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Aviation History
1990
1990 - 1039.PDF
UMLEL INTERNATIONAL EMSJUKSIMWIU FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL Quadrant House, The Quadrant, Sutton, Surrey SM2 5AS, England FLIGHT TELEPHONE NUMBERS As Irom 6 May, Flights 01 telephone number prefix will be replaced by 081 For example, 01 -661 3321 will become 081-661 3321, or +44 81 6613321 it dialling from outside the United Kingdom EDITORIAL ENQUIRIES: 01-661 3321 EDITORIAL FAX: 01-661 3840 DISPLAY ADVERTISING: 01-661 3315 DISPLAY ADV. FAX: 01-661 8981 CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING: 01-661 6373 CLASSIFIED ADV. FAX: 01-642 4431 TELEX:892084 REEDBP G EDITOR Allan Winn 01-661 3883 DEPUTY EDITOR Graham Warwick 01-6618808 ASSISTANT EDITOR ART AND PRODUCTION Forbes Mulch 01-661 3852 ASSISTANT EDITOR, SPECIAL PROJECTS Tom Hamill 01-661 3096 NEWS EDITOR Andrew Chuler01-661 3843 OPERATIONS EDITOR Mike Gaines 01-661 8809 TECHNICAL EDITOR Guy Norris 01 -661 3835 AIR TRANSPORT EDITOR David Learmounl 01-6613845 REPORTERS Eric Beech 01-661 3837 Andrew Cadogan 01 -6613844 Kieran Daly 01-6613836 Simon Elliott 01-661 3838 Ian GoolrJ 01-661 3834 Alan PosKethwaite 01-6613839 CHIEF SUB EDITOR Stephen Spark 01 -661 3847 SUB EDITOR Annabel Goddard 01-6613848 ART EDITOR Mi; Paine 01-661 3850 LAYOUT ARTIST Mike Wells 01-661 3828 TECHNICAL ARTISTS Ira Eplon 01 -661 8054 Tim Hall 01-661 8047 John Marsden 01-661 8054 WASHINGTON BUREAU Julian Moxon (202) 547-2624 FAX (202) 547-5338 LOS ANGELES BUREAU John Bailey (714) 760-6618 FAX (714) 760-6619 PARIS CORRESPONDENT Gilbert Sedbon (1) 4825 5261 ISRAEL CORRESPONDENT Arie Egozi (3) 9671155 US WEST COAST CORRESPONDENT Norman Lynn (408) 778-0889 FAX (408) 778-9976 SPACEFLIGHT CORRESPONDENT TimEurniss02J/5756 FAX02375600 DISPLAY ADVERTISEMENT SALES MANAGER Clive Richardson 01-6613315 VICE-PRESIDENT US SALES John Tidy (714) 756-1057 CLASSIFIED ADVERTISEMENT SALES 01-661 6373 RECRUITMENT 01 6616373 ADVERTISEMENT PRODUCTION Howard Mason 01-661 3267 For full advertisement sales information see inside back page. SUBSCRIPTIONS MANAGER A WalrJen (0444) 441212 SUBSCRIPTION ENQUIRIES Oaklield House, Perrymount Road, Haywards Healh, West Sussex RH16 3DH, England. BACK NUMBERS Limited numbers ol RECENT ISSUES ONLY are available at E1,75'copy (CASH WITH ORDER ONLY) Irom Flight International, Room L531, Quadrant House, The Quadrant, Sutton, Surrey SM2 5AS USA NEWSSTAND SALES ENQUIRIES Worldwide Media Service Inc. (toll-free), 1 -800-345-6478 ran Member of the Audit Bureau of Circulation COMMENT Born-again commercialism For konversiya read economic conver sion, for the USSR read the USA. Differ ent name, different place, but the story is the same—defence industries turning to commercial markets to survive. Boeing's home state of Washington has become the first in the USA to make plans to convert its,,aerospace industry from defence to commercial products. The Defence Diversifica tion Bill signed by Governor Booth Gardner on 29 March could serve as a model for other states push ing their defence industries towards commercial markets. Amongst US states, Washington ranks tenth in per-capita defence spending, gaining about $6 billion in prime military con tracts in 1989. Poli ticians estimate that the state could lose 48,000 jobs over three years if Penta gon spending fell just 10%. California, which receives about 20% of Pentagon prime contracts (and is the world's sixth-largest economy), is following the Wash ington lead. A state assembly proposal for a council on economic conversion, vetoed by Governor George Deukmejian in 1989, is pend ing again, this time with stronger support. Similar measures to nudge defence companies into commercial markets are before the Con necticut and Massachusetts legislatures. Support for economic conversion is coming from anti-defence lobby groups which, since the 1960s, have fought unsuccessfully against US weapons programmes. Encouraged by what they describe as the sudden outbreak of global peace, these groups have formed an united front to achieve their aim of virtual US disarmament. Similar moves by politicians and anti- defence activists have followed every downturn in US military spending after the end of World Wars One and Two and the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Each such effort has failed. The Previously, the gap between defence and commercial work standards, procedures and cultures has been too great to surmount" gap between defence and commercial work standards, procedures and cultures has been too great to surmount. This time it may be different, however. The Communist threat, which has survived previ ous wars, is disintegrating, if not disappearing. This leaves US defence planning painfully exposed as being based on a threat assessment that may no longer be valid. Military strategies, force structures and funding profiles have all been called into question. The explosion in the use of comput ers, meanwhile, has changed work cul tures beyond recog nition. It can be argued that there is no fundamental dif ference, for exam ple, between inte gration of military aircraft avionics and installation of banking systems: both involve people sitting at terminals writing software. The Washington programme allo cates $200,000 of state community-develop ment funds to identifying businesses that are heavily dependent on Pentagon spending and developing plans to diversify them. The Demo crat governors of 12 US states, meanwhile, have proposed a four-part plan of federal assistance to move defence companies into what they describe as "new high-technology industrial fields". They want the so-called "peace divi dend" from superpower arms reductions divert ed to economic conversion projects to benefit their states. Exactly what those high-technology fields might be is at the very heart of the defence industry's fears for the future. Space is certainly one, hut NASA's budget is also being squeezed and commercial ventures are high on risk and long on payback. Careful planning is now paramount. Budget cuts take effect immediately, economic conver sion takes time. Defence capability lost is not easily recovered, industrial capacity squan dered may never be recovered. FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 11-17 April 1990
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