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Aviation History
1997
1997 - 1371.PDF
DISPLAY ADVERTISEMENT SALES UK and EUROPE Display Advertising Enquiries +44 (181) 652 3315 Display Advertising Fax +44 (181) 652 8981 Group Advertisement Director lanBurrows +44(181)6523319 Sales and Events Co-ordinator Lisa Devlin +44 (181) 652 3315 Advertisement Production Display/Classified Howard Mason +44(181)6523267 Key Accounts Manager Janice Lowe +44 (181) 652 3316 UK, NORTHERN and EASTERN EUROPE, THE MIDDLE EAST and ISRAEL Senior Area Manager Robin Gordon +44(181)6524998 UK, IRELAND, GREECE, IBERIA, BENELUX, AFRICA, THE MIDDLE EAST Sales Manager Mike Wall +44(181)6523904 FRANCE Sales Director France Pierre Mussard Reed Business Information France. 15 bis. rue Ernest Renan. 92130 Issy-les-Moulineaux. France. Telephone+33 (1)46 29 4615 Fax+33 (1)40 93 03 37 ITALY Representative Romano Ferrario Gruppo Editoraile Jackson. Via Gorki 69. Cinisello B Milano. 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Telephone +65 338 3398; Fax +65 338 3213 CLASSIFIED & RECRUITMENT Classified Advertising Enquiries +44 (181) 652 3811 Classified Advertising Fax +44(181)6524802 Group Advertisement Manager GarethPask +44(181)6524814 Sales Manager Sarah Genest +44 (181) 652 3811 International Sales Executives MoButtivant +44(181)6524898 Simon Lees +44(181)6524757 JulianMiall +44(181)652489 Louise Meikle +44(181)6524806 Lucy Middelboe +44(181)652489 Classified USA Gail Tavelman +1 (212)5455403 Classified Asia/Pacific Lina Rohmat +65 338 3398 COMMENT Publisher Gavin Howe +44(181)652 3675 The text of Flight International and Airline Business can be found on the following databases: Lexis-Nexis. Knight-Ridder DataStar, FT Profile. ESA lAC/Predicasts, and Reuters. Details from; tel: +44 (181) 302 5101. Published in association with Airline Business by Reed Business Information. Quadrant House, The Quadrant. Sutton. Surrey. SM2 5AS. UK Flight International is sold subject to the following conditions: namely, that it is not. without the written consent of the publishers first given, lent, re-sold, hired out or in any unauthorised cover by way of trade; or affixed to. or as part of, any publication or advertising, literary or pictorial matter whatsoever. The publishers of Flight International are prepared to accept unsolicited material, but only on the understanding that such material is submitted wholly at the risk of the provider, and that the publishers cannot guarantee the receipt, safekeeping or return of non-commissioned work in any format, including manuscripts, digital data, photographic prints and transparencies Second-class postage paid at ChampJain, New York and additional entries Postmaster Send address corrections to: Flight International, c/o IMS. Box 1518. Champlain, NY 12919. © 1997 Reed Business Information ltd. A FRIEND IN NEED THE SOCIETY OF BRITISH Aerospace Companies wants the new UK Govern ment to increase its "seedcorn" funding of the UK aerospace industry fivefold, to some £100 million ($150 million) a year. Over the next five years, that same industry will give the UK Government £100 million a year in repayments of aid granted to launch Air bus and Rolls-Royce projects back in die 1960s. Is this good bus iness, or bad subsidy? There is no doubt that UK industry needs this sort of help if it is to remain competitive in die transition years be tween the demise of die old nationally bas ed European industries and the emergence of a rationalised, pan-Eu ropean industry. The other major European aerospace industries in Germany, France, Spain and Italy are receiving this sort of help - and they are getting much of it to support their shares of the same projects for which the UK industry is seeking assistance. None of the European industries is producing a good enough rate of return on its bigaerospace projects to cover the costs of restructuring and the cost of investing in future projects and even- more-future technology. If the European Governments wanttheir industry collectively to survive, they will have to help it. Some might argue that if European aerospace projects such as the Airbus and Aero International (Regional) ranges of airliners are so unattractive commer cially that their promoters cannot get all their necessary development funding from normal commercial sources, then they should not be proceeded with. That view is wrong. Most European aerospace companies find tliemselves short of research and development resources at least partly because their govern ments have failed in their primary duty of allow ing the industry to develop international commercial competitiveness and self-sustain- ability. Even had all European companies been allowed (or even encouraged) to strengthen themselves through mergers and takeovers, however, there would still be a need for govern ment funding at the sharp end of development. The USA is the single most powerful aerospace nation, witJi die strongest aerospace companies, "There is not enough funding for research and development in Europe, and much of the blame lies with the governments." but even the US Government continues to find it necessary to fund research in those companies. It sees the benefit of developing strategic tech nologies to be ready for exploitation when they are needed, and charges agencies like NASA with the duty of ensur ing that such strategic investment is made. Europe does not have a single NASA - but it needs one. It has a scattering of excellent research and develop ment laboratories, both government- and industry-owned, wor king more or less inde pendently of each other on less-than-adequate funding. If all die fund ing of the various re search establishments in Europe were to be pooled and re-allocat ed on sensible lines, Europe's aerospace research and develop ment could much more efficient and effective. For example, there are two European indus trial organisations now developing next-gener ation airliner-wing technology. There is only one application in Europe for such technology (Airbus), in which both organisations are already partners, so one of these two developments is automatically condemned to never see produc tion. With resources so scarce, such wasteful duplication of effort is indefensible. Even were such anomalies to be addressed, however, there is still not enough funding going into aerospace research and development in Europe, and much of the blame lies with European governments. The UK Government, which happily collects taxes from one of the two biggest industries in Europe, puts a paltry £20 million a year into strategic technology develop ment-one-fifth of what is needed. The French Government, which has underwritten its home industry for decades, has run out of both money and enthusiasm for doing so. Only the German Government is signed up to a reasonable level of funding (on paper at least) - but whatever good it may be doing on that front is being undone by its reluctance to commit funding on the produc tion of the Eurofighter 2000. As the British have proved (even if their politi cians have not noticed), governments can get a real return on aerospace technology: if they do, their expenditure is not subsidy, but real invest ment. European governments take note. • FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 28 May - 3 June 1997
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