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Aviation History
1963
1963 - 1795.PDF
004 Al R COM MERCE . . . hotel and holiday resort management and various trading and manufacturing activities such as building bus bodies and instru mentation for ships' engine rooms. Nevertheless, air transport still accounts for by far the largest part of Ansett's trading revenue— £18.4m out of a total of £29.4m in 1961-62. It is interesting to note that the Australian Government is authorized to guarantee the repayment of loans to Ansctt for its two Boeing 727s up to a limit of £6m, subject to the proper safe guards; in particular, the Commonwealth was authorized by the 1961 legislation to have complete access to Ansett's accounts for so long as any part of a loan, in respect of which the Common wealth is guarantor, remains unpaid—though it seems that a sub stantial part of Ansett's re-equipment is likely to be unsupported by guarantees. Here is a principle that might be beneficially applied to British independents seeking to re-equip with British aircraft. For the whole of 1962 TAA's capacity entitlement was 88m ton- miles for competitive routes and 6.68m ton-miles for non-competi tive routes, mostly in New Guinea and Queensland. Ansett is allowed the same capacity for competitive routes and 26m ton-smiles for non-competitive routes. For the latter the capacity entitlement for both airlines is calculated in the same way as for competitive routes. And re-equipment is really tightly controlled: TAA's acquisition last year of an ex-Cubana Viscount 818 was made conditional on the disposal of excess Viscount 700 capacity before it came into service; Ansett-ANA also acquired an ex-Cubana Viscount 818 last year but its request for a seventh Viscount 800 was refused. One wonders how some European carriers would react to the idea of such strict equipment control. I TRY as far as I can to keep these articles to topics of current general interest and not to let them become a sort of curiosity column. With this in mind, I considered for a minute whether the lack of ship-to-aircraft communication was a true issue of the day or whether the facility was just another nice thing to have. This led me to look up the ditching record and, to my surprise, I found that no fewer than 64 ditchings had taken place since 1956 and 14 within the last two years. Assuming that for every case of ditching there are two aircraft which reach the alert stage, it is clear that ship-to-aircraft communication is something more than just a nice thing to have. I am sure that if, in the 1950s, the maritime and aeronautical interests had been on regular speaking terms with each other, the technical problem of inter-communication would have been solved. But from 1947 onwards many things conspired to prevent this: the influence of war-time co-operation faded, the increased speed of aircraft affected aerial design and made the continued use of 500kc/s difficult; it also led to the need for quicker cockpit-to-controller exchanges and hence to HF/RT, with its own frequency band separated from the maritime except at the 2,182kc/s point. At about this time, too, VHF separated off, the mariners settling for frequency-modulating equipment (with a supposed advantage for harbour use) and the aeronauts for amplitude modulation. Perhaps the split might have been avoided if there had been some form of co-ordinating body between the two; but there was not— indeed, the shipping interests did not have a functioning world body to look after their own affairs until the Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative Organization became effective in 1959. Even assuming that all the technical and administrative obstacles could have been overcome, however, one was inclined to wonder whether any form of co-operation could really be expected between interests which were engaged in a bitter competitive struggle for the transport market. After all, it is difficult to make out any quid pro quo in the deal: no doubt cases exist when the ordinary transport aircraft can assist vessels in distress, but such help is limited com pared with that which a ship can provide to a ditched aircraft. With this unpropitious background it is all the more encouraging FLIGHT International, 10 October 1963 With hardly any fuss or striking of political attitudes the Austra lians have created, with their two-airline policy, a model solution to the problem of reconciling the expansionist ambitions of private enterprise air transport with the profitability of the State airline— a solution which has lessons far outside the Commonwealth's boundaries, and particularly for Britain. It is one thing to achieve such a harmonious balance in a domestic air transport system en tirely under government regulatory control, and quite another to attempt it on international routes subject to the pressures of national prestige and quality competition. Yet had Britain's Minister of Aviation and his advisers worked out an Australian- type formula for BO AC and Cunard Eagle over the London- Bermuda, Nassau- Miami and Bermuda-New York routes, BOAC- Cunard and the extinction of a very vigorous independent in the western hemisphere could have been avoided. The main cause of BOAC's financial malaise is surely chronic over-expansion—a point conceded by Sir Basil Smallpeice's fore cast of fleet and staff reductions in the next few years—and here again there seems to be a strong case for borrowing from Australian experience by empowering the Ministry of Aviation not only to set both corporations profit targets but to control their capacity. Such targets were, in fact, foreshadowed for the corporations by the 1961 White Paper The Financial and Economic Obligations of the National ized Industries; but specific targets have yet to be announced, and seem to have been shelved until BOAC and BEA are in better financial health. Yet Australian experience shows that such targets can be met successfully; the real achievement of the Common wealth's two-airline policy is not that an independent has enviable opportunities and scope, but that Australian domestic air transport as a whole has been invested with a long-term stability and con tinuity unequalled in any other country. M. J. HARDY RAFT COMMUNICATIONS to learn that, at last year's ICAO Pacific Regional meeting, one could discover at least a few indications of progress and co-opera tion. In that region the USA has provided its own solution in the form of Search and Rescue Plan ALFA. By this, aircraft despatch centres are provided with a current list of ship locations, courses and speeds and these are given to the aircraft captain on departure. In the event of an anticipated ditching the aircraft should, of course, primarily maintain contact with its aeronautical guard station; but once all essential exchanges are over and course has been set for the most suitable surface vessel (selected for its proximity and facilities as outlined on the briefing sheet), an attempt should be made to establish direct voice contact with the vessel, using 2,182 kc/s. This frequency is spreading rapidly at sea (following recom mendations in the International Convention for Safety of Life at Sea) and is guarded at H plus 5-10, H plus 15-20, etc, for communi cation purposes; the times H plus 0-5, H plus 10-15, etc, are set aside in order to avoid interfering with beacon transmissions from the ship, on 410kc/s, which can be picked up on the ordinary aircraft ADF. So both two-way speech and homing facilities are widely avail able in the Pacific and here at last is some sort of rational tie-up- Let us hope that the system spreads to other regions. But there are several reasons why it may not be satisfactory everywhere: the Pacific is especially favoured for stable radio propagation condi tions and 2,182kc/s is likely to be effective; in the North Atlantic. however, apart from the lone Loftleidir DC-4 on iceberg patrol from Greenland, I have never heard of anyone getting a message across on this frequency—at least, not to any shipping in the neighbourhood. The long-term solution must therefore lie in securing, on a world-wide basis, compatibility as between maritime and aeronautical VHF. Now that the barriers between the two interests are in many places falling and we see arrangements like BOAC-Cunard springing up in the commercial field, is it too rnuc to hope that the barriers will fall in the operational field? Meanwhile, however, it would be well worth exploring just now far the US plan ALFA could be extended to regions outside th« Pacific.
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