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Aviation History
1969
1969 - 2465.PDF
FLIGHT International, 17 July 1969 109 anti-airoraft fire or bombing. Only four were cancelled for technical reasons. The director of Balair, Kurt Hertzog, paid tribute to the Transall when he said that no other aircraft used in the entire airlift operation had completed so many missions so quickly and success fully. The serviceability was outstand ingly high, despite the high utilisation. All the missions were made at night; the aircraft was directed to the temporary airstrip at Uli in Biafra by radio, the lighting being put on at the last moment, and switched off again after touchdown. The aircraft was navi gated on the ground by hand-held torches pointing out from the captain's sidescreen. The International Red Cross were impressed with the landing and take-off performance which has allowed a con siderable degree of "all-weather" flying. The rear-loading system enabled the Transall (which has the greatest payload capacity of any aircraft on the Biafra run) to be turned round very quickly. The first pre-production Mirage F.I fighter completed the first phase of its flight-test programme on June 27. Since its first flight on March 20 (the first prototype was destroyed in a crash on May 18, 1967) the entire flight envelope has been explored in 62 flights. Speeds of Mach 2.12 (/,220kt) and 700kt have been achieved respectively at altitude and low level, climbs to over 50,000ft have been made, and trials with external stores undertaken. The aircraft is seen here with two 280 US gal tanks and two air-to-air Sidewinder missiles First Dutch Atlantic* THE FIRST BREGUET ATLANTIC for the Dutch Navy was handed over to the Dutch Government at a ceremony on June 26 at the French naval air base at Nimes-Garons. The aircraft was accepted by Mr Den Toon, the Dutch Minister of Defence. Holland has ordered nine Atlantics. and the produc tion line will be kept busy to satisfy an other purchase, that of Italy, which last October ordered 18. The Atlantic is the first strike aircraft to be ordered by four Common Market countries. LONG-TERM R&D POLICY Last week (page 73) we gave extracts from "Defence Research,"* the re cently published report by the Commons' Select Committee on Science and Technology. Further extracts are given below. WE ARE convinced that whatever the difficulties of involving industry in the inner deliberations of the Defence Departments, greater effort should be made to inject an industrial element into considerations of defence research and development much earlier than at present. It is all very well to hold periodic conferences, such as the "Unison" conference in 1967. but unless permanent and continuing arrangements are specially developed from them, they are more likely to produce frustration than co-operation. The sub-committee who visited the United States of America were impressed with the fruitful relationship between the American Government and the National Security Industrial Association. They also made some study of the use of Federal Con tract Research Centres, of which the Lincoln Laboratory is an example. These centres provide the Department of Defence with a source of professional advice which is neither part of the public service nor of industry, but is well attuned to the whole environment of defence research and development. We cannot understand why it is not possible to establish in Britain a similar body which could bring industrial expertise to bear on all aspects of defence produc tion. We understand that preliminary steps are being taken to correct this situation, but the view was expressed to us that suitable expertise does not exist in industry. . . . *Her Majesty's Stationery Office, £3 17s. A coherent research and development programme formulated on the assump tions stated will take into account industrial research as well as the Govern ment's "in-house" activity in its own research and development establishments. We welcome the setting up of a joint research committee between the Ministry of Technology and the aerospace in dustry and consider that this collabora tion should be extended to the other branches of industry that can contribute to the defence programme as rapidly as possible. But joint committees of Government and industry can only function efficiently if there is complete and open exchange of information. We note that the Confederation of British Industry recognise that American indus trialists are more effectively associated with Government thinking on defence at an early stage than they themselves are. We consider that there should be defined channels of communication between the Defence Departments and industry and that these should be open to all who may be interested. We recommend that a clear procedure should be evolved as a matter of urgency to ensure that industry is at all times conversant with the long- term policy and forward thinking of the Defence Departments. We are impressed with the evidence received from United Kingdom industry, and by the sub-committee who visited the United States, of the need to reduce the amount of research and exploratory development in any project to a mini mum. This would ensure (1) completion of projects in time to meet the need for which they are initiated and (2) adequate control of costs and avoidance of escalation. The inevitable system development and integration work associ ated with any defence project today is a sufficiently exacting task in itself even if the system can be built out of already developed sub-systems and units of equipment. In order to ensure that such basic equipment units are available when required, it is necessary to undertake a planned programme of applied research and exploratory development so as con tinually to enable the appropriate tech nologies to produce basic equipment units at required intervals of time. If it is objected that a "state of the art" development programme of this type is too expensive, the answer is that without it the development has to be paid for anyway as part of particular projects. Moreover, a planned basic programme of this type creates technology in industry and so generates wealth in non- defence as well as defence fields. It should also be noted that this early stage of the development-production cycle is the least expensive part. Con siderable savings in cost will result from basing projects on known equipment units, because delays during the integra tion process due to difficulties in the research and development phase on one part of the system will be eliminated. This research and exploratory develop ment programme must be planned across both the Government research and development establishments and industry to ensure that the basic units of the defence systems needed to meet the overall defence model are available when required. If industry is taken into a genuine partnership with the Govern ment, so that it is fully cognisant of future defence planning and consequently what production will result, it should in our opinion be prepared to share in the financing of the basic programme. This method of approach will have a further benefit in that it will allow the contracts for projects to be negotiated on a fixed price or other incentive basis. This will allow for considerable reduc tion in the amount of effort in Govern ment R&D establishments required to monitor projects.
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