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Aviation History
1974
1974 - 1963.PDF
[FtUlUKnr IIMTEBIMATIOIMAL © IPC Transport Press Ltd Dorset House, Stamford Street, London SE1 9LU Subscriptions: UK, £13 p.a. Overseas, £13 p.a. USA Airspeeded, $34 p.a. USA Direct Air Mail, $62-20 p.a. B. J. F. Nason, Oakfletd Houie. Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath Sussex RH16 3DH; Tei 0444 53281 A subscription torm is at the back of this issue 2nd-class postage paid at New York: USA news-stand distribu tion by Eastern News Distributors, 155 W 15th St New York 10011 Thursday 5 December 1974 Number 3429 Volume 106 Founded in 1909 First aeronautical weekly in the world Official ornan of the United Service and Royal Aero Club 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 Assistant Advertisement Manager (Europe) Jeremy Miller International Business Press Associates *bp« Member of the Audi! Bureau of Circulations lAR(1 Editor J. M. Ramsdeu Assistant Editor Hugh Field International Editor Mark Lambert Technical Editot Michael Wilson, BSc, CEng, FBIS. AFRA* Assistant Editor (Technical) Andrew Hotton. MSc Editorial Staff Brendan Gallagher Charles M. Gilson Ian R. Goold Charles Heathcote-Smitli Mark Hewish David Kent Nigel H. Moll Stephen Piercey Bill Sweetman Air Photography Tom Hamill HS.146 decision If the HS.146 programme is resuscitated, as now seems pos sible, the unions more than any other group will have been responsible. Something quite new and indeed revolutionary will have happened in international industry: a project cancelled as uncommercial by private enter prise will have been saved by the State—primarily to maintain employment. The campaign of the Hatfield workers (page 779) has been impressively well argued and presented. Ministers and civil servants are now dealing direct with workers on a major policy decision affecting the future of Britain's most advanced engineer ing industry. The workers have not won yet. Their chances of doing so will be heightened if they will clearly define and accept their part of the contract. The Minister involved, Mr Benn, is the one who in 1968 signed on behalf of the taxpayer a contract which was to result in the bankruptcy of Britain's greatest engineering company. He is unlikely to have forgotten that. He is also respon sible for Concorde, which is as open-ended a burden on the tax payer as any on the Treasury's account. If the 146 is to be saved, it cannot be as an expense-account workers' trip on the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The unions will argue that the HS.146 is right technically; that there is a market for it; that HSA is one of only four civil teams outside the USA recognised as professional by the airline indus try; and that without the 146 Britain's aircraft industry as a whole will decline. All these arguments are accepted. There is no need to waste the Minister's time on them—although a sur prising number of MPs and civil servants needed briefing. Accepting all the general 146 arguments as common ground, and accepting the debatable argu ment that Hawker Siddeley's can cellation was politically motivated and based on dubious financial assumptions, we still ultimately come to the crucial question, recognising that only the tax payer will now fund the 146: what will be the unions' part of the contract with the State? What is their economic and industrial contribution going to be? The unions argue that the alternative to the 146 is unem ployment. That is common ground too. But is full employment to be rewarded by unreasonable wage claims and inefficient industrial practices? Will the workers accept that—public enterprise or private, nationalisation or not— their living must ultimately come from the market, not from the Exchequer? There is also anxiety that the workers, having saved the work which their manage ment condemned, will presume to become its masters. The 146 must be saved, and the workers are fighting as never before to save it, together with their livelihoods and skills. But their part of the bargain has to be defined, explained and under stood right across the shop floor, and incorporated into a contract with the taxpayer. IN THIS ISSUE World News Air Transport Light Commercial Defence Vulcans in Deep South Letters Avionics Private Flight Team Test: AJEP Tailwind World Airliner Census Industry International Spaceflight Straight and Level 778 781 786 789 794 797 799 800 801 805 813 814 814 Front cover: The Boeing 727 remains the world's best-selling jet airliner, having increased its lead over the nearest rival—the DC-9. Boeing has also closed the gap between the 707 and the DC-9. The "Flight" World Airliner Census begins on page 875
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