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Aviation History
1963
1963 - 0039.PDF
THURSDAY JANUARY 10 1963 Number 2809 Volume 83 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. P. KING MBE Technical Editor W. T. QU NSTON Air Transport Editor J. M. RAMSDEN Production Editor ROY CASEY Managing Director H. N. PRIAU LX MBE In this issue World News 36 Air Commerce 39 In the New Year Honours 48 Straight and Level 49 Down-to-earth Aviation 5 0 VTOL Power 5 2 Sport and Business 54 Missiles and Spaceflight 55 Service Aviation 61 Letters 63 Industry International 64 little 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 8treet: 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. © Biffe Transport Publications Ltd, 1963. Permission to reproduce illustra tions and letterpress can be granted only under written agreement. Brief extracts or comments may be made with due acknowledgement. Prospect for Britain SET-BACKS and cut-backs notwithstanding, Britain's airframe makers view the future hopefully. This is especially true of British Aircraft Corporation, whose joint programme with Sud-Aviation for a 1,450 m.p.h. airliner has surmounted political difficulties and now confronts the tech nical problems. This vast undertaking should keep thousands of people, in many companies, very busy for years to come. BAC's other technolo gical challenge is the TSR.2. This year will see the first of these aircraft in the air—combining the performance of the Lightning, the load-carrying ability of the Valiant and the field requirements of the Dragon Rapide. The whole Corporation is contributing to the exceptionally promising One-Eleven; and BAC have established other substantial programmes. Hawker Siddeley Aviation have more mouths to feed than have their rivals. Civil aircraft sales have been relatively slow, and political factors have appeared to threaten military work. But the future at last looks brighter, with the P. 1127 and 1154 gaining momentum; the probability of a development contract for a new stand-off missile for the V-bombers; Service deliveries of four types of guided weapon; the Buccaneer being developed for home and overseas customers; increasing success with the D.H.125 and the launch of a Blue Streak in prospect. Handley Page, Westland and Aviation Traders can all face the months ahead with increased assurance. But what of Short Bros and Beagle? The Belfast firm have accomplished much in recent years and have in the Seacat an internationally successful missile. Now the Skyvan light trans port appears worthy of the most forceful promotion, for potential sales total many hundreds. Beagle have run into diverse difficulties; but sound management should enable the B.206 and M.218 to fulfil the hopes enter tained for them. We must hope that good luck will consort with good management. Sombre Record A GLANCE through last week's issue of this journal discloses some thing like a dozen articles, news items and letters concerning some aspect of aircraft safety. There was nothing deliberate or calculated about this: events dictated that it should be so. This week there is another heavy content relating to safety—an even more sombre one. The principal item is a table showing fatal accidents to civil transport aircraft on scheduled and non-scheduled services in 1962. This table shows that, although, for the first time in history, the fatality rate per hundred million passenger miles fell below unity, the accident rate on non-scheduled services is out of all proportion to the scale of operations. Sadly we record that, includ ing passengers and crew, a total of 1,454 lives were lost in commercial flying during 1962 compared with 1,258 in 1961. It also emerges that there were six major disasters involving heavily laden big jets compared with four involving relatively empty big jets in 1961. We have already intimated that the labyrinth of problems, factors and considerations which render the subject of air safety so difficult to examine and discuss will continue to be explored in these pages during 1963. It is disquieting to note that whereas at last there is a discernible trend to wards more moderate approach and take-off speeds, that trend is likely to be reversed by the supersonic airliners.
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