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Aviation History
2003
2003 - 1297.PDF
flight.international@rbi.co.uk Letter Flight International welcomes letters on any aspect of the aerospace industry. Please write to: The Editor, Flight International, Quadrant House, The Quadrant, Sutton, Surrey SM2 SAS, UK. Ore-mall flight.interna- tional@rbi.co.uk The opinions on this page do not necessarily represent those of the editor. Flight International cannot publish letters without name and address. Letters must be no more than 250 words in length. AIR TRANSPORT Economics and the A380 Detailed Airbus A380 cabin overviews show a typical configuration for 555 passengers and only one area available as an optional passenger facility, but I recall numerous advertisements since the project launch in which the manufacturer stressed the enor mous space available in the aircraft. However, reality is that all available capacity is badly needed to accommodate the configuration of 555 seats and cargo needs. In the alternative for 840 passengers I wonder how such a high density can be achieved without causing a passenger revolt. One thing is clear, commercials suggesting that this revolutionary aircraft would offer more passenger room, a shopping "centre", casino, sleeping cabins with showers, and bar area and promises that "you are not travelling to your hotel destination, you are already in your hotel" have been grossly exaggerated. To accommodate those uneco nomical dream features would require enormous space, which would have to be deducted from passenger-allocated capacity. The bottom line is that airlines have to produce as many available seat kilometres as possible. To achieve this goal when operating the A380 - which needs a high capital investment - as many seats as possible have to be put in the aircraft. Following this sound economical policy and taking into account the present low passenger yields, only then could an acceptable break-even load factor could be obtained. Erik Kramer Pontcarre, France Paris? A waste of US time Your Comment about the boycott of the Paris air show by the USA Flight International, 6-12 May) is wrong. The only expanding military budget for aerospace of significance is that of the USA and, you can be certain, no French, German or Russian equipment will be pur chased by the US Department of Defense. French and German expenditure has shrunk signifi cantly over the past five years and the drawn-out saga of the Airbus military A400M programme shows their lack of true commitment. The only European nation to expand military spending has been the UK. Australia is making more efforts to expand defence spending than most of Europe. If I were a colonel in the US military, I would not waste my time at Le Bourget. There is no technology of signifi cance emerging from Europe, mainly because European govern ments are not putting enough fund ing into research and development. Name and address supplied How does the A400M fit? Now that an engine has been picked for the Airbus military A400M, I suppose the UK Royal Air Force must look forward to operating the type in the dim and distant future. Although obviously not party to the operational analysis, I would have thought the UK military fixed- wing load-carrying requirements are best met by the present Lockheed Martin C-130J/Boeing C-17 combi nation. How does the A400M fit in? Surely there is no intention to replace the C-17s with vehicles of 50% individual capability? Perhaps the RAF could ignore its political masters and tell us if it really wants the A400M, or would prefer to spend its limited budget on something useful, and someone independent of Airbus Military tells us it is really brilliant and innovative, and not as pedestrian and ill-conceived as it appears. By all means, let us secure employment and income in the UK by working on the project. Unfortunately, the purpose of a UK purchase appears to be to further the "good European" ambitions of prime minister Tony Blair. John Chalmers Troon, UK Bad deal for UK taxpayers? The US Air Force is close to getting 100 new-build Boeing 767 tankers for $21 billion on a 10-year lease, including the option to purchase at the end (Flight International, 6-12 May). In the same issue you report that the UK Royal Air Force is about to be saddled with a £13 bil lion ($21 billion) pay-by-use con tract for only 20-30 similar aircraft that may be secondhand. The RAF will not gain ownership at the end of this contract. On the face of it, UK taxpayers are getting a bad deal compared with their US counterparts. With many airlines cutting back, there are large numbers of nearly new Airbus A310s, A340s, Boeing 757s, 767s and MD-lls available cheaply. Why does the UK Treasury have such an obsession with pri vate finance initiatives when out right purchase seems a lot cheaper? John Hartley Woking, UK Beam me up It seems to me there should be little surprise or controversy over the number of jet or turboprop engines required on an aircraft for safe flight in instrument meteorological conditions or visual meteorological conditions. The trend appears to be follow ing an economic and efficiency- based pattern that has been pro gressing since the appearance of jet and turboprop transport aircraft. The industry started originally with four engines and four crew mem- CONTINUED ON P72 iary 15-22 June Paris Air Show Paris, France exposants@salon-du-bourget.fr www.paris-air-show.com 19-22 June Kehl Air Show Kehl, Germany info@aero-club-kehl.de 14-17 July International Air & Space Symposium & Exhibition Dayton, Ohio, USA Tel:+1703 264 7530 merries@aiaa.org www.aiaa.org/dayton2003 18-20 July Royal International Air Tattoo RAF Fairford, UK www.airtattoo.intheuk.com 19-24 August MAKS Airshow Moscow, Russia www.maks.ru 30 August-1 September Canadian International Airshow Toronto, Canada admin@cias.org www.cias.org 8-12 September Aerospace Conference and Exhibition Montreal, Canada Tel: +1 604 473 9664 info@aerospace-na.com 9-12 September WAEA Seattle, Washington, USA www.waea.org Defence Systems and Equipment International London, UK bob.munton@dsei.co.uk www.dsei.co.uk 13-17 September Air Force Association Convention Washington, DC, USA www.afa.org/events/2k3conv.asp 14-17 September ACI-NA 12th Annual Conference Tampa Bay, Florida, USA Tel:+1202 293 8500 ext 3019 apeters@aci-na.org 17-19 September ERA Dublin, Ireland Tel:+44 1276 856495 www.eraa.org For a full list of events see www.fliqhtinternatio ' www.flightinternational.com FLIGHT INTERNAT IONAL 27 MAY - 2 JUNE 2003 71
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