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Aviation History
1978
1978 - 0881.PDF
Week ending 3 June 1978 Number 3611 Volume 113 Published in association with Aeroplane Monthly and Airports International by IPC Transport Press Ltd, Dorset House, Stamford Street, London SE1 9LU, England. World's first end only complete aeronautical weekly © Copyright IPC Business Press 1978 Founded 1909 Editor J. M. Ramsden Associate Editor Mark Lambert Anlstant Editor Hugh Field Defence Editor Doug Richardson Production Editor Brendan Gallagher Assistant Technical Editor Mike Hirst BTech Air Photography Tom Hamlll Air Transport Bill Sweetman General Aviation Hugh Field Cliff Barnett Nigel Moll News Ian Goold Technical Artists Frank Munger John Marsden Pictures Stephen Plercey Publisher Bryan C. Cambray FIMI Deputy Publisher and Group Advertisement Manager David Holmes US Publishing Consultant Warren H. Goodman (telephone [914] 941-0805) Advertisement Representatives Jack Bush Clive Rlgden Richard Chandless Advertisement Production Howard Mason Overseas advertisement representatives: at back of this issue Telephone: 01-261 8081 (Advertisement Sales) 01-261 8392 (Advertisement Production) 01-261 8070 (Editorial) Telegram/Telex 25137 BISPRS G Subscriptions Manager B. F. J. Nason Telephone: England (0444) 59188 (UK and overseas subscrip tion rates at back of this issue) [Bj») International Business Press Associates ISEci Member of the Audit Bureau of Circulation NEXT WEEK . Si World Missiles Directory e Our annual survey of the world's missiles is one of the most comprehensive compila tions of its kind. This year's edition runs to more than 30 pages of text and tables, detailing development and production histories, operators, structures, guidance systems, warheads and performance data, e Another machine capable of going like a rocket is the Mooney 201, one of the fastest 200 h.p. tourers on the market. The Flight team puts the 201 through its paces. Best of both? THE future of Britain's aircraft industry is tending to get itself presented as a choice between Europe and America. Is it really so simple? In the early 70s Rolls-Royce, like the other major European engine company, Snecma, set policy course across the Atlantic. The logic differed but the mar keting theme was common: America is where the big civil aircraft and engine markets are, and these are more penetrable with a prime American company as partner—Lockheed and Rolls- Royce, GE and Snecma. Thus also did Fokker penetrate with the Fairchild F.27, and Airbus Industrie with GE and numerous American equipment suppliers. Offshore suppliers do succeed in the US market—as the Vis count, Caravelle, One-Eleven, Harrier, YS-11, HS.125 and Fal con have proved. But it is easier if you have friends in the family; and there is a lot to be said for the offers which Boeing, McDon nell Douglas and Lockheed are now making to the British. As always, the British are try ing to get the best of both worlds. Despite the impatience of their fellow Europeans they decline to be hustled into any "either-or" choice. Let us assume that Rolls-Royce is right, and that the best choice for Britain's aircraft industry as a whole is America. If the British went into the Boeing 757 or the McDonnell Douglas ATMR or the Lockheed TriStar 400 using Rolls-Royce RB.211 engines, the consequences would be politi cally disastrous for the British as Europeans. French, Germans and Dutch would thenceforth regard the British as competitors rather than partners, not only in civil aircraft but probably also in military aerospace and, possibly, in other industrial fields. Such a bloodcurdling state of affairs is possibly even under stated. There would be deplor able consequences also for the many excellent personal and pro fessional relationships painfully fostered—not only in aircraft— in the last ten years. Those at the leading edge of European industry and politics know how much co-operation means in a world dominated by the super powers. And in the long term, airframe design authority would pass, in the civil field, to the American partner; the odds against launching new Rolls- Royce engines in European air frames would be remote; and the powerful British equipment in dustry, which now accounts for one third of the total aerospace industry's advances, would be similarly either shut out or strung along by both European and American competitors. A clear declaration for Europe and, in particular, for Airbus Industrie (restructured so that British, Dutch and German fac tories are not controlled from Toulouse) would have very dif ferent consequences. First, the British would lead on the Joint European Transport (Jet) pro gramme. Second, the A300-10 could have a major British con tent and even—almost unthink able so far—RB.211 engines. Third, the Rolls-Royce RB.432 "Spey replacement" would be accepted as a European engine for the One-Eleven, F.28 and pos sibly smaller versions of the Jet. Faced with a solidly united European civil aircraft industry, Boeing, Lockheed and McDonnell Douglas would redouble their ardour for European partner ships. For the best of both worlds the way to go is Europe, J.M.R. IN THIS ISSUE World News Air Transport Defence HAWK WITH TALONS General Aviation Business Flight Private Flight Avionics GERMANY'S MILITARY HELICOPTER MEET READING SHOW GUIDE Industry International E-4B: THE SUPREME AIRBORNE COMMANDER Letters Spaceflight 1674 1676 1678 1681 1684 1686 1688 1693 1698 1701 1702 1705 1707 Front cover: CH-53G heavy-lifter in the colours of the Heeresflieger, the West German Army's aviation arm. Starting on page 1693, we report some of the latest developments in Nato combat- helicopter thinking and technology
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