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Aviation History
1965
1965 - 0145.PDF
RJGHT International. 21 January I96S 83 AIR TRANSPORT NEW PROGRAMME FOR THE US SST? AN entirely revised policy for the US supersonic transport pro- gramme is now expected. It is being sponsored by Senator Mike Monroney, chairman of the aviation sub-committee of the US Senate Commerce Committee. Aviation Daily, in its January 14 issue, said that the plan is designed to "push the SST project off its present dead centre" and that the proposals "will find much ready response in industry." Main part of the plan is for four prototypes to be built entirely at Government expense—two of them to the Boeing and two to the Lockheed design. These would be tested for two full years in order to discover which of the designs is the better proposition. Second most important part of the proposal is to bring both Douglas and North American—with its experience of the XB-70, now considered to be a more useful flying testbed for the SST than was originally thought—into the programme. They would be part- ners respectively (but not necessarily in this order) of the two primary airframe contractors, each with responsibility for about 25 per cent of each project. On the powerplant development side, the Government might be expected to carry the greater part, but not the whole, of the costs incurred by Pratt & Whitney and General Electric, the two selected for SST work. In the meantime the proposal is that the Federal Aviation Agency should remain as the co-ordinator and sponsor of the overall SST programme. When the best design has been selected as a result of exhaustive ground and air testing, the manufacturers of the successful aircraft would then be expected to risk capital on production, series testing and sales. PAN AM'S PANAMAC BECAUSE, unlike the advent of jets, the introduction of electronic booking and ticketing has done little for the passenger which was not already expected under the old systems, such devices tend to be taken for granted. Most big airlines are planning, or have installed, such systems, but so far none have been quite so vast, versatile, or world-wide as Pan American's Panamac. Heart of Panamac is a pair of IBM7080 computers housed on the fourth floor of the 59-storey PanAm building in New York. The computers store information and take logical decisions on the booking status of any Pan American flight (cargo or passenger) and of any of the hotels in the airline's world-wide chain. Inquiries and information to and from the computers are fed automatically through various processing and transmission systems which, eventually, will be directly connected to more than 700 ticket-desk units. The system first began operating in its definitive form towards the end of last year. As yet only part of the overseas network is operational. Junction for the European chain is to be London, through which all the Continental desks will be linked automatically via transatlantic cables to New York. Flight last week was able to watch the system in operation in the carrier's London sales office, after just over a month of trouble-free operation. All that the passenger sees of Panamac when calling to make a booking is a typewriter-like device recessed into the counter; there is also a control board on to which a card is placed for the appro- priate route or service. The desk clerk selects the keys for information on seat availability and the answer comes back within seconds. First two DC-9s are seen here before the roll-out ceremony at the Douglas Long Beach plant on January 12. Initial flight is scheduled for early March. (Story on page 85)
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