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Aviation History
1964
1964 - 0675.PDF
398 f'LIGHT International, 12 March /964 SERVICE AVIATION.. THE ESTIMATES DEBATED THERE are few things in the Parlia-mentary year more inevitable thanthe passing of the Service estimates through the Commons without divisions— the tradition has been broken once or twice in recent years but such occurrences are rare. It did not happen this year. The House, sitting in committee, spent most of last week passing the estimates—gathered this year for the first time in one Command Paper as a prelude to the impending merger of the Service ministries into the one Defence Ministry. But if the results of the defence debates are foregone conclusions before the talking even starts and divisions are not forced, they are still eagerly taken opportunities for flexing the political muscles; the ritual party warfare is bitterly fought and, indeed, this year's debates, with the scent of a general election in the air, were unusually full of waspishness. The main pattern of the nation's defence is already imprinted upon informed Members' minds—there are no major revelations left to be made. The chief interest in the debates, therefore, lies in relatively minor disclosures which do not justify inclusion in major statements on defence. ROYAL AIR FORCE The least informative of three fact-thin debates was that on the Air Estimates; Mr Roy Mason (Lab) remarked that the speech of the Secretary of State for Air was historic not only for the fact that it was the last that an incumbent of that office, as such entitled, would make—but also for the fact that he took so long (35min) to say so little. * * * The House learned from Mr Fraser that first-aid tweezers to RAF specifications cost only about 8d a pair, against the USAF's 15 cents (recently reduced from 50 cents). He instanced this as a British example of Mr McNamara's "value engineering sav- ings." * * * The Secretary of State also announced that four US Sperry AN/TPS34 air defence radars, to be used with British display equip- ment, are to be bought for use with Fighter Command's Lightnings and Bloodhounds. Like the Bloodhound 2 these are air-trans- portable, for rapid overseas deployment. * * * The 18 university air squadrons yielded 56 RAF entrants last year, and universities are pressing for more such squadrons to be established. The RAF recruited all the aircrew it needed, with the exception of one AEO (in the 1964 Statement of Defence, a plural deficiency in this category was mentioned). A satisfactory flow of gradu- ates joined the Service. Special efforts are being made to attract qualified engineers and an internal recruiting scheme offers technical commissions to ex-apprentices with good ONCs, plus practical skill, instead of the previous minimum of two GCE "A" level passes. * * * Last year's increase in Transport Command strength totalled one Argosy and a squad- ron of Wessex helicopters. * • * The Government has decided the present curriculum at Cranwell is too demanding and it is being recast, said the Under- secretary of State for Air. The new syllabus will feature advanced flying training and greater concentration on professional sub- jects, accommodated by reducing academic content and drill. Mr Ridsdale made this announcement after an Opposition Member expressed fears that Cranwell was not training the right men at the right time in their careers and in the right way. He suggested that procedure should be reversed; that young men should go through intensive flying training and spend three years in the Service before enter- ing Cranwell at 20 or 21. ROYAL NAVY The Polaris submarine programme will cost £38m in 1964-65, against £6m last year. This provision is in respect of four Polaris vessels; the fifth it has now been decided to build will involve further expenditure next year. Design work on the Polaris base at Faslane is well advanced, site works have begun and principal equipment has been ordered. Each submarine will have two crews, and the first four crews will begin training in the USA this summer. RN instructional staff are already in training there, in preparation for the Navy's own Polaris school at Faslane. The Polaris programme will not be delayed by the set-backs met with the experimental submarine reactor at Dounreay. * * * The modernization of HMS Eagle, which will commission again in the spring, has cost over £30m and is the largest single job ever done by a Royal dockyard. Eagle will be able to keep her place alongside the new carrier through the 1970s, said the Civil Lord. The cost figure was received indig- nantly by Opposition members, who had a cost of £20m in mind. Electronics in the modernized Eagle cost some £2Jm, against the £500,000-worth at present in Ark Royal and against only £10,000-worth in old Ark Royal in 1938. * * • The new carrier will be of just over 50,000 tons loaded displacement. Design work should reach the stage where tenders for building will be invited in spring 1966. * * • Seaslug Mk 2 will be fitted from the outset in the last two County class destroyers now building, Glamorgan and Fife. The existing four ships of this class, now with Seaslug Mk 1, will be converted to Mk 2 at the end of this decade. * * * McDonnell Phantoms will be operated from the new carrier, Eagle and Hermes. The Sea Vixen will be phased out of service in the early 1970s, the last carrier to operate it being Ark Royal. Present information and advice is that the Spey-equipped Phantoms should be able to operate from Hermes (23,000 tons) when she is refitted—one of the objects of the extensive evaluation to be held will be to satisfy doubts upon this point. Some members pointed out to the Civil Lord that the US Secretary of State for Defense told Congress that the USN's Phantoms could not be operated from Essex-class carriers of 31,000 tons. * • • The Buccaneer S.2 should enter squadron service before the end of 1965 and when it joins the fleet S.ls will be withdrawn for modification to S.2 standard. * • • It is not yet certain that the Bullpup Mk 3 air-to-ground missile, now being evaluated in the USA, will be suitable for Royal Navy service—it may be too heavy. ARMY Aircraft featured not at all in the War Minister's opening speech. It was left to Mr R. Paget, his Opposition "shadow," to mention aircraft for the Army. * * • But Mr Ramsden did have a few words to say on missiles. If it passes final trials about to be held, the BAC Vigilant wire-guided anti-tank weapon will shortly enter service as a company weapon. It is planned to make the first issues to 1st Battn, Grenadier Guards; 1st Battn, Cheshire Regt and 1st Battn, Black Watch, all in BAOR. The heavy wire-guided anti-tank Malkara missile has been issued to the Cyclops Sqn, 2nd Royal Tank Regt, and was tried out in operational conditions in exercises last October. Some teething troubles were en- countered, which are being put right and the weapon's future is "encouraging." * * * Thus, with only a few facts revealed which were not well known before, and with an excess of irrelevance, particular in pointless nostalgia, the Commons approved the highest defence estimates in British history —totalling £l,998.534m, or £2,263.459m including appropriations-in-aid. Against this massive spending, which so often seems to bring us little, such large affairs involving public money as Channel tunnels, State airlines' accumulated deficits, motorways, new Cunarders or an extra dozen univer- sities seem very small beer indeed. Even the contentious Concord project, with its present estimated cost to Britain of £85m, seems a mere soupf on, costing only what we are now to spend on defence in little more than fourteen days.
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