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Aviation History
1967
1967 - 0699.PDF
Official Organ of the Royal Aero Club First Aeronautical Weekly in the World Founded in 1909 THURSDAY 4 MAY 1967 Number 3034 Volume 91 Editor-in-Chief MAURICE A. SMITH DFC Editor J. M. RAMSDEN Air Transport Editor H. A. TAYLOR Production Editor ROY CASEY Managing Director H. N. PRIAULX MBE ¥ In this 1 World News Rateau v Rolls-Royce Judgment Parliament - Air Transport Sport and Business Letters After the Unkind Cuts Special feature: VTOL Aircraft 1967 Engines for V/STOL Industry International About the Air Fair Spaceflight Defence Straight and Level issue 682 684 685 686 694 696 699 70 1 7 1 5 718 7 1 9 72 1 724 726 Ilifte Transport Publications Ltd, DorseHouse, Stamford Street, London SE1; telephone Waterloo 01-928 3333. Tele-grams/Telex: Flight Uiffepres, 25137 London. Annual subscriptions: Home£6. Overseas £6 for one year; £12 for three years. Canada and USA $18 forone year; $36 for three years. Second Class Mail privileges authorised at NewVork, NY. Branch Offices: Coventry, 8-10 Corpora-tion Street; telephone Coventry 25210. Birmingham, 401 Lynton House, WalsallRoad, Birmingham 22b; telephone 021 BlRchfield 4838. Manchester, 260 Deans-gate, Manchester 3; telephone Blackfriars *412 or Deansgate 3595. Glasgow, 123Hope Street, Glasgow C2; telephone Central 1265-6. Bristol, 11 Marsh Street,Bristol 1; telephone Bristol 21491-2. New York, NY: Thomas Skinner & Co(Publishers) Ltd, 300 East 42nd Street, New York 10017, USA; telephone 867- © Hiffe Transport Publications Ltdl»67. Permission to reproduce illustra- tions and letter press can be granted onlyunder written agreement. Brief extracts °r comments may be made with lueacknowledgement. The Wilson Committee WE have no doubt that the three eminent men appointed toinvestigate the Bristol Siddeley affair will produce a discerning and factual report on what happened. But what everyone wants to know is why it happened, and how the whole system of Government contracts can be reformed. Two other major inquiries in the last three years, Lang and Plowden, might have been expected to do this job. Now we have another—and with only half a brief. The Wilson committee's terms of reference are to report on the overcharging and then to "make any recommendations they may consider necessary , . . on the need for farther investigations into any aspects of Governmental contractual operations." Thus we have an inquiry into whether there should be an inquiry. Obviously it is good that the actual facts about the Bristol Siddeley affair are to be assembled quickly, dispassionately, and published. But this is a straightforward "coroner's inquest" type of job for good committee men. The industry, and indeed the whole country, cries out for something more constructive than this. We doubt whether there is much that the Wilson committee, or any committee, can add to what has already been written and said on the subject of better Government contracts—by Lang in particular. In saying this we mean no disrespect to the Wilson committee; the greatest intellects in the most intellectually advanced technology in the world—men who have been closely involved for the whole of their professional lives—have all given a very great deal of thought to this subject. Completing the Post Mortem We hope that the Wilson committee can complete its post mortem by July, as requested; that it will then ask for an extension of the scope of its inquiry, as it has been told it can do; that it will, being itself composed of men without technical qualifications, co-opt one or two technically qualified professionals—men with up-to-date experience of advanced technology in industry; and that it will take evidence from people who have applied most thought to this subject. We can think of Mr George Henson, former chief project en- gineer of TSR.2 (possibly the most advanced aeroplane ever flown), who has made a number of valuable contributions to the Royal Aero- nautical Society on cost control, and who has formed a management studies group in the Society to look into contracts; Rolls-Royce, or Elliott-Automation, or any British company with experience of con- tracting for both the US and British Governments; Gen A. Sunden of the Royal Swedish Air Force Board, who in November 1965 gave an impressive lecture to the Royal Aeronautical Society on the evidently very successful Swedish system (of particular interest in view of the fact that they have only one main contractor, Saab); and a body such as the Contracts Management Institute of the USA, one of the leading consultants on Pentagon defence contract procedures. We hope that the Wilson committee will then stand back from the detailed though important contractual minutiae and perceive that one of the really basic problems is excessive secrecy, particularly in the Civil Service, about public money. The whole country, not only the aircraft industry, would thrive better on more fresh air.
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