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Aviation History
1978
1978 - 1115.PDF
FLIGHT International, 8 July 1978 67 Westland chief warns on costs WESTLAND'S inability to deliver helicopters on time and the high costs of the company's products could place the whole future of Westiand in jeopardy, managing director John Speechley told employees in Yeovil last week. His statement follows hard on chairman Lord Aldington's report announcing that no interim dividend would be paid and that "Westland group profits for the year will be dis appointing." Last year's profits were more than halved by provisions of £6-5 million against the company's hovercraft and Lynx contracts. This sum will have to be substantially in creased in the current year, share holders have been told. A committee of institutional investors wants to meet the Westland board and has called for the appointment of a finan cial director. Flight understands that deliveries of Sea King and Lynx helicopters have been running between four and twelve months behind schedule, although, as Lord Aldington reported to shareholders, current deliveries "have improved to around the re quired rate." The company's troubles have arisen from a production piecework system agreed in 1975, and which Westland has been trying to replace with a new pay formula. The existing agreement includes clauses which have effectively allowed almost half of the shop-floor workforce to receive increases outside the Government wage guidelines. Earnings under the arrangement deter mine bonus payments to other manual workers and have resulted in an in flated wages bill which contributed to last year's large deficit. A new flat-rate system worked out early last year was abandoned for fear of further aggravating differen tial problems between staff and pro duction workers. One change was made affecting Lynx production (which had been about a year behind schedule): in June 1977 Gazelle pro duction was moved to the Westland factory at Weston-super-Mare in order to concentrate more Yeovil capacity on the Lynx assembly line. The failure to complete this settle ment has led Westland's management to threaten dismissal in individual letters sent to the 2,000 manual workers among the 5,000-strong work force at Yeovil. The manual workers have however reaffirmed their opposi tion to any plan to scrap the piece work system and have voted almost unanimously to strike if Westland attempts to impose pay and conditions not agreed by the unions. Ending piecework would be a step toward getting1 Westland out of its difficulties, the company feels, and could help to secure the future of the Yeovil plant. • In the first four months of this year some 18 Lynxes have been flown; the original contract called for a 1978-79 production rate of nine units a month. Some 32 production Lynxes were completed and flown during 1977, and to date more than 50 have been de livered to customers. The first Aero- navale Lynx entered service recently at Hyeres, near Toulon. So far 10 have been handed over by the manu facturer. The British Army has received 13 of its 100 Lynx AH.Is, while 16 MAS.2s (including 2 development aircraft at Boscombe Down) have been delivered, to the Royal Navy out of total con tracts for 88 aircraft. The nine Brazilian Navy Lynxes have all been handed over, although three remain at Yeovil for development flying. The first Danish Lynx will be de livered in 1979, and announcement of an order for six aircraft (possibly to meet the Norwegian Air Force coastal patrol requirement) is ex pected shortly. The last of 15 RAF Sea King HAR.3s is due to fly in about three months' time. Although this contract AEROSPATIALE and Westland are preparing a formal agreement under which they will share the development of the Sea King replacement for the Royal Navy. In return, Aerospatiale will place a part of the production of the Super Puma with Westland. The Sea King replacement, launched last February, is expected to have a gross weight of 12 to 14 tonnes, well above that of the Sea King, and to be equipped for full anti-submarine search, localisation and attack several hundred miles from a coastal base. The required fuel load alone accounts for the high gross weight, but the air craft is also expected to carry full tactical plotting equipment, a large is understood to have been running some four months behind schedule, an RAF spokesman tells Flight that cur rent deliveries "satisfy present RAF deployment plans." Total Sea King/ Commando orders stand at 200 air craft. The four Commando Mk 2Es which recently appeared on the British civil register are believed to be a follow-on to Egypt's batch of 17 Com mando Mk 72s and two VIP machines. • Westland has built some 2,300 heli copters in 30 years. Of these about 1,400 were licence-built from Bell and Sikorsky designs. Original Westland products account for 600 units, while the remainder have been built in con junction with Aerospatiale. Com ponent sets for almost 700 Pumas and more than 800 Gazelles have also been supplied. The Westland design and production effort is split 45 per cent each on new aircraft and pro duct support, and 10 per cent on R&D. Seventy per cent of current new pro duction is for the Ministry of Defence. A contract for development of the WG.34 Sea King replacement has been announced (see news item). battery of sonobuoys (rather than dunking sonar) and, probably, a digital acoustic processing system like Marconi's Lapads (see Flight for March 18, page 754). Armament will probably be Mk 46 torpedoes. Westland and Aerospatiale are now carrying out a value analysis of the initial design in order to control costs. It is expected that Aerospatiale will be responsible for an eventual civil transport variant. • Aerospatiale stated last year that it considered that Westland should build more Pumas if it wanted to continue to share in production, and an order for about 20 more RAF Pumas appears very likely. Want to buy some old airliner THE airliner photographs in the Flight series of postcards has been so popu lar that we have put together a second set. Each collection comprises 22 black-and-white portraits. Orders to: Steve Piercey, Flight Picture Library, Room 422, Dorset House, Stamford St, London SET; price £1 -50 per set. AIRLINERS 1: Airspeed Ambassador (BEA), Armstrong Whitworth Argosy (Riddle), Avro Lancastrian (BSAA), Tudor IV (BSAA), Boeing Strato- cruiser (Pan Am), Breguet Universal (Air France), Canadair Argonaut (BOAC), Convair 340 (KLM), de Havilland Comet 1 (BOAC), Comet 4 (BOAC), Douglas DC-3 (Transair), DC-4 (Air France), DC-6 (Tassa), Handley Page Hermes (BOAC), Lock heed 749 Constellation (ACE), 1649 Starliner (TWA), Short Hythe-class flying boat (Aquila), G-class flying pictures? boat (Imperial Airways), Vickers Vanguard (BEA), Vickers 701 Vis count (BEA), 812 Viscount (Continen tal), Vickers Viking (Autair). AIRLINERS 2: Avro York (Sky ways), Boeing Stratocruiser (BOAC), Bristol Britannia 102 (BOAC), Britan nia 312 (Caledonian Airways), Super- freighter (Silver City), de Havilland Comet 4B (BEA), Douglas DC-3 (Dan-Air), DCi7B (Trans Europa), Handley Page Halton (BOAC), Herald (BEA), Ilyushin H-12 (CSA), H-18 (Ghana Airways), Lockheed Super Constellation (TCA), Savoia Mar- chetti 95 (Alitalia), Scottish Aviation Twin Pioneer, Short Empire-class fly ing boat (Imperial Airways), Sand- ringham 7, Solent 3 (Aquila), Tupolev Tu-124 (Aerofiot), Vickers Viking 1A, Vickers 749 Viscount (LAV), 803 Vis count (KLM). France to share in Sea King replacement
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