FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1963
1963 - 0582.PDF
560 AIR COM MERCE ... than 0.008in. The four engines are mounted beneath the fixed part of the wing, and wave drag is minimized by blending the wing and fuselage. Small upswept control surfaces at the wing tip are intended to improve stability and trim characteristics. SCAT 16 differs from SCAT 15 principally by having no fixed outboard wing or outboard tail, and the whole wing incorporates infinitely variable sweep. Aspect ratio varies from 1.4 to 9.3 depending on the degree of sweep. The layout is arranged for three engines, two of which are mounted on pylons attached to the fuse lage beneath the wing, and one on top of the fuselage at the base of the fin. The wings are cambered and twisted and the aft-mounted horizontal tail has negative dihedral. SCAT 17 is & canard delta configuration with fixed wings. The object behind Ames developing this configuration is to extract the maximum information from the research which has gone into the RS-70 Mach 3 bomber which has now overcome its corrosion problems and is due to fly this summer. The forward canard is movable, and permits the use of wing flaps to improve low-speed lift in addition to providing a means for trimming at high speeds. MORE INSURERS' MISSING MILLIONS FURTHER evidence that underwriters are pricing away business comes with the news that BO AC are to save about £1.5m a year by carrying all but passenger and third-party risks on their Comet 4 and Boeing 707 fleets themselves. As recorded on page 359 of the March 14 issue of Flight International, in an article drawing atten tion to the self-insurance tendency, BO AC are already saving £1.1 m a year—mostly by self-insuring their Britannia and DC-7 fleets. It is hardly surprising that airlines with a good safety record like BOAC are in effect refusing to subsidize those airlines which have not done so well. Based on past achievement, BOAC are no doubt talcing an acceptable gamble with public money in view of the con tribution this could make to the corporation's economy. In their cautiousness towards big jet risks, the insurance underwriters seem not only to be losing a considerable amount of income, but also the business of their better risks that act as a buffer between them and the heavy claims of other clients. If this tendency continues, and underwriters are left with only high-risk customers, premiums will inevitably rise still further and this important United Kingdom hidden export could seriously diminish. BUA v. BEA ARE BEA, as Mr Freddie Laker of British United Airways alleges- "actively frustrating" new independent-airline European licences? Are they, as Mr Laker believes, working with their foreign-airline pooling partners to frustrate the intentions of Parliament, the Mini ster and the Air Transport Licensing Board ? BEA's reply to what they call Mr Laker's recent "outburst" is that BEA have made "no representations whatever to the foreign governments concerned." In saying this, Mr A. H. Milward, BEA's chief executive, seems to be denying an allegation that Mr Laker (whose "outburst" was a letter to BUA staff) is not actually making. BUA have not publicly or, so far as is known, privately suggested that BEA are lobbying foreign governments to prevent the implementation of the independent licences that the corporation has fought against so hard. BEA do not deny that they have made it plain to their pool part ners that they do not want BUA or Cunard Eagle on the routes for which they have been licensed. There is in any case no doubt in the minds of BEA's partners about the corporation's attitude; after all, BEA's licensing battles during the past two years have been widely and publicly reported. British United's understandable annoyance should perhaps be directed more at the deficiencies of the Licensing Act rather than at BEA, who are only protecting their own interests. In re viewing the draft licensing legislation three years ago, we urged that unless the ATLB were given more power in respect of pooling agreements, the licensing system would be "frustrated by operators who feel that they have only to wave a secret pool agreement" to ensure that their operations will be protected. "So extensive now FLIGHT International, 18 April %$ I is pooling," we said (Flight, June 24, 1960), "that this sort of thine could lead to stagnation." It is not BEA who are frustrating the intentions of Parliament. the Minister, etc, but the Licensing Act which Parliament and the Minister themselves drew up. It was clear long ago that BEA's pooling agreements could be used to defeat decisions giving the independents new European routes. In his message to staff Mr Laker says: "Law-abiding citizens, however much they may disagree when they have exhausted the processes of law as laid down by Parliament, accept the verdict, but not BEA.'* BEA's pooling agreements are protected by law and no one can blame the corporation for using them to frustrate the independents. Although BEA would vehemently deny suggestions that they have made direct representations to foreign governments, there is the point—in most of the cases at issue—that the voice of the foreign airline partner is the voice of the foreign government. It is appropriate here to recall a report in the Sunday Telegraph of February 17 which quoted a BEA spokesman as saying: "Our managers abroad are letting the governments and their national I airlines know that we would not be happy if independents were given traffic rights. Our representations would be strong in some cases." Enquiries of BEA disclose that, so far as the corporation can discover, no BEA spokesman actually said this to the Sunday Telegraph, either on or off the record. The newspaper declined, it is understood, to tell BEA the name of the quoted spokesman. Mr Milward wrote a letter to the Sunday Telegraph, which is thought to have denied that any instructions had been given to BEA man agers to make representations to foreign governments. The letter was never in the event published. Footnote British United have now announced plans for the implementation of three—two Spanish and one French—of the ten European licences awarded in November 1961 and confirmed, after BEA's appeals, in September 1962. They are all Viscount flights from Gatwick, and are:— Palma, May 27, once-weekly; Barcelona, June 5, twice-weekly; Tarbes, June 6, once-weekly. BUA's Malaga licence was put into effect last year; but bilateral j difficulties with the Italians and Greeks have so far made Genoa, Milan and Athens appear doubtful starters; and still awaited from the foreign governments concerned are traffic rights for Paris. Basle and Madeira. The airline's Amsterdam licence presents no traffic-rights diffi culties (the Dutch practising what they preach about freedom of the air) but BUA still seem to be having further thoughts on how best to tackle this route. They already operate high-frequency services to Rotterdam from both Southend and Gatwick.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
