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Aviation History
1970
1970 - 0091.PDF
FLIGHT International, 8 January 1970 Straight and G OOD morning, Minister. Here is the report you wanted on the Scruggs Aircraft Company's financial position. —Scruggs? Yes, you know—Europe's least power ful aerospace company. —Ah yes. Thank you Neddy. Mmm . . . No I'm sorry but they cannot have any more public money. It would be com pletely wasting scarce public resources on a highly unpromising range of retarded- technology planes with no chance of sales in the export market. This is a marginal seat, sir. —A marginal seat, eh? On second thoughts this would be a sensible national investment in a highly promising range of planes right in the forefront of advanced technology and with great promise in the export market. A -spokesman said, a radio 1 Isi message had been received from |; ii Misss Scott in. which she said .*e :| I hflid no radio and was deeper if. From the London "Evening Standard", Decem ber 23 • She is one of those people you must never knock. However much you air frame systems drivers may wince when you hear Sheila Scott on the R/T she is at least doing something that most of the rest of us have never done. But Jean Batten never had a radio or navigation-aids failure 34 years ago. She didn't have any radio or navigation aids. • How often have you been asked why the flying boat has never come back? There is no snap answer. But if you happen to have a copy of the December 1969 issue of the Royal Aeronautical Society's Aeronautical Journal on you, the answers are in Mr B. S. Shenstone's paper. The very words flying boat evoke the, romance of it all. One imagines spacious, champagne-cooled decks from which passengers gazed down on the Valley of the Kings by the limpid waters of the Nile. Stylish embarkations by launch, pronounced larnch. Sun-bleached pith hel mets, pretty young gels, and no BALPA. In three years 28 per cent of Imperial's boats became total losses. One hit a log on take-off and had to be beached hur riedly. Shorts sent out a man to supervise repairs. The river had to be dammed because the water had gone, and the whole process had to be repeated because it was holed again on take-off. And try to persuade fishermen that the flying boat was romantic. • I see that Grumman are developing a waste-disposal system for new town- planners. Based on Apollo programme life-support work, it converts household waste into fresh water and lawn fertiliser. You will have to separate the beer cans and bottles out to avoid a rather expensive crunch, but it's all happening folks. From now on it needn't rain any more, and we'll save millions on the nates. • Don't spread it around too much, but all those MRCA consortia—Pan- avia, Turbo what'sit, Avionica, Aermi- giano—are now to be known under the general name of Pandemonica. Actually I thought Panavia was a bankrupt Peruvian C-46 operator. • British Aircraft Corporation have just sent me a handy little Publicity Depart ment Reference Card, which I shall keep by my bedside in case I suddenly want to know something about BAC at 3 o'clock in the morning. It tells me whom to ring under the heading—stand up when I'm speaking to you—General Product Knowledge. Well, you know what it's like when you ring Scruggs ... Hello hdllo hello. I want some know ledge about your general products, some general knowledge about your products, and some general products of your know ledge. ^Pardon? • From Product Engineering for November 17: "A top executive from one of the largest producers of light aircraft in the country reportedly predicted that by 1975 more than 60 per cent of general- aviation powerplaats under 500 h.p. will probably be rotary combustion engines." Mark Wankel Roger's words, the Gnome is coming back. Thank goodness that's over . . . Santa Claus at a Debenham's store in Bromley, South London, Christmas 1969) • My thanks to all the ATCOs who have sent in more R/T howlers. This one comes from Southport: Tower: "Alfa Bravo, what are your flight conditions?" Private pilot: "Very pleasant indeed, thank you." \\^-^f f$#*«r>* Somewhere in this picture is a Man from Whitehall. Can you spot him? . . . (Lord Winter- bottom, Under-Secretary of State for Defence, RAF, on recent exercises with troops of the RAF Regiment)
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