FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1977
1977 - 0003.PDF
rjbj^a] International Business Press Associates IABCI Member of the Audit Bureau of Circulations @ IPC Business Press Ltd 1976 A New Year On pages 19-20, in this first issue of a New Year, we try to prophesy the front-page issues of 1977 in each aviation sector—from the cir cuit at Halfpenny Green to the outer planets. The perils of aero nautical prophecy, as Marcus Langley reminds us this week, can be dire: an aviation journal needs luck to be valid for more than five minutes after publication. But let's have a go. On both sides of the Atlantic the dominating question is not so much defence—real though Ser vice worries are—as re-fleeting the airlines with quieter, more fuel- efficient subsonic airliners for medium, short and feeder ranges. The air-weapon factories on both sides of the Atlantic are, in gen eral, reasonably full. Though there is oil money and technical chal lenge for defence, there is declin ing political support for heavy public spending on killing machines at the expense of social needs. This has to be faced by all aircraft industries, though politi cians forget that warplanes have deterred conflict for a generation and have made possible the amaz ing growth of civil air transport, one of the most civilising and ful filling uses of the air. But too heavy a defence bias is industrially unsafe. Civil sub- sonics do not have to be heavily financed by the taxpayer, except perhaps in the expensive market- less period. The consumer of air transport is still the best prospectus for all who make aircraft, engines and equipment. The air-transport consumer, now measured in hundreds of millions a year, is a Week ending 1 January 1977 Number 3538 Volume 111 Founded in 1909 First aeronautical weekly in the world Official organ of the Royal Aero Club Published by IPC Transport Press Ltd, Dorset House, Stamford Street, London SE1 9LU Editor J. M. Ramsden Assistant Editor Hugh Field International Editor Mark Lambert Technical Editor Michael Wilson BSc, CEng, FBIS, MRAeS Air Transport Editor John Belson Defence Editor Charles Gilson Chief Sub-editor Brendan Gallagher Editorial Staff Cliff Barnett Ian Goold Mike Hirst BTech Nigel Moll Stephen Piercey Bill Sweetman John Wilkinson Air Photography Tom Hamill Chief US Correspondent Warren H. Goodman, Spring Valley Road, Ossining, New York 10562, USA Telephone (914) 941-0805 ae healthier paymaster than the tax- sy payer. in Making airliners just to pro- ir- vide work for aircraft employees le is a corruption of the aerospace o- industry in the long run. Subsidy us is necessary for a short period, and m subsidy now includes US Govern- is ment underwriting of commercial in risks—for example TriStar. But ut the aim is to profit from the market rather than from the tax- le payer. This has always been the so American civil-aerospace disci- ir- pline, helped by a big, competitive le and efficient airline market and by ;1 a prodigious defence-spending Dr base. The Americans, as the ones is. to beat, are the ones to join pro- th vided that the Europeans do not n- split, and provided that their pro- re fessional record (3,000 turbine air- il- liners delivered in the last quarter n- century) and their home market iy (nearly half that of the USA) are lg fully recognised in any deal, al The big three American airliner ill houses, including even Boeing, are :i- in no shape to risk for the second re time in a decade the whole of their m net worth on a major new project, z- Both sides of the Atlantic need t, each other. The industries on each d- bank of that spacious ocean, made narrow by aviation itself, will is probably be bridged in 1977 by a b new airliner. It may be the Franco- ly McDonnell Douglas ASMR, a Mer- pt cure derivative, or the Anglo- it German-Boeing 7N7, a 737 deriva- ir tive. It may be both—unhappily is splitting a Europe which has Jo ss vested so much in co-operation rt over the last 20 years, in The word "derivative" rings a most sweetly in airline ears. There Group Advertisement Manager David Holmes Advertisement Representatives Jack Bush Clive Rigden Publishing Director Dennis Holman Editorial Director IPC Transport Press Maurice A. Smith, DFC Telephone: 01-261 8070 (Editorial) 8397 (Photographic Library) 8081 (Advertisement Sales) 8392 (Advertisement Production) Telegrams/Telex: 25137 BISPRS G Subscriptions Manager: B. F. J. Nason Telephone 0444 59188. UK and overseas subscription rates at back of issue. 2nd-class postage paid at New York; USA news-stand distribution by Eastern News Distributors, 14th Floor, 111 Eighth Avenue, New York 10011. US Direct Air Mail, $9000 p.a. Air-speeded to US $5200 p.a. is certainly going to be heavy air liner-buying as the air-transport industry climbs out of its hungry years. See page 1824 of last week's issue for Rolls-Royce's estimates of the airliner market in the next decade or two. While hoping that nobody will refer back to this page a year hence, we would put our money on a Euro-American Boeing 7N7 with a wing designed and made in Britain—now the world's most cost-effective aerospace partner— and powered by "derived" turbo- fans, either RB.211-535s or CF6- 32s. Such an airliner could be the closest answer to the question: "What do the biggest and most influential American and European airlines—United and British Air way s—want to buy?" IN THIS ISSUE World News Air Transport Light Commercial Private Flight Industry International Letters Avionics Defence In the 1977 skies The perils of prophecy Search and rescue Straight and Level 2 4 7 9 10 11 13 14 19 21 27 36 Front cover: a British Airways Helicopters Sikorsky S-61N equipped with a "portable" winch is available for search-and-rescue work round Scotland's north-east coast.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
