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Aviation History
1973
1973 - 0003.PDF
IFDJHMir INTERNATIONAL Incorporating "The Aeroplane" Subscriptions: UK, £12 p.a. Overseas, £10-30 p.a US airspeeded, $30-55 p.a. A subscription form is at the back of this issue Thursday 4 January 1973 Number 3330 Volume 103 Founded in 1909 First aeronautical weekly in the world Official organ of the United Service and Royal Aero Club © IPC Business Press Ltd 1972 Dorset House, Stamford Street, London SE1 Telephone: 01-261 8070 (Editorial) 01-261 8081 (Advertisement Sales) 01-261 8392 (Advertisement Production) Telegrams/Telex: Bisnespres Ldn, 25137 Publishing Director Maurice A. Smith, DFC Advertisement Manager David Holmes International Business Press Associates ibpa Member of the Audit Bureau of Circulations JARCI Editor J. M. Ramsden Assistant Editor Hugh Field Technical Editor Michael Wilson, BSc. CEng, FBIS, AFRAeS Assistant Editor (Technical) Peter Middleton Editorial Staff Charles M. Gilson Mark Hewish Andrew Hofton, MSc Richard T. Riding Ted Wilding-White Air Photography Tom Hamill Photographic Librarian Ann C. Tilbury Subscriptions Manager G- Dawson Oakfield House, Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, Sussex RH16 3DH Telephone: 0444 53281 European power A distinguished contributor to this first officially European Flight describes the European engine situation as particularly critical at the moment. The air frame and missile and some en gine partnerships are going well technically, if not all as yet com mercially; but aero-engine co operation between the two major motoristes, Rolls-Royce and Snecma, is not showing the right readings. There are two R-R/Snecma pro jects : the French company has responsibility for the Olympus nozzles, and is a junior partner on the M45. Both partnerships are with Bristol, which has a 50-year tradition of happy co operation with Snecma and its predecessors (including Hispano- Suiza). Derby's co-operation with the French is with the privately owned Turbomeca, notably on the Jaguar Adour. This and the BS.360 of the Lynx are in long- run production. Five years ago two critical de cisions were made by European politicians on the advice of their industries. The British decided to give priority to powering an American rather than the Euro pean airbus; and the French with drew from the Anglo-French AFVG combat aircraft and the military M45 which was to be its powerplant. The long-term consequences of these decisions were to be pro found. The European airbus was flown with American engines; and "the "American" RB.211 propelled Rolls-Royce into receivership. The French pursued the "isola tionist" M53 for a new Mirage, while Rolls-Royce joined MTU of Germany and Fiat of Italy in Turbo Union to produce a rival European military engine, the RB.199. The Rolls-Royce crash clinched French policy which had already been shaped by the RB.211. Snecma, convinced of the market for a ten-ton civil engine, chose an American partner. The Snecma-GE CFM56, with the M53, were to be the foundation of a French civil and military aero engine industry. This, if need be, would eventually be independent of Americans and Russians and— to be plain—Rolls-Royce. Within a year the American President, apparently contrary to Snecma's understandings, refused the export of GE aero-engine technology on which'the CFM56 was to have partly depended. Meanwhile, Rolls-Royce, now nationalised, got the RB.211 into passenger service. By the year's end there were new TriStar orders from All Nippon, Delta and LTU as well as from BEA, whose order had been a politically foregone conclusion when the RB.211 was launched five years before. Europe had launched a new aero engine on an American airframe, a feat never before accomplished. The RB.211 order book, more than 90 per cent for export, stands at 700. This is a European achievement won at great cost. The European aero-engine in dustry cannot bank on repeating that performance. Indeed, the Rolls-Royce affair taught the les son that an aero-engine industry needs a home airframe industry. If there is to be a European aero engine industry, as the British and French agree, it must have not only European airframes but a smooth-running and powerful partnership between Snecma and Rolls-Royce. IN THIS ISSUE On the horizon World News Air Transport Industry International Light Commercial Private Flight European common aerospace market Turbine engines of the world Anionics Letters Defence Spaceflight Straight and Level 2 4 7 13 14 14a 15 20 37 38 40 41 42a Front cover: view from the Lockheed TriStar demonstrator on finals into Glasgow Airport last September during its European tour. The podded turbofan RB.211 engine symbolises current turbine technology, our annual survey of which begins on page 20
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