FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1961
1961 - 1733.PDF
FLIGHT, 30 November 1961 839 Britain and the Supersonic Airliner NEITHER France, the United States nor the United Kingdom,either singly or collectively, has taken a decision to proceed with the production of a supsrsonic transport. This was said by Mr PeterThorneycroft, Minister of Aviation, in the House of Commons on November 20. He was being asked about Press reports onpossible Anglo-French co-operation Flight, last week, page 794). Only three days later, on November 23, The Times reported thatthe French Cabinet had approved the construction of a French supersonic medium-range airliner. The same day, during thecivil aviation debate, Mr Thorneycroft told the Commons that, according to his information, the French decision "does not indi-cate a firm decision to build a supsrsonic type of aircraft, but that financial provision has been made in principle for the work thatmay be taken on for such a project in the next year or two." He had, he said, been assured that this was entirely without prejudiceto the outcome of Anglo-French discussions about sharing the cost. Retirement of Mr Lindsay Hunting AS we go to press we learn that Mr Lindsay Hunting is to retire at the end of the year from the chairmanship of the Hunting Group. Mr Hunting, who is 70 years of age, will continue as a director. He will be succeeded as chairman by Mr C. P. M. (Pat) Hunting, the present vice-chairman and son of Sir Percy Hunting, himself a former chairman of the group. The new vice-chairman will be Mr L. C. (Clive) Hunting, son of Mr Lindsay Hunting. Parliament Debates Civil Aviation IN last week's 6hr debate on civil aviation the Opposition inthe House of Commons set out to challenge the Minister on three matters; safetv, the working of the Licensing Act, and, as MrStrachey phrased it, "the consequential effects of any weakening of the position of the corporations on the British aircraft industry." The safety issue was clouded by overheated charges and counter-charges about the respective merits of the corporations and inde- pendent companies. Mr Mason made the extraordinary sugges-tion, among others, that pilots flying for the independent companies were not always "fully familiar with the aircraft and equipmentwhich they have to use." The air accident figures published by Flight were widely quoted,but the Parliamentary Secretary asserted at some length that "statistics which are used in different ways as the basis of criticismare open to a good deal of argument." Mr Strachev, opening for the Opposition, did not think thestatistics could be construed as a criticism of the independent operators as such but that the regulations on charter flving oughtto be tightened. In particular, he wanted paragraph 1 (5)(a) of the Tenth Schedule of the Air Navigation Order 1960 to be amendedand the onus for ensuring that the pilot had adequate knowledge of all the route characteristics to be placed upon the Minister. On the 1960 Licensing Act, Mr Strachey wanted the Minister togive new terms of reference to the ATLB. He thought that, fol- lowing the Minister's decision on the Cunard Eagle Atlantic appli-cation, "unless simple and comprehensive terms of reference are given to the Board, if necessary by means of legislation, the Boardwill founder, as it has undoubtedly and incontrovertiblv foundered up to now. . . . There is no sense in the terms of reference of theHoard today." Mr Thorneycroft's own explanation of his decision was that hetook account of the whole position: the gross over-capacity on the rHE PUFFIN—by the Hatfield Man-powered Aircraft Club—gets air- borne. As explained in the preliminary description on page 843, the I ropeller is at the tail, and over a dozen full flights have already tien made. Southampton University's rival effort was described last week STATIC SERPENT: Bench running of the Bristol Siddeley Viper 20 turbojet is now in hand at Patchway; an order worth £lm has been placed for Viper 20s for the D.H.I25, and this 3,CC0lb engine is also said by Bristol Siddeley to have been chosen to power the Piaggio Douglas 808 route; the evidence that BO AC was intending cutting its capacity;the weakening market; the trading position of the present operators; the probable effects of international negotiation of traffic rights,and the likely price we might have to pay for them. In another part of his speech the Minister made a brief reference,to new Government policy, which may well have had considerable bearing on the Atlantic decision: "An important policy decisionwith regard to nationalised industries was taken fairly recently by the Government. This refers to the corporations also. It is to setdown and agree with them targets of profitability.... 1 am working out with the two corporations targets we can all agree upon asreasonable. . . ." It is difficult to see how any "reasonable" target for the foreseeable future can be discussed with BOAC (who arefacing a loss of £10m for the current year) if the corporation is also being told to accept another British competitor on the Atlanticroute. It is difficult to see how the House can avoid a more detailed discussion of BOAC's alarming financial situation. This £10m announcement startled the House but provoked littlemore than gestures of astonishment. In the House of Lords the previous day their lordships got a little closer to the corporations'problems on a motion by the Earl of Gosford. Lord Merrivale used some words by the Air Transport Editor of Flight about theinvigorating selling activities of Cunard in the American market to support a suggestion that we should get a larger British share of theAtlantic traffic if Cunard Eagle had been given the opportunity for which they asked. The Earl of Longford wanted more informationabout BOAC policy on its associated companies and commended Frank Beswick's recent Flight interview with Mr Keith Granville.Both Houses showed concern about the outlook for the aircraft constructors. The Opposition case that expanding corporationswere essential to a stable aircraft industry was controverted by Mr Maxwell-Hyslop, who claimed that the BAC One-Eleven, notordered by the corporations, was probably our best single chance of breathing new life into the aircraft industry. He developed thefurther interesting point that it was probably an advantage to the BAC One-Eleven not to have received an order from either BOACor BEA, since they had given the kiss of death to more than one aircraft type. He thought this certainly was so in the case of theTrident and probably so in the case of the Vanguard, which had been stretched to suit the route patterns of two customers only. IN BRIEF Founder and managing director of Vigors Aviation Ltd. UK distri-butors for Piper aircraft. Wg Cdr T. A. Vigors has resigned from the company, although he is remaining on the board in an advisory capacity.The new managing director is the Marquess of Kildare, who has been a board member for the past five years. Lord Douglas of Kirtleside, chairman of BEA, has been appointedpresident of the Seaplane Club, formed earlier this year to revive interesi in floatplane aviation Flight. July 27, page 106). Dr Reginald Bennett.MP, who flew Walrus amphibians during the war, is vice-president. The flying base will be at Lee-on-Solent, Hants. Racing driver Gavin Youl, of Tasmania, is on a 12,500-mile flightfrom Luton to Tasmania with two passengers in a Cessna 180, which he is delivering for Jack Brabham to a purchaser. The flight started onNovember 18, but a radio failure over France compelled a new start on November 21. Hawker Siddeley Aviation's programme of matching facilities to theorder-book should be completed by the announcement that the DH Aircraft Christchurch plant, currently employing some 1,800, is to rundown and close by next July. Already announced are the forthcoming reduction of employment at Whitworth Gloster s Gloucester factoriesby some 4.000; the closure of the assembly portion of DH Aircraft at Portsmouth, reducing employment there by some 1,200; and the impend-ing redundancy of about 350 at Chester and 400 at Hatfield. ; "FLIGHT" ON TFXEX ; I In common with other Dorset House journals. Flight is now on |the Telex system. The number is Telex 25137, and our telegraphic address is "'Flightpres London Telex." Other Telex subscribersusing the service should preface their messages with "Flight Editorial" or "Flight Advertisements" as the case may be.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
