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Aviation History
1978
1978 - 0067.PDF
Air transport Jet: France piles on the pressure FRENCH pressure for the European Jet project to be managed and led by Airbus Industrie is increasing. The latest sign is the leaking of a summary of the Joint Engineering Team's pro posal for an all-new aircraft to French, aerospace weekly Air et Cosmos. The disclosure was made in spite of a high- level joint decision) weeks earlier that no details of the design were to be published. The Jet design was presented to a meeting of European aerospace leaders in Paris on November 28. Among the executives present were Aerospatiale president Gen Jacques Mitterrand, Ludwig Bolkow of MBB, Lord Beswick and Sir Peter Fletcher of British Aerospace, and Gerrit Klapwijk of VFW-Fokker. At the close of the meeting, according to informed sources, it was agreed that nothing should be published because the Jet study was still at an embry onic stage. Moreover, British Aero space was reluctant to give the im pression that the derivative X-Eleven proposal had been finally abandoned. Nevertheless, a summary of the Jet report was leaked to the French weekly, which also carried on its cover a montage of the Aerospatiale A200 project at Toulouse. The general arrangement of the Jet is in fact very similar to that of the Airbus A300, with a wing similar in design to that of the A3O0B1O and a similar empen nage geometry. The basic B2 version would seat 162 at 34in-pitch, all- economy standards; the cut-back Bl would seat 131, and the future stretched B3 would accommodate no fewer than 188 passengers. All ver sions would have the same 1,385ft2 wing, tail surfaces, landing gear, flight deck, fuselage diameter and systems. Runway length required would range from 5,190ft for a short- range version of the Bl to 7,050ft for the B3. The Jet report confirms that it will probably not be possible to deliver the first examples of an all-new aeroplane before the beginning of 1983 unless a full go-ahead is given almost imme diately. Previous statements have mentioned 1982 as the target delivery date for a joint European project in the Jet category. Faster to Australia by British Airways BRITISH AIRWAYS is to reduce the number of stops on its services to Australia and Hong Kong from April, and is dropping its Hong Kong- Australia routes. Flights between London and Australia's eastern coast will make only two stops, and the west coast will receive three one-stop services a week. Scheduled time will be 18hr 45min from London to Perth, and 23hr to Melbourne. Seven of the airline's ten weekly 747 services to Australia will now be operated by the 747-200s introduced last year. Availability of the longer- the range aircraft has permitted number of stops to be reduced. Services between London and Hong Kong are to be expanded, but British Airways flights will terminate in Hong Kong "as part of the airline's policy to provide separate products for separate markets." Luxair is among the latest operators of the 737 and is replacing its Caravelles with the Boeing twinjet
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