FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1969
1969 - 0134.PDF
118 WORLD FLIGHT International, 23 January 1969 E W S Russia's Space Venture The most ambitious-yet Soviet manned space flight ended on January 18 when the second of the two Soyuz spacecraft landed in Russia after a successful rendezvous and docking operation. Details appear on pages 148-149. German Jaguar—$3.5 million? Commenting on a report in Aviation Week that Jaguar had been dropped as a competitor to NKF (Neue Kampflug- zeug) in the German Air Force because of its cost—$3.5 million and still rising— BAC said that they had no knowledge of the grounds on which the claim was made. While the cost of the programme for 400 Jaguars has never been divulged, it has always been understood that the cost of the basic operational aircraft would be around £500,000-£600,000. Some increases have certainly occured and the cost of the aircraft for the RAF will be of the order of £750,000, includ ing a comprehensive nav/attack system at between £50,000 and £100,000. Over-the-million Export Month The Society of British Aerospace Companies has announced that "for the first time in any month, exports of Britain's aerospace industry passed the £30 million mark in November—and did it by a margin of over £2i million." The November export total was £32.665 mil lion, more than £13i million up on the same month in 1967. SBAC says that this was "the fourth month last year that the industry's exports set new records and, with returns for December still to come, 1968's final aerospace export total promises to soar nearly 50 per cent above the figure of £200 million achieved in 1967." The January/November 1968 UK air exports total is £260.056 million, com pared with £178.992 million for the first 11 months of 1967. Largest customer was the United States, buying aircraft to the value of £22.650 million and engines worth £67.403 million. type approval, scheduled for early 1972. This will be to ARB requirements with LBA (Luftfahrt-Bundesamt) and FAA validation to follow, under the terms of the FAA/ARB reciprocal agreement. ICAO Considers Beirut Attack An extraordinary meeting of the coun cil of the International Civil Aviation Organisation to consider the Israeli attack on Beirut Airport on December 28 was taking place on January 20, as this issue closed for press. The Lebanon was asking the council to condemn the Israeli attack, in which 13 Lebanese civil air craft were destroyed (see Flight for January 16, page 84). Israel was in turn expected to ask the council to condemn the Lebanon for harbouring the Arab gunmen who attacked an El Al 707 at Athens on December 26. Malaysia's Air Defence A purchase of 16 Mirage 3s or 5s for Malaysian defence after the British with drawal in 1971 was discussed by Tunku Abdul Rahman, the Prime Minister, following the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' conference. In Paris he had talks on the subject with the French Prime Minister, M Couve de Murville. The French are sending a mission to Kuala Lumpur tomorrow, January 24. "Enterprise" Flight-deck Fire USS Enterprise, aboard which explo sions and fire occurred on Tuesday of last week, January 14, is both the world's largest warship (86.000 tons) and the only nuclear-powered operational aircraft carrier. There were about a dozen explo sions—said to have started when an air craft was being loaded with bombs and rockets—while the carrier was on exer cises 75 miles south-west of Pearl Har bour, resulting in fire which swept across the stern end of the flight deck. About 25 crew members were killed and nearly 100 injured, and some 15 aircraft destroyed. Like the other USN attack carriers, Enterprise has an air wing with two fighter and three or four light attack squadrons, plus AEW, tanker and recon naissance aircraft. Concorde Nose Patent Extended A ten-year extension of the patent on the droop nose of Concorde was granted by a High Court judge on January 15. It had been due to expire on January 2. but Mr Justice Lloyd-Jacob ruled that, as the companies concerned had derived no return from the invention during the 16 years of its life, they were entitled to an extension now that their efforts were coming to fruition. The substantial finance involved in Concorde made this an exceptional case, and the patent was of great merit and public benefit. The application was made on behalf of Fairey Aviation, Westland, BAC and Sud-Aviation. "Hostility" to Technology Referring to a "latent hostility" in Britain towards invention and tech nology, Mr Wedgwood Benn, the Minis ter of Technology, said in London re cently that this had 'been seen in the case of Concorde, the SR.N4 opera tions last summer and the QE2 techni cal difficulties. Speaking at the Institute of Patentees and Inventors' dinner on January 10, he said that if Britain were going to earn her living by producing sophisticated products, there were bound to be serious technical problems to be overcome. Some of these would cause delay and difficulty, and be incon venient and costly. But uncertainty of this kind was inseparable from all pro gress; to attack those engaged in such work was sheer lunacy. "I am certainly not criticising those who are opposed to some of these pro jects on the grounds of their high cost or the noise or other social problems which they cause and who wish we were spending our resources differently," Mr Benn added. "But it is quite another thing to make Anglo-French Turbofan Runs The M45H civil turbofan engine has now made its first run on the test bed at Patchway, the Bristol factory of the Rolls-Royce Bristol Engine Division. A collaborative project involving both Rolls-Royce in Britain and Snecma in France, it is being developed for the West German VFW 614 short-haul air liner; two M45Hs, each rated at 7,7601b thrust for take-off, will be mounted in pods above the wing. Bench testing, which will now follow the first run, calls for seven bench engines together with h-p and 1-p com pressor rigs. More than 4,000 hours' bench running will be needed to obtain Representative of its ultimate installation in the VFW 614, except for the calibrated bell- mouth test intake, is the first M4SH turbofan, seen here being mounted on its wing pod in the Rolls-Royce test-beds at Bristol (see "Anglo-French Turbofan Runs")
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
