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Aviation History
1988
1988 - 2066.PDF
STRAIGHT AND LEVEL. MARK Bateson of Black pool, England, has made his first solo flight on his 17th birthday. Not much new about that possibly, except that he did so in a twin (a Piper Apache). He soloed in a single an hour later. His father and instructor, Brian Bateson, director of the Blackpool Air Centre, wonders whether this is a UK record. % I remember once trying to sum up why Australians have had such a good airline safety record for 30 years, touch wood. My best effort came out as: "Self discipline and respect for authority without deference". Now an Australian has summed it up as: "Jack's as good as his master". Briefer and lighter, certainly. 1 shall give the matter further thought. Further thought: Has Jack, like his master, flown 10,000hr in aircraft with engine- shutdown and technical drama rates of one per flight and no lambswool seatcovers or telly? 0 If an activity is big enough, someone will publish a maga zine about it. I was just going to launch Naughty Defence Contracts, weekly if not daily, when I was beaten to it by a company in Arlington, VA: "Pasha Publications has launched Defense Litigation Reporter, a biweekly that helps attorneys and executives to monitor military contractor fraud litigation. This new legal information service reports on fraud, waste, and abuse cases involving contractor liability, product substitution, wrongful termination, violations of export control laws, false billing, defective pricing, kickbacks, bribes, and 'whistleblower' suits. The publication also incorporates full texts of Disarmament Talks 'THANK YOU for removing A this murderous weapon of indiscriminate destruction and violation of the Sixth Com mandment from my aircraft, sergeant. Have you disarmed it? —Yes, sir. Good man. Take it away and crush it into fragments. —Is that an order, sir? Yes indeed, sergeant. Bombs are now obsolete instruments of man's primitive violence, quite inappropriate in today's world of detente and disarmament. War teaches us that force is a futile way of settling differences between human beings. Oh and sergeant . . . —Sir? Let's keep the warhead. With a day bombing squadron in France, 1918 (D.H.4J Endurance Well, it's a configuration which has been around for quite a long time—an example of man's need and ability to make his mark on the world, to leave that lasting impression of his skill and genius, to give meaning to his transitory life, and to re-invent what Miles did in England in about 3000 B.C. Gyroflug Speed Canard, Thomas Dietrich and passenger up, arrives at Cairo non-stop from Mengen, West Germany important court documents, including complaints, plead ings, decisions, and settlements . . . Contact Gary Luggiero at (703) 528-1244." 0 Fokker has simplified the English language to ensure maximum comprehensibility of F.50 and F.100 manuals, using a vocabulary of 780 words with no double meanings. I can think of a lot of English people who ought to speak Fokker English. Like the captain who, with apologies for air traffic control, addressed the cabin: "Ladies and gentlemen, we shall be airborne momentarily". # My pronouncement that cars made by aircraft people don't sell and aeroplanes made by car people don't fly (June 4) has resulted in a visit from a man in a Saab Viggen. He says that Saab sold 135,000 cars last year—"cars originally designed by aircraft people". Saab produced aircraft for ten years before its first car emerged. It has sold about 5,000 aircraft of its own design including the Saab 340, "which has more than 60 per cent of its marketplace in Europe—not bad for a country with a total population equal to that of London on a Sunday". 0 This week's OK word in the Pentagon, now desperately defending itself, is "Could Cost". This is the cost of a new programme after maximising value-added content and minimising non-value-added materials like flap ball screwjack flangebracket gimbal mount polishing rags. We used to call Could Cost "value analysis" after we discov ered that the Vickers VClO's lav-door bolt cost £750 lis 3d and could be bought from Woolworths in the High Street for 6d and jammed just the # If stealth is so important these days, why do all air- launched missiles have four fins at right angles—the best radar- reflecting geometry there is—making their carrying aircraft stand out for miles? &^£* gWflrv^ Left upper: Southend Evening Echo, July 4; Left: House of Commons report on Air Traffic Control (to be sporting, a proof only) 44 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL, 6 August 1988
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