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Aviation History
1963
1963 - 0687.PDF
Official Organ of the Royal Aero Club Fint Aeronautical Weekly in tho World Founded in 19M THUR8DAY MAY 9, 1963 Number 2826 Volume 83 Editor-in- Chief MAURICE A. SMITH DFC Editor H. F. KINO MBE Technical Editor W. T. GUNSTON Air Transport Editor J. M. RAM8DEN Production Editor ROY CASEY Managing Director H. N. PRIAULX MBE In this issue World News 660 Finnish Mig-21s 662 Air Commerce 663 Straight and Level 672 Piper Cherokee in the Air 673 Boeing: 727 675 Missiles and Spaceflight 689 Bigrgin Hill Air Fair 692 Service Aviation 69 3 Letters 694 Industry International 696 • litre 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. © Iliffe 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. BOAC's Reappraisal W HATEVER Mr Corbett may or may not be saying in his report on BOAC—a report which the Minister of Aviation now expects to receive before the end of this month—the corporation's management is squarely facing the unpalatable fact that it has too many aircraft on order and too many staff. In his surprise statement last week (see page 663). BOAC's managing director, Sir Basil Smallpeice, bluntly says: "The foreseeable workload ahead of us in four years' time is less than it was by ten large aircraft." Just over a year ago Sir Basil described as "wildly inaccurate" this journal's estimate (January 11, 1962, page 68) that BOAC were heading for "a fleet capacity surplus equivalent of about 12 Boeing 707s or about ten Super VClOs." The corporation produced their own estimates to show that they would not have "significantly more capacity than necessary." The discussion was taken up in the the national Press; and in a letter published in the Daily Mail Sir Basil Smallpeice made what was perhaps his frankest public statement Flight International, March 8, 1962, page 348). The facts were, he said, that "unless an initial order of not less than 35 Vickers VClOs had been placed at the time, the British aircraft industry would never have started to design and manufacture a long-range civil jet aircraft to compete with the Americans." BOAC therefore had "no alternative but to place the order," a substantial investment in British enterprise which "was, and remains, something of a gamble." Sir Basil prefaced these comments by saying that "no free commercial airline would have ordered so many new and untried aircraft seven years or more ahead of going into service when a commercially satisfactory alternative existed which their competitors were buying." As recently as six months ago BOAC's answer to the question "Why are you not, like KLM and SAS, cutting down on staff?" was, in so many words, "BOAC's growth is sufficient to absorb excess staff." Realism Rather Than Optimism Clearly, in the last few months, the corporation's market-forecasting experts have been substituting realism for the optimism which has tended to characterize their work in the past. Optimism, rather than complacency, is the right word because there is nothing complacent about an airline which says, in effect: "We have, for political reasons, more aircraft than we really need but we are going to try to fill them." Two other factors, not mentioned by Sir Basil, must obviously have been taken into account. The first was BOAC's estimate, made about a year ago, that the excess cost of operating VClOs might range from £8m to £15m per year. This was not because of any shortcomings in the aircraft, but for the reason that it had been designed to the corporation's specifi cation for optimum airfield performance. The cost equation, though it might quite well be balanced by the greater revenue-earning power of the VClO's great passenger appeal and safety, had to be reappraised in the light of Vickers' efforts—which BOAC have said they are confident will succeed—to solve the excess-drag problem. These have been important matters which, in addition to the plain arithmetical fact of excess capacity, BOAC have had to take into account. This is far from being a belated attempt by BOAC to improve their financial position. BOAC's break-even load factor, after a hard struggle in the past three years, is now probably below 50 per cent. Unfortunately, their achieved load factor is still below 45 per cent; and it is this which is at the heart of the news which made the shock headlines last week.
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