper and the discussion that followed it. Firstly, a tribute was paid by Mr Morgan of BEA to TAA's outstanding efficiency. Even when TAA's performance is factored for such favourable economic influences as non-peaky traffic, good weather and other boons, the airline achieves a noticeably better level of efficiency than very many others. And any misconceptions that may exist about lack of surface competition in Australia were completely banished by Mr Watkins. British Railways might well learn something from their Australian colleagues, the cheapness of whose product is Australian air transport's biggest challenge. Vigorous Airline Competition Secondly, TAA—the State airline—makes a profit in hot competition with a private airline, Ansett-ANA. Australian policy is unequivocal about State v. private enterprise rivalry. Government policy is that there shall be "vigorous competition" between these two major operators. The old country's government, perched on its wobbly corporation v. independent fence, could learn something from the Australians. In regulating competition, the Australian government is far from laissez faire. In fact, its Airlines Equipment Act of 1958 enabled it to step in and stop one side from buying jets on the grounds that this would have wrecked the economics of the industry. Subsequently both airlines were told that they could buy jets, but not before a given day (actually the 18th of next month, a day of some interest to Trident salesmen); and the Government even decreed that both companies must introduce jets contemporaneously. This may sound more like official nose-poking than economic regula tion. Yet the fact remains that Australia is, so far as we know, the only country in the world that has managed to do what others—including those real professionals, the Americans—have failed to do at such cost to their airline industries, namely to control runaway equipment-competi tion and the overcapacity that it breeds. Thirdly, here we have a practical airline engineer taking a serious look at the ultra-low-cost aeroplane—94 seats, 395 m.p.h., 500 miles range, turboprop power. A Nord Transall development perhaps. It might not suit Australia, where surface travel costs are unattainable anyway. But is this not the concept which, in despair at the Big Jet Rush, so many were advocating four or five years ago ? It is certainly the aeroplane that Aer Lingus, and Lord Brabazon, were talking about the other day. Now airline engineers as respected as Mr Watkins are talking about it too!
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