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Aviation History
1964
1964 - 1131.PDF
634 FLIGHT International, 23 April 1964 AIR COM MERGE ... BKS Britannia 102 G-AN&K has been leased from BOAC by Airways Holidays, a Newcastle inclusive-tour operator, on whose behalf BKS will operate ITs to resorts in Spain and Italy. The aircraft will also operate the BKS Newcastle - London service. An option has been taken on a second Britannia 102 BACK TO THE UNDERWRITERS FIVE months ago, when BOAC published their report for 1962-63, it was stated in Note F to the accounts: "As from April 1, 1963, the corporation is carrying the flight risk on all its aircraft and proposes to charge this to the operating account in future years . . ." In a major change of policy BOAC have decided to lay off on the open market a half of their Boeing 707 and VC10 risks. The natural first reaction to this is that BOAC fear that the risk of crashes is increasing, and that TCA's chastening recent experience is driving them, and possibly other self-insurers, scuttling back to their underwriters. In actual fact, as a BOAC spokesman puts it: "The underwriters have offered us greatly improved premiums following the period in which we have carried our own risks." In other words, the insurers have been losing so much business (see "Insurers' Missing Millions," Flight International, March 14, 1963) because of high premiums that these they have now reduced; and BOAC no longer feel, as they did before, that they are subsidizing the unsafe operators. BOAC believe in self-insurance and are continuing to carry their own Comet 4, Britannia, and DC-7C and 'F risks. The 50 per cent lay-off of BOAC's 707 and VC10 risks will mean something like £!m-worth of business for the underwriters to whom BOAC have now returned. As at March 31, 1963, BOAC's self-insurance reserve stood at £2.2m. BALPA BLOWS THE WHISTLE IN ONE of its most strongly worded announcements, the British Air Line Pilots Association has decided that the time has come for it to take a firm stand on the question of independent airline pilots' salaries. Accordingly a ballot has been organized among its 2,600 members to see whether the 400 or so pilots who work for the independents are prepared to go on strike in support of the case for comparable pay with their colleagues employed by the two state airline corporations. BALPA says that in the past pilots have accepted the pleas by independent employers that their route structures and charter type of operations together with the obsolete and unproductive aircraft used precluded them from paying the higher salaries enjoyed by pilots employed by the corporations. The situation now is that the pilots are, says BALPA, subsidising the independents. With the increasing number of scheduled service route licence awards to independents and the widespread use of modern turbine aircraft by these carriers, BALPA first decided to make a bid for more pilots' pay last year, and it gave six months notice of strike action. That notice expires on April 27. The Association is now saying: "'In the absence of any sign of an agreement being reached with the independent operators BALPA has been forced to ballot its 400 members in the independent sector to determine the support for industrial action, should this prove necessary. The ballot is returnable in the first week of May when the central board will determine the course of action to be taken." An example of the approximate 25 per cent salary discrepancy between corporation and independent pilots is the £4,325 which a Britannia pilot can earn with BOAC while £3,250 is the most paid by independents. BRITAIN ADOPTS THE BLUE TABLE A BIG step forward towards the oft-called-for universal standard- ization of units used in air-ground communications has been achieved with the United Kingdom's decision to adopt the ICAO amended "blue" table of units. The amended table was first pre- pared in 1961 as a compromise between the previous ICAO systems (predominantly metric) and the previous unofficial blue table which was based on feet, yards, nautical miles, knots and so forth. The main effect of the change for British operators is the adop- tion of metres and kilometres for airfield distances and weather minima. If the main benefit of the change is to be realized— improved safety by avoiding the confusion and error caused by mental conversions—considerable changes must be made to air- lines' operating manuals. BEA for instance is planning to carry out the work progressively, fleet by fleet, between now and next July 2 when the new scale of units comes into force. Most European countries will conform to the blue table after July 2; the only excep- tions are likely to be France and Spain where altitude, elevations and heights (including cloud heights) and vertical speed will be given in metres and metres per second. The USSR and other Eastern bloc countries will continue with their present system. The following are details of the amended blue table:— Measurement of: Units: Distance used in navigation, Nautical miles and tenths position reporting, generally in excess of 2 to 3 n.m. Relatively short distances such Metres as those relating to aero- dromes Altitudes, elevations and heights Horizontal speed including wind Vertical speed Wind direction for landing and taking off Wind direction except for land- ing and taking off Visibility including runway range Altimeter setting Temperature Weight Time Feet Knots Feet per minute Degrees magnetic Degrees true Kilometres or metres Millibars Degrees Celsius (Centigrade) Metric tons or kilogrammes Hours and minutes, the day of 24 hours GMT ONE-ELEVEN FLIGHT TESTING FLIGHT testing of the One-Eleven is proceeding apace and the fourth aircraft has now flown. Up to April 16 the four aircraft had flown a total of 236hr in 140 flights. The average of more than one landing every hour of flying time closely approximates to the expected utilization of the One-Eleven in airline service. The entire ground test programme for the aircraft is planned on the basis of 45min flights, with a 30,000hr service life being equal to 40,000 flights. The flight testing to date has been concerned with a preliminary assessment of all aspects of the aircraft. This is intended to identify, as early as possible, any items which may require special attention, and thus leave adequate time for these items to be dealt with. Investigations so far include:— Preliminary handling and calibrations; assessment of control forces and characteristics; feel unit adjustments; structural load measurement; single-engine handling; flapless take-off a"d landings; autopilot and electronic equipment performance; engine and APU performance including relighting; systems development. Most flying has been done by the first BUA aircraft, G-ASJ \- which is primarily the systems test aircraft. This aircraft has ai^o made the first development flights outside the UK—to Zurich ^ March 2 and to Rome on March 18/19. Nineteen pilots from ! 1 airlines have now flown the One-Eleven from the left-hand scar.
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