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Aviation History
1963
1963 - 1294.PDF
120 FLIGHT International, 25 July 1963 Competition on Japanese domestic services from Japan Air Lines Convair 880Ms will no doubt soon force All Nippon to order short- jets. The 880M seen in this fine take-off shot is one of JAL's fleet of five of the type which, as recorded in these pages has recently had cargo capacity increased by 25 per cent by means of aluminium boxes fitted on the existing cabin seat rails range AIR COM M ERCE . . . directions if the Minister thinks it against the national interest that they should do so. It is quite clear from the board resignations of 1955-56 that the decisions to adopt a policy of "deliberate and accelerated expansion" and to order VClOs originated, for better or worse, with the Minister and his advisers. And it may be inferred that the appoint ment (following the resignations of Sir Miles Thomas and Whitney Straight) of a Ministry deputy secretary as full-time deputy chairman BOAC (Sir George Cribbett), was made in order to carry out a Ministry-originated policy that was considered by the Minister to be in the national interest, though unacceptable to Sir Miles Thomas. It is also interesting to note that, when the accelerated expansion policy had shown itself commercially catastrophic, the chairman and deputy chairman of BOAC were again replaced—by two men without previous experience in the airline industry. The popular idea of BOAC as an autonomous corporation is erroneous. BOAC Mk 4's structure should have all this experience built into it. Not to mince words, time has come for a formula to be found for getting the politicians off BOAC's back. BOAC's ACCOUNTS WHY did Mr Watkinson, the Minister then responsible, "invite" BOAC in 1959 not to write down £15m of aircraft capital assets? The reason given by the Government when this embarrassing bit of history came to light last December (we quote Lord Chesham for the Government in the Lords) was that Mr Watkinson did not want BOAC to "show a needlessly unfavourable result." Now a different answer is given by the present Minister, Mr Amery, in answer to the same question put recently by Mr Cronin in the Commons. Mr Amery explains that the intention was to avoid giving "the misleading impression to Parliament and the public that the corporation was to be relieved of part of its capital debt." Mr Cronin's exact question was as follows: "For what reasons [did the Minister's] predecessor regard as indefensible BOAC's proposal to write down the value of certain capital assets in 1959 without bringing the adjustment through either the operating or the profit and loss account 7" The Minister's latest answer to this question is most important, because he is on record as having accused BOAC of having failed over several years to reveal the true state of their accounts. In fact, it is said, BOAC wanted to put their balance sheet right in 1959, but were dissuaded from doing so by the then Minister— with the knowledge, presumably, of the same men in the Ministry who advise the present Minister. This latest explanation is sufficiently different from the previous one to call into question the accuracy of one or the other. Even on its own, the latest explanation seems to be humbug. If the Minister of the day was so concerned that BOAC should not misleadingly impress Parliament and the public, why did he allow BOAC to do just that? In their 1958-59 accounts BOAC wrote off £5m of expenditure without bringing it through the operating or profit and loss account. This accounting irregularity just happened to be spotted by the press (Flight, October 30, 1959, page 479). If this was done without the knowledge of the Minister, he was failing in his duty under Section 22(1) of the Air Corporations Act 1949. If it was done with the knowledge of the Minister, it amounted to a misleading of Parliament and the public. Either way the present Minister has a good deal of explaining to do. The truth, it is said, is to be found in Mr Corbett's report on BOAC—a report which the Minister has three times unequivocally said, when pressed in Parliament, will be private to him. Footnote Mr Amery has told Parliament that he hopes to make a comment on the Corbett report "before the end of the present Session." Parliament ends for the summer recess at the beginning of August. It normally re-assembles again in October and a few days later the present Session would come to an end. 727 ON SCHEDULE PRODUCTION of the Boeing 727, according to the latest available information, is now eight aircraft, and FAA certification testing has already begun. In the six months since its first flight last February, 727 01 has flown some 250hr. According to Mr K. C. Plewes, Boeing 727 project engineer, the 727 programme is on schedule, and "we haven't had any serious problems and are even relatively free of any mechanical difficulties which are part of a new design." Boeing's original plan which looks like being realized was for certification by the end of 1963. Mr Plewes says that this looks like being achieved "without difficulty." Footnote Standard on all Boeing 727s, and available on 707s and 720s, will be Boeing's new windscreen rain-repellent system which greatly improves crew visibility on final approach and land ing. A liquid called "Boeing rain-repellent" is applied in small amounts through nozzles and the system is the result of a £350,000 research and development programme. DON'T ASK FOR SPECIAL VMC FOR some ten years the International Federation of Air Line Pilots Associations have battled away at successive ICAO meetings in order to try and secure the complete separation of all VFR and 1FR flying everywhere, and at all times. In this enterprise they have recently been joined by their Air Traffic Control Officer col leagues IFATCA. The current IFALPA Monthly News Bulletin contains the account by an airliner captain of the situation where he was given permission to climb VMC through a flight level occupied by another airliner separated from him by an estimated four minutes. But, despite unlimited visibility, a head-on collision was only narrowly avoided. In the captain's words: "This experi ence has convinced me of the extreme danger of climbing an« descending VMC against opposing traffic, regardless of estimated time separations. The eye and the hand just cannot cope fast enough with present day closing speeds. Some recognition for the IFALPA view was accepted at the recent ICAO RAC/OPS meeting in Montreal, and the following recommendation was drawn up: "That VMC clearances to IrR flights should, if possible, be eliminated after July 1, 1965. and pending their elimination air traffic control should not initiate such clearances but should only grant them following spec* requests from aircraft." Obviously this recommendation only goes a very small way towards satisfying the demands of IFALF and IFATCA. Therefore the Association is asking all its mem^ to play their part and not request VFR flight plans or special VM climbs or descents under an IFR flight plan.
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