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Aviation History
1977
1977 - 2405.PDF
466 FLIGHT International, 13 August 1977 to any new low fare. Unlike the air lines operating through London, Luft hansa considers that Skytrain will tap "a completely different market" from its own services, which in any case carry a higher proportion of business travellers than those of many other transatlantic airlines. It is expected that most airlines will adopt the same "wait-and-see" attitude. lata is work ing on the assumption that fares will stabilise naturally as airlines work out their reactions to the new open rate, and that a post hoc formal agreement can be worked out. US supplemental Trans Inter national Airlines has also come in on the act, proposing a no-frills, bookable scheduled service from 14 US cities to Brussels (London is closed to TIA by the Bermuda Agreement). Unlike advance-booking charters or Apex fares, the TIA "Skybus" would offer one-way travel and set no stay limita tions. The Bermuda 2 agreement is already under attack from some of the US gateways named by the CAB in last year's transatlantic route proceeding but left out by Bermuda 2. The agree ment is being challenged on the grounds that it has the powers of a treaty but the status only of an execu tive agreement, not having been rati- field by the Senate. The distinction between a treaty and an executive agreement is a fine one, and was one of the issues raised in the New York Concorde case. At that time it was disputed whether the original Bermuda Agreement of 1946 should be regarded as a treaty or an executive agreement, the latter being less bind ing on US Government agencies. Some concern has also been voiced in Washington over the speed with which the agreement was signed before its text was made available to Congress. It is ironic that the British Govern ment intended to ban Skytrain finally and irrevocably by incorporating a policy of single designation in its new air agreement with the USA. But that policy was defeated in the British courts on a matter of law rather than aviation economics, and Laker could have gone on to halt the Bermuda 2 negotiations if the British Government had not decided to back Skytrain. The present price war is something which nobody even dreamed could happen when the Bermuda Agreement was denounced last year. • A World News item on July 30 stated that the US Department of State was not represented at the Bermuda 2 signing ceremony. In fact, we are asked to point out, the Depart ment of State was represented by Special Ambassador Alan Boyd and his special assistant, Dr Stephen Piper. Air Ceylon is now operating this Boeing 7208. an ex-American aircraft teased from Inyicta International CF6-50 for llyushin 11-86? GENERAL ELECTRIC has asked the US Department of Commerce for per- misson to export CF6-50 turbofans to the Soviet Union. If the deal is not ruled prejudicial to US national security, an initial batch of 12 engines will be sold to Avtoproimport, the agency responsible for supplying foreign engines to the Soviet aircraft industry. Flight-testing and certifica tion will take place during 1979-81 in a long-range version of the Ilyushin 11-86 wide-bodied transport. The Soviet Union has been inter ested in buying big-fan engines out right from the West for at least two years since a plan to buy long-haul wide-bodies from the West, coupled with Western aid in building a "turn key" airliner factory in the Soviet Union, was blocked by Congress. Negotiations with Rolls-Royce over the RB.211-22B continued throughout last year, but appear to have broken down over Rolls-Royce's insistence on a firm contract covering a commercial number of engines. The British com pany feared that the Soviet Union merely wanted to buy technology, but GE seems to have accepted the smaller offer that Rolls-Royce refused. The deal is worth about $18 million to GE in its present form. The Soviet Union requires only bare engines as yet, but GE hopes that it will become prime contractor for the pylon/ nacelle/reverser system as well, prob ably using the standard Rohr CF6-50 installation of the DC-10-30, A300 and 747. Concorde: payload up, noise nuisance down . . . THE sonic-boom timecheck for inhabitants of the West Country and Alderney, the most northerly of the Channel Islands, will end next month when the track of Air France Con cordes flying Washington-Paris is re aligned. The new approach path to Paris, suggested by an Alderney resident, begins at a deceleration point about 150 miles west of Guernsey and 50 miles south of the present mid- Channel track to the north of Alderney. The new route is shorter and the reduced fuel requirement allows two extra passengers to be carried between Washington and Paris. • Infra-sonic Concorde "booms" are being recorded in the far-north city of Kiruna in Sweden, between two to five hours after they were produced. Booms shed by Concordes arriving at or leaving Washington, reach Kiruna up to five hours later, compared with two hours lag for booms generated on the European side of the Atlantic. The infra-sonic noise, inaudible to the human ear, measures 60-75db and lasts about five minutes. . . . and ozone layer safe SUPERSONIC transport aircraft were cleared of damaging the stratospheric ozone layer last month. Continuing research by the US Federal Aviation Administration could show that Con corde does not have any effect on the ozone. Opponents of the SST have argued that high-flying jet aircraft cause an irreversible rundown of the ozone layer, which shields the lower atmosphere from excessive ultra- violent radiation. Anthony Broderick of the FAA Office of Environmental Quality told a US technical conference last month that FAA research was tending to clear Concorde. Jet aircraft flying at low altitudes actually encourage the creation of ozone, but at high altitudes the same chemistry breaks up the unstable gas. When the FAA prepared its Environ mental Impact Statement on Con corde in 1975, the change was esti mated to occur around 40,000ft. But Broderick said last month that "our best understanding today is different from our best understanding of two years ago. I am quite sure that the crossover point is higher than implied by earlier studies. Whether it's 60,000ft or 80,000ft is not clear yet." Either figure is higher than normal SST cruise altitudes.
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