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Aviation History
1977
1977 - 2959.PDF
FLIGHT International, 8 October 1977 Beswick warns on research A BRITISH Government proposal that all civil-aircraft research and develop ment should be financed by British Aerospace Corporation is "a mis understanding of the position," accord ing to BAe chairman Lord Beswick. Inaugurating a Royal Aeronautical Society symposium at York Univer sity last Saturday, Beswick warned that "such an austere approach would penalise us in our competition with American industry as well as harming national knowhow over a wide area outside aerospace." No doubt with Rolls-Royce in mind, he added: "This does not seem to apply to other aero space companies. I hope there will be second thoughts in Whitehall." Acknowledging that in the old days Government support had been "generous if not extravagant," never theless "extreme austerity in this field can be as deadly as extravagance". # The symposium, entitled Looking Forward Into Aerospace, was spon sored by the Brough Branch of the RAeS. Its debate on the future mar kets, objectives and organisation of British Aerospace will be reported in Flight for October 29. NEB gives Rolls-Royce £20 million THE National Enterprise Board, parent of the state^owned Rolls-Royce engine company, has contributed £20 million to the company in the form of share capital loan. Though Rolls- Royce turned a profit of £4-5 million in 1975 into _a loss of £21 million in 1976, it must still maintain its R&D expenditure at about £50 million a year in order to prepare the engines needed for the 1980s. In those years the NEB and Department of Industry are confident that Rolls-Royce will become highly profitable. Japanese hijacking over HIJACKERS who diverted a Japan Air Lines DC-8 to Dacca, Bangladesh, on September 28 relinquished com mand of the aircraft as Flight closed for press. They had flown from Damascus to Algiers, where they gave up their exhausted hostages un harmed and were taken into custody by the Algerian authorities. The Japanese Government agreed on September 30 to meet all the hijackers' demands: $6 million in ransom and the release of nine mem bers of their organisation, the Japanese Red Army, serving senten ces in Japanese prisons. Some of the 141 passengers and crew were released in exchange for the money and the terrorists on October 1-2, des pite an interruption caused by an attempted military coup in Bangla desh. Late on October 2 the DC-8 took off from Dacca with the remain der of the hostages, the terrorists and their companions and was allowed to land at Kuwait when it was almost out of fuel. Seven hostages were ex changed for fuel at Kuwait and the DC-8 proceeded to Damascus, where more hostages were released on the morning of October 3. • One passenger aboard an Air Inter Caravelle was killed on September 30 when police stormed the aircraft to capture a hijacker. The aircraft, hijacked on a flight from Paris to Lyon, had returned to Paris Orly with 100 passengers and seven crew on board. The hijacker, Jacques Robert, has a record of mental instability and terrorism, and was demanding to broadcast a political message. Airline accidents JAPAN Air Lines DC-8 JA-8051 crashed while approaching Kuala Lumpur on September 27 at the end of a sched uled flight from Hong Kong. Of the 69 passengers and eleven crew, 33 were killed when the aircraft struck a hillside rubber plantation during a thunderstorm. • A freighter Britannia, EI-EEY, crashed and caught fire on landing at Shannon on September 30. The six crew escaped without injury. Goodison retires from CAA AFTER a career spent in the regula tion of air transport, air safety and overseas aviation policy, Robin Goodison has retired from the deputy chairmanship of the UK Civil Aviation Authority. He is to continue his asso ciation with the CAA as a consultant. Mr Goodison was deeply involved in planning the establishment of the CAA and was the Authority's acting chairman before it became fully operational in January 1972. He won the British Air Line Pilots Association gold medal in 1965 for his contribu tions to air safety. "Flight" Picture Library WE apologise to readers for any delay in delivering photographs over the next three weeks. Our capacity has been reduced by staff holidays and we will be back on line early in November. Hang on for a record ON October 2 pilot Bob Bailey added two miles to the British hang-glider distance record, flying 24 miles in a Wills Wing X-C, from Carlton Bank to Swinton in Yorkshire. Bailey flew mainly in cumulus lift, reaching a maximum height of nearly 4,000ft. Sensor McDonnell Douglas is making a new approach to Europe in its efforts to launch a civil project. Known as the Advanced Medium - Range Transport, the new design corres ponds with the ASMR (Mercure 200) of 1976 but would have British Aerospace as the major European partner. Engines are likely to be RB.211-535s or CF6-32S. The British negotiators want more information about how the DC-9-80 (JT8D-209s) might conflict. Mean while, Boeing's offer to British Aerospace of a major partnership in a 737-300 project (which would now have a 727 fuselage and a new wing with CFM56s) remains open. As negotiations have gone down the Boeing line, however, the offer has become more of a subcontracting than a design-responsibility deal. The European civil project team Jet (Joint engineering team) work ing at Weybridge is expected to deliver its report to the principals involved (British Aerospace, Aero spatiale, MBB and VFW-Fokker) by the first week in November. The 30-man international technical team is being led by a Hawker Siddeley engineer, Derek Brown, and is evaluating the A200, X-Eleven and new projects. The only near-certainty at the moment is that the 150-seater will have two CFM56s. The HS.146, now being projected with four Rolls-Royce M45s as well as with Avco Lycoming ALF502s, is again figuring prominently in British Aerospace planning and appears to stand a good chance of materialising. Certification could be achieved by 1981. A cheap general-purpose combat aircraft being designed by the UK Ministry of Defence Procurement Executive is seen as a sensible new project for British Aerospace. Senior MoD technical officials are encouraging industry in the belief that a go-ahead with a "fly-before- buy" demonstrator would influence Air Force Board requirements which, as initiated by the RAF, must inevitably put UK and Nato defence above all other require ments. There is now little doubt that the total British Aerospace industry workforce of 200,000 - 250,000 (depending on definitions) will have to fall by at least 50,000-60,000 in the next few years. Out put per man-hour is now half the US figure, and if relatively very low wages are to increase, not even this level of productivity can be maintained without slimming. Difficult decisions are now being approached by the new British Aerospace Corporation, though project studies are being given priority.
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