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Aviation History
1964
1964 - 1603.PDF
882 FLIGHT International, 28 May Work under way on the first of Aden Airways' Viscounts which are to undergo periodic main- tenance checks at the Central African Airways' engineering base at Salisbury Airport AIR COMMERCE . . . THE US SST: STAGE TWO BEGINS UNDER pressure from Republican charges that the Administra- tion was needlessly delaying the development of an American supersonic transport the threads of the FAA's evaluation pro- gramme were taken up again on May 20 (almost three weeks behind the original schedule) when President Johnson authorized the placing of four contracts worth a total of $60m for the further design development of two of each of the competitive airframe and engine proposals. The possible need for this redirection and the associated prolonged uncertainty in the programme was provided for in the original FAA timetable. The latest Presidential an- nouncement came, not unexpectedly, following the statement made at the end of April that not one of the three airframe and three engine proposals submitted to the FAA's 210-member Supersonic Transport Evaluation Group had shown any clear superiority or even met the minimum payload-range requirements of the FAA's original request for proposals. As widely forecast, the airframe proposals chosen as the subjects for further study were the variable-geometry Mach 2.7 Boeing 733 and the double-delta Mach 3 Lockheed CL-823; the chosen engine proposals were from General Electric and Pratt & Whitney. Work on the canard delta-winged North American NAC-60 and the Curtiss-Wright engine proposals has therefore come to an end. With the announcement it was stated that the Boeing and Lockheed companies were to '"examine the effect on aircraft purchase price, direct operating cost and sonic boom, of variations in the aircraft's speed, size and range." Although the text of the White House announcement seems to indicate that a lot of basic SST design work and philosophy is going to be re-examined, there has been no sign of any revisions in the schedule laid down more than a year ago when the FAA issued its request for proposals. Adherance to this timetable will require that Congress approves, by April 1 next year, an award of $175m to one manufacturing team of one airframe/engine combination to permit the construction of two prototypes under Phase 3 of the programme to be completed by 1967. The decision to redirect the programme also follows the recom- mendation of Mr Eugene Black, the former World Bank director appointed as the President's closest adviser on the economic impli- cations of the SST programme. Mr Black was also of the opinion that the Government should underwrite at least 90 per cent of the development instead of the 75 per cent proposed, but there has so far been no announcement of any decision on this thorny point. In an interview with Aviation Week, Mr James E. Webb, adminis- trator of NASA, said that his agency would be willing to assume more of the SST development costs after the Moon-vehicle Apollo was past its funding-peak in 1966. Mr Webb said that after the Apollo peak was passed several new programmes, among them that for the SST, should be selected and funded to take advantage of the technology developed by the Space Agency in the aeronautical and space sciences. Though airline interest in the Concord has been heightened by the recently announced increases in payload and range (Flight International, May 7), airline confidence in the FAA's supersonic transport continues undiminished by the choice of the longer development timetable. The latest airlines to join the delivery queue are Panagra and Aeronaves de Mexico, who want two aircraft each. These requests bring the total number of reservations to 88, by 19 airlines, and the advanced royalty held by the FAA to ?8.8m. The American SST delivery priority schedule is now as follows:— 1 Trans World Airlines 2 Pan American World Airways 3 Trans World Airlines 4 Pan American World Airways 5 Alitalia 6 Trans World Airlines 7 Pan American World Airways 8 American Airlines » Alitalia 10 El Al Israel Airlines 11 Trans World Airlines 12 Pan American World Airways 13 American Airlines 14 El Al Israel Airlines 15 Trans World Airlines 16 Pan American World Airways 17 BO AC 18 Northwest Airlines If Japan Air Lines 20 American Airlines 21 Alitalia 22 Northwest Airlines 23 Japan Air Lines 24 BOAC 25 Qantas Empire Airways 26 Trans World Airlines 27 Pan American World Airways 28 Qantas Empire Airways 29 Northwest Airlines 30 Japan Air Lines 31 American Airlines 32 Pan American World Airways 33' Trans World Airlines 34 Qantas Empire Airways 35 Air France 36 Air France 37 Air-India 38 Bran iff Airways 39 Delta Air Lines 40 American Airlines 41 BOAC 42 Air-India 43 Pan American World Airways 44 Braniff Airways 45 Delta Air Lines 46 Japan Air Lines 47 Trans World Airlines 48 American Airlines 49 Qantas Empire Airways 50 Pan American World Airways 51 Air France 52 Trans World Airlines 53 Panagra 54 Pan American World Airways 55 Trans World Airlines 56 Northwest Airlines 57 Japan Air Lines 58 Pan American World Airways 59 Panagra 60 Qantas Empire Airways 61 Pan American World Airways 62 Air France 63 Delta Air Lines 64 Pan American World Airways 65 Pan American World Airways 66 BOAC 67 Pan American World Airways 68 Qantas Empire Airways 69 BOAC 70 Trans-American Aeronautical Corp 71 Air France 72 Canadian Pacific Air Lines 73 Air-India 74 BOAC 75 Air France 76 Irish International Airlines 77 Lufthansa-German Airlines 78 Canadian Pacific Air Lines 79 Trans-American Aeronautical Corp 80 Lufthansa-German Airlines 81 Irish International Airlines 82 Canadian Pacific Air Lines 83 Aeronaves De Mexico 84 Iberia Air Lines 85 Lufthansa-German Airlines 87 Aeronaves De Mexico 88 Iberia Air Lines 92 Iberia Air Lines THE COMET 4 SINGAPORE INCIDENT FOLLOWING the report in our May 7 issue attributing the cause of the Malaysian Airways Comet 4 incident at Singapore on Marcft 21 to a heavy landing, we have received a letter from Mr K. K. Hamilton, general manager of the airline, pointing out that althougn no official report is yet available the following facts have been established: (a) there is no evidence of a heavy landing; (b) the leg of the starboard undercarriage failed upon touchdown; and U there was an area of fatigue on the undercarriage casing, M Hamilton also says that the foregoing statements are confirmed o the fact that the life of this type of undercarriage was reduced lmmea- iately following the Singapore incident. He adds that a system regular ultrasonic checks was also introduced.
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