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Aviation History
1967
1967 - 1052.PDF
1028 LETTERS... incident which may arise during this critical period of the flight would be heard by the monitoring station without the crew having to make a special report to the tower. Although the adoption of such a system might not prevent anything drastic happening to the aircraft con- cerned, it would at least give investigators a good start to their enquiries and might even provide information which could be useful in preventing further accidents. You will appreciate from my address that I am in no way connected with aviation, but having read Flight for the past two years I have developed an interest in the subject. HQ Special Investigation Branch, p. HADDOCK, Sgt Royal Military Police, London SW1 [The basic snag in Sgt Haddock's suggestion is that VHF and UHF frequencies are simply not available in sufficient number for current needs; it would be virtually impossible to allocate frequencies for the purpose he suggests. Cockpit voice recorders, if made crash-survivable, are a better solu- tion, although comprehensive flight-data recording is probably the only satisfactory answer.—Ed] Grateful Gliding Fraternity SIR,—I would like to say thank you to all those airfield operators who kindly let us use their fields as goals or turning points during the recent National Gliding Cham- pionships, and to those others who unexpectedly found themselves surrounded by a flock of up to 80 migrating gliders. In this small country the selection of a task flight route which can be successfully threaded between sea breezes and controlled airspace, built up areas and firing ranges, while still following the elusive trail of soaring weather, is remarkably difficult. We are all most grate- ful to those who helped us to have a really worthwhile competition week. Lasham Airfield, ANN WELCH Hants Director Ops, National Gliding Championships The Ideal Aircraft Salesman SIR,—Robert Blackburn's two articles on "Marketing" Flight, May 25 and June 1, 1967) put a case for a new overall approach to the marketing of British aircraft in a succinct and masterly fashion. The idea that any capital equipment, and in parti- cular an aircraft, can sell itself on its alleged merits and its country of origin should have died a quick and pain- less death in the fifties. Apparently this is not necessarily the case in all quarters. To anticipate the potential customers' needs at least two or three years ahead is surely the means of having a winning edge on all com- petitors. It therefore follows that digital (and, in some cases additionally, analogue) computer simulation of all the complex functions of an airline's operation is essen- tial in order that our aircraft salesmen may realise their full capabilites. One would also think that there may sometimes be a fundamental misunderstanding of what marketing and selling mean. The two terms are often used loosely and interchanged, and the full scale and scope of marketing activities may be under-rated or misunderstood in this country. Not so in the United States, where the market- ing of capital equipment (as well as brand products) is a highly skilled and definitive art and science, as we learn from Mr Blackburn's comments on Boeing and Douglas. In the final analysis the salesman is responsible for selling the aircraft, and the plea for the up-grading of aircraft salesmen in both status and salary is a valid one. It prompts one to ask what qualifications, qualities and experience these essentially rare birds have. One would surmise that the ideal aircraft salesman should be an experienced captain of aircraft with some RIGHT International, 22 June 1967 time in the aircraft industry as a performance engineer; he should thus fully understand operational and operat- ing problems as well as performance requirements. He should be able to sit down with senior project designers and engineers and hammer out technical proposals so that he may completely understand what the proposed aircraft is supposed to do and how it is intended to do it. He should have more than a passing knowledge of what might be originally termed the ethnic psychology of the operators in the countries to which he is selling; and to this end it would seem better for him to be based abroad (if in the export side) and from time to time do trips to, rather than from, the United Kingdom. He should also have more than a passing knowledge of avionics and aircraft systems. Last but not least, he should be capable of financial counselling and be some- thing of a contractual expert in both technical and com- mercial negotiation. We have such men in the aircraft industry and, to the writer at any rate, they seem to succeed in spite of, rather than because of, successive governmental "policies." These policies would seem to be invariably politically and not commercially motivated, which is hardly the best basis for marketing aircraft anywhere. It is submitted that the basic marketing data must be pro- vided from within the industry itself and not from departmental theorists. In order to write a logic pro- gramme for computer operation it is considered desir- able, if not essential, to have programmers who know the fundamental parameters involved at first hand. The idea of the universal government programmer in the air- craft marketing context would not appear to be a viable proposition; there is far too much at stake. Ludham, Norfolk HUGH BRAWN IN BRIEF L/Cdt C. D. Wainwright, of Bradford GS CCF, sends a photograph (not quite clear enough for reproduction) of a Spitfire which he saw in the Versetsuseum at Over- loon, in Holland. Though labelled a Mk IX, he says, it has "bulges on either side of the cockpit, a small round transparency in the port side of the fuselage, a re- tractable tailwheel, possibly a different engine, with the mark of a previous exhaust pipe, and the remains of British roundels under the camouflage." This sounds to us more like a PR.XI; but positive identification would be welcomed (letters to 53 Kingsway Wrose, Bradford 2, Yorks). DIARY June 23-25 Austrian International Rally; Vienna/Aspern. June 24 RAFA Display, Exeter Airport, Devon. June 24 Summer show balloon ascent, Shrewsbury, Shropshire. June 24 Vickers: Centenary Year exhibition and flying display; SouthMarston Airfield, Swindon, 12.30 p.m. (flying at 2.30 p.m.). June 24-25 Hoverclub of Great Britain: Amateur Hovercraft Rally; RydeAirport, Isle of Wight. June 24-24 RAeC: Members' Invitation Rally; La Baule. June 25 Norfolk and Norwich Aero Club: Fortieth anniversary airdisplay and fly-in; Swanton Morley, Dereham, Norfolk. June 25 Shuttleworth Veteran Aeroplane Society: Open day (Mothday); Old Warden Aerodrome, Biggleswade, Beds, 11 a.m. (flying at 2.30 p.m.). June 30- July 3 Nineteenth Tour of Sicily, Palermo. July I Chacewater Festival: Hovercraft display, Brownhill. July I Hawker Siddeley Aviation Ltd: Open house and flying display; Hatfield, Hertfordshire, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. July I Tiger Club: Air Squadron Trophy (Flight Aerobatic Trophy qualifying event); Staverton Airport, Gloucestershire. July I USAF: Armed Forces Day; Weathersfield. July 1-2 International Aero-medical Rally; Vittel. July 1-3 RAeC: Members' Invitation Rally; Deauville. July 1-14 North Sea Rally; Diisseldorf.
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