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Aviation History
1969
1969 - 0059.PDF
[FQJUlHfiF INTERNATIONAL incorporating AEROPLANE Founded in 1909. Official organ of the Royal Aero Club. First aeronautical weekly in the world. © Published by IlifTe Transport Publications Ltd, Dorset House, Stamford Street, London SE1. Telephone 01-928 3333 Number 3122 Volume 95 Thursday 9 January 1969 Editor . J. M. Ramsden Air transport editor H. A. Taylor Production editor Roy Casey Assistant editors Neil Harrison, CEng, AFRAeS Humphrey Wynn, BA Assistant technical editor Michael Wilson, BSc, CEng, AFRAeS Editorial director Maurice A. Smith DFC Managing director H. N. Priaulx MBE IN THIS ISSUE World News 44 Air Transport 47 Light Commercial and Business 53 Competition—an American view 55 The podded-engine saga 57 Private Flying 58 The Government way of buying 59 Airline Profile: Malev 61 Industry International 65 Letters 67 Defence 70 Spaceflight 72 Straight and Level 76a issue of Flight Better Buying A new contracts deal between indus try and Government is the subject of an article on pages 59-60 of this issue and is a hopeful start to the new year. Government contracts help to deter mine the efficiency of industry. The reforms that are now to be made promise major improvements—though we have some doubts about the pro posed Review Board, a referee body being set up to assess profit rates and to arbitrate between Government and industry should they fall out over an excess profit or an excess loss. Inde pendent of both sides, it is a new development in Government-industry relations in Britain. Contractual procedures and techni calities may seem boring, but they need to be widely understood—especially among engineers, whose efforts and aspirations they can make or break. The underlying principle behind any contract between Government and industry must be that a company spending public money—money for which hospitals, schools, old-age pen sioners and so on are also competing —must accept obligations tougher than those imposed by the commercial market. Neglect of this precept by both industry and the Civil Service has been the root cause of many overspends and frustrations in the past. The new deal imposes obligations which give Govern ment departments more access to a contractor's costs and methods. "Equality of information," as one of the inevitable committees of inquiry has called it, is now enthroned. Not before time. Companies seeking contracts from the American Govern ment—including foreigners—for many years have had to reveal their costs, accounting procedures, and other in formation. The management disciplines thus induced secure the interests of the taxpayer and also the efficiency and national standing of the industry—to which nothing is more damaging than runaway costs and the cancellations and project paralyses that follow. Britain's Civil Service, the country's biggest contractual authority and the trustee of public funds, has at last recognised that the physician must heal himself. The role of the Review Board needs to be carefully watched. A commercial contract should be the responsibility of the customer first and last. He specifies what he wants—performance, price, delivery date, reliability and all the rest of it. He is the buyer, and it is up to him to negotiate the best terms and conditions. If he knows that he can run to arbitration in the event of trouble he is less likely to contract care fully. Responsibility—which Govern ment departments are all too fond of blurring—would tend to shift towards the Review Board. Responsibility for good buying should lie, and be seen by Parliament to lie, where it belongs—in the Govern ment department concerned. Competition Mr George Schairer of Boeing says that American aircraft succeed because of competition among American air craft manufacturers and competition among American airlines. His lecture to the Royal Aero nautical Society (see pages 55-57) should be read by Mr Wedgwood Benn, Sir Richard Clarke and Sir Ronald Melville of the Ministry of Technology, by their fellow luminaries in the Board of Trade, and by every one in Britain and Europe who thinks that the way to beat American aviation is by mergers, monopolies, govern ment-dominated European consortia, State corporations, and pooling agree ments. Competition means that govern ments have to work harder and more skilfully to regulate it in the public interest. But the effort is worth it. The wastage of competition is less than the wastage of monopoly.
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