FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1963
1963 - 2196.PDF
997 FLIGHT International, 19 December 1963 F-111A MINUTEMANf7^^^ THE TEN-YEAR GAP . fig 5 Major types of operational aircraft and missiles of the US Air Force. There is the odd kink here and there; but the general picture is that of an ordered progression, like a flight of steps. There is no discontinuity or ten-year gap IB-45 ;R4 - IF-80 1944 1946 1948 1950 1952 1954 1956 1958 1960 1962 1964 1966 1968 fuller scale design study, from which emerges a detailed costing pro gramme for the whole development. The Treasury, in other words. requires all the Departments to conduct a thorough review of the total cost involved, and to consider at. perhaps, Ministerial level, in the light of the current assessment, the importance of the operational require ment which the weapon is designed to fulfil, in order to establish whether this increased expenditure is justified by the military need under current economic conditions. That, 1 believe, is the right way to proceed." In the United States, Secretary of Defense McNamara has insti tuted a series of cost/effectiveness investigations, which balance the improved capabilities promised by a new weapon against its esti mated programme cost. One of the yardsticks said to be employed by his "Pentagon Whizz-kids" is that a new weapon programme is acceptable if it promises to yield not less than ten per cent greater effectiveness for not more than twice the cost of its predecessor. Such-rule-of-thumb reasoning appears dogmatic; and how does one assess effectiveness? Is a missile with a range of 1,100 miles ten per cent more effective than one with a range of 1,000 miles? Is an aeroplane capable of operating from a 2.000rt field 500 per cent more effective than one needing 10,000ft of concrete? What Mr McNamara's Department can certainly teach us is its method of conducting an examination into the manufacturer before awarding any major contract. When all contractors have approxi mately the same (very high) level of ability, as they have today in the USA, the customer has to examine individual firms much more closely. He has to assess the actual individuals who would be res ponsible for major management tasks if their company were awarded the contract, and he examines every facet of a company's experience, domestic methods and techniques. Today the same situation tends to apply in Britain: there is not a great deal to choose in overall ability between BAC and HSA, or between BSEL and R-R, and it would be logical to expect the MoA to be taking more interest in their internal workings. Unfortunately the root causes of our vacillating weapon programmes do not lie within the con tractors. To effect really valuable assessments would require the sustained attention of able men long employed within the MoA. Ministers J°mc and go, and are generally forced to daub things with a broad brush. Each of our recent Ministers of Defence, Supply and Avia tion is remembered for at least one major aviation act or pro nouncement. Mr Aubrey Jones, who on May 13, 1958, was Minis ter of Supply, said on that date: "1 foresee a contraction in the size of the industry over the next five years amounting to about 100,000 People, from the present level of about 250,000." What actually nappened is shown in Fig 4. The chief difficulty in interpreting this diagram is the fact that the Board of Trade figures, on which it is ased, have to be a rough-and-ready attempt at a compromise, Man men and women work on components used in both aircraft and other end-products, while other employees spend their whole working day on aircraft components even though their employer would never be considered an aircraft manufacturer. The only sure thing is that the "industry," however raggedly defined its boun daries may be, has kept up with this Jones very well. Even more famous—or notorious—than Mr Jones' prophecy was the Outline of Future Policy presented to Parliament by the Minister of Defence, then Mr Duncan Sandys, in April 1957. This historic document claimed to announce "the biggest change in military policy ever made in normal times." Bearing in mind that the times in question embraced the Suez operations one is tempted to ask what would constitute abnormality, but the fact remains that the statement was the distillation of a lot of hard thinking. If a basic new tenet suggests itself as characteristic of this docu ment it is the expressed belief that manned fighting aircraft are out moded. Mr Sandys dismisses both bombers and fighters with two sentences: "The Government has decided not to go on with the development of a supersonic manned bomber, which could not be brought into service in much under ten years" and, "The Govern ment has come to the conclusion that the RAF are unlikely to have a requirement for fighter aircraft of types more advanced than the supersonic P. 1, and work on such projects will stop." The next four paragraphs of the document dealt with: "increased emphasis" on the development of marine nuclear propulsion; "closer co-operation on research and development within the framework of the Western European Union"; "Commonwealth co-operation on research and development"; and "close co-opera tion in defence matters generally with members of the Common wealth." These issues are not of immediate concern to this article but it would be instructive to learn of any implementation of such laudable objectives. So the Minister of Defence appeared to write off the manned military aeroplane. One cannot but respect his willingness to set forth his views in cold print; but these views appear in retrospect to be those of somebody who, while basically anxious to arrive at the real truth, was even more anxious to present a dramatic and slick argument. There is no other explanation for such a funda mentally wrong conclusion, and it suggests either that the Govern ment's advisers six years ago were not very good advisers or that the reports they made were discarded in favour of political or financial expedients. Since the 1957 Statement appeared, only one type of aircraft has entered service in each of the two British Services (discounting non- combatant machines, which are not considered here). In the Royal Navy the Buccaneer has become operational as an effective low- level strike aircraft, built to a specification drawn up long before the 1957 Statement by men who could weigh up the relevant factors with commendable accuracy. The RAF aircraft is the Lightning.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
