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Aviation History
1964
1964 - 0240.PDF
FLIGHT International, 30 January 1964 157 AIR CO E R C E MPs v. THE EXPERTS Part 2 of a review of the Estimates Committee report on Transport Aircraft* AS for introduction costs the report, like the 1959 select com-mittee report, does not think that BOAC and BEA shouldbear such heavy post C of A development costs—£5im for the Britannia, £3Jm for the Comet, and £4m for the Boeing 707. VC10 development costs are estimated by BOAC to be about £5m (see page 160). Asked whether BOAC expected to receive any financial help from the Ministry for implementing a non-commercial decision to order VClOs, Sir Matthew Slattery's answer is given as: "*** In addition to that there may be some £5m of just straightforward introductory costs." Trident Lord Douglas, chairman of BEA, unequivocally told the committee: "We were of course held up in the case of the Trident, but that was a different case: that was ministerial inter- ference." Lord Douglas said (in July) that the Trident would be operating ad hoc passenger services in December. The committee looked into the early DH.121 delays and the report concludes that "the actual delay to BEA caused by these negotiations [to rationalize the aircraft industry] was little more than a month." One Ministry witness, Mr N. V. Meeres, said: "I do not think it is fair to suggest that the Government held this up for 12 months." It is surprising that the select committee did not get the record absolutely straight here. Lord Douglas chose the de Havilland j et in August 1957 but was not able to go ahead with contractual negotiations on the specification until February 1958. As the contemporary pages of this journal recordf the two ministers concerned, Mr Aubrey Jones and Mr Harold Watkinson, were using the BEA jet order to "shotgun" the aircraft industry into rationalization. With the moral support of the Government, Bristol joined forces with Hawker Siddeley (in December 1957) to build the Bristol 200, Sir Matthew Slattery (then Bristol's chairman) claiming that Pan American were about to buy the 200, which he said would be built despite BEA. D.H. refused to merge with anyone except in a loose consortium (Airco) with Hunting and Fairey. All this delayed the project by more like six months. Curiously, the committee does not nail the charge, which is still heard, that the Trident would be further ahead had BEA not changed their minds about the design late in the day (May 1959), considerably reducing capacity and power. But as the contemporary pages of Flight record, BEA's "spring 1964" in service date for their new jet has been unchanged since August 1958 (see also the fleet plan chart in BEA's 1957-58 annual report). According to Lord Douglas, "de Havilland say that Boeing have pinched the Trident design, but I am not sure that is really quite fair. They both came to the same conclusion, but for similar reasons." Mr Shenstone said: "The Boeing people were able to sell more 727s earlier . . . because their reputation with the 707 is very good. On the other hand de Havilland have not quite got over the negative reputation that the Comet earned for them, and that will hold up sales until we demonstrate the machine in service***." u According to Mr Haviland of the Ministry of Aviation,"Boeing acknowledged the leadership of de Havilland in this field •n having judged the market right and negotiated with de Havilland the taking of a licence to make an aeroplane in the United States to meet American requirements." Sir Aubrey Burke, Hawker Siddeley's deputy managing director, said: "In selling abroad you always meet the argument from foreign operators that the Americans started the 727 with an initial order of 120 planes, whereas we are "Second Report from the Estimates Committee, Session 1963-64,Transport Aircraft." HMSO, London. 16s 6d. l January 3, 3,10,17 and 25, 1958 and February 7, 1958. trying to compete with only 24. The smallness of orders seems terribly important to customers overseas." Turboprops v. Jets Lord Douglas was asked whether the decision to purchase Vanguards instead of, for example, Caravelles was "a purely technical judgment on your part." BEA's chairman replied: "I think so, entirely. The Vanguard is entirely a BEA conception. Whether we were 100 per cent right is another matter of course." Mr Michael Custance of the Ministry of Aviation said: "I hesitate to say this but it is just possible to suggest that BEA made a little bit of a mistake in going for the Vanguard . .. instead of going for the Trident straight away. I hate to go on record with remarks like this ... but in fairness to BOAC I think that remark has to be made." The burden of the committee's questioning here was whether BEA's advanced aircraft planning is better than that of BOAC. Mr Custance thought that this was "rather harsh" and "to say the least of it a little unfairly exaggerated." BOAC's turboprop policy, which hindsight must now judge as mistaken, is the subject of a remark by Mr Haviland: "There was for a time a swing of policy from the pure jet to the turboprop and this coincided with the abandonment of the Vickers 1000... BOAC did themselves decide that the right formula for the Atlantic was the turboprop and not the jet." It was in the light of that decision by the corporation [early in 1956] that the Vickers 1000 was completely abandoned. Mr Haviland, asked whether there was "a rather famous resignation from BOAC on the issue" replied: "My personal knowledge of the inner workings of the corporation does not run to that." Avro 748 According to Mr Haviland, "it was in fact the existence of an Indian military requirement which decided the company to make the 748 as a private venture. The British military interest rose substantially later: there was none at the time it was launched." When asked whether it was not a pity that there was not more advanced knowledge of what the Services might need in the case of the 748, avoiding expensive redesigning, Mr Haviland said: "I do not know that there was any particular avoidable redesigning involved in this case . . . interests of the Indians and the wishes of the Avro company to get into the civil business happened to precede by some years the particular military change in policy." In the Transport Aircraft Requirements Committee, he said, had been expressed the view that there was not room for both the Herald and the 748. "Indeed, some people went further and said there was not room for either Of them against the Dutch aircraft, which had been started before either of them. But the two com- panies concerned chose to earn their living by investing their money in making these aeroplanes." Asked whether the Dart Herald would have been less expensive than the Avro 748 for the RAF, available earlier and requiring less extensive modification, Mr B. Humphreys-Davies and Air Cdre P. C. Fletcher of the Air Ministry said that the cost differential would not be substantial and that the difference in timing was only a matter of a few months. Mr Humphreys-Davies said that more than the original 30 748MFs may be ordered: "there may be a few additional ones *** in the straight communication role." Although the price of the Avro 748 in the evidence is asterisked, it is possible to work it out as £400,000 from the following illuminating exchange between the committee and Mr A. D. Peck of the Treasury:— "It is in fact the case that the Avro 748 turned out to be £60,000 per aircraft more than was expected when the order was placed?— Yes, but, with respect, I should not have thought a difference of £60,000 in this context meant that the initial estimate had been wildly wrong. "It is 15 per cent, is it not—I would not myself regard an error of 15 per cent in this field as 'guesstimating.' "I see?—Naturally we should prefer to get it down to 5 per cent." [To be continued]
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