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Aviation History
1963
1963 - 0322.PDF
1 306 FLIGHT International. 28 February 1963 (T) Straight and Level @ As long as there's a Cresta Run at St M.oritz, Switzerland, there's one man who will want to have a go. Lord Brabazon, now 79, nearly but not quite attained as many m.p.h. as he has years SUSPICION has arisen that the visit to Britain earlier this month of Mr N. E. Halaby. administrator of the Federal Aviation Agency, was aimed partly at least al acquiring information about the Anglo-French supersonic airliner."—From a report in The Daily Telegraph. Mr Halaby: Oh, er, by the way, er [whispers] how's the Anglo-French supersonic airliner coming on ? British colleague: Better ask de Gaulle. • Pressed to make a statement on the future of the BAC/Sud supersonic airliner Mr Neil Marten. Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Aviation, tells the House of Commons that he and the Minister of Aviation are "firm believers in the Entente Concordiale." I thank Mr Neil Marten for this reply, which completely reassures me about the future of the project. • Figures for modern military spending upset me terribly. I came across some the other day which prompted me to set the technical editor a few sums for this column's edification. As you may know, the most phenomen ally successful fighter in the USA is the McDonnell F-4 Phantom II, designed for the US Navy and now adopted by the Marine Corps and Air Force as well. So far built or on order are about 1,800 of these aeroplanes, at a unit cost which has fallen from $9m (for the prototypes) to about $2m. Total bill: about $3,600m— £l,290m. I wondered how this compared with Spitfire and Seafire production, which totalled 22,759 aeroplanes at a unit cost of about £18,000. The total bill, T find, was some £41 Om. Now back to World War I. Camel production was 5,490 at a unit cost of about £1,570. Total bill: about £8.6m. All of which proves that the Phantom II is a remarkable aeroplane, that it is expen sive, and that the technical editor is an obliging sort of chap. Incidentally this little probe may help in destroying the myth that a wartime Spit fire cost "about £5,000." Most people believe this, but the troth is that this figure was the approximate cost of the airframe alone. It seems that it was put about by the Ministry of Aircraft Production to capture the popular imagination—"Raise £5,000 and buy a Spitfire." A mild deception which did no one any harm. • As a follow-up to The Plane Makers series on ATV I offer this extract from The Plane Scrappers—Straight and Level's brutal, searing, adult TV documentary set in the Ministry of Planes. The scene is the Minister of Planes' office. The Minister enters, wearing Nor folk jacket, plus fours, spats, deerstalker. He has a twelve-bore under one arm and is carrying a brace of lifeless independents. He puts the twelve-bore in his umbrella stand, takes a file out of his in-tray con taining some OR.351 proposals, blows a great cloud of dust off it and throws it into his wastepaper basket. He lays the indepen dents tenderly in the in-tray and flicks a switch on his desk: "Ruthless, come in for a moment, would you?" John Ruthless—tall, dark, handsome- one of the most brilliant and promising men in the Ministry, enters. "I'll come straight to the point, Ruthless. The only things you've cancelled in the last six months are two target drones, a sailplane and a throckleflange goofle-switch. There isn't a single major row flaring at the moment. I really can't put you up for Ag. and Fish if this continues." Camera cuts to Ruthless. His face is as white as a White Paper. His lips move but no words come out. At last he speaks. "But Minister, since interdependence- there haven't been so many things to cancel." "That's not the point. The House is getting restless. I may even have to take a decision on something soon." The scene switches to the Ruthless family's elegant home. Mrs Ruthless, weeping on her husband's shoulder, is saying: "Oh the beastly Minister, how can he be so cruel, after all those Red Herrings and things you've cancelled. Never mind, I'll love you just the same, even if you have to stay in the Ministry of Planes." • On February 14 the Daily Express published a picture of the production line of Avro Blue Steel missiles. (It filled nearly half a page of the newspaper.) In their caption they commented: "/r took Security nearly a fortnight to decide that this picture could be published." "It's the Daily Clanger, sir. They want to know whether you can clear that photograph yet." "All in due time Mr Pending, all in due time. Daily Clanger, eh? Well, we can't just clear photographs of Blue Steel as. quickly as that. This picture clearly shows that the foreplane is adjustable]" "But sir, that was described in Flight for September 5, 1958, when the cutaway model shown by Avro at Farnborough was illustrated." "Yes, yes, I know all about that. But you've got to watch these Daily Clanger boys. Do you remember that picture of the Beaufort they published showing clearly the gun ports on the wing leading edge?" "Those weren't gun ports, sir, they were oil-cooler intakes." "Oh really? Well, they're classified too." • My piece last week about Beachy Head lighthouse has recalled to a colleague the war-time story (apocryphal, I suspect) of the pilot condemned to tow a gunnery target up and down the Lincolnshire coast for day after day, with Spurn Head lighthouse as his northerly turning point. Eventually, exclaiming "Blow this for a lark," he wound the cable six times round the lighthouse and flew off home. ROGER BACON
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