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Aviation History
1981
1981 - 0926.PDF
952 FLIGHT International, 4 April I9SI Pentagon wants law changed THE Pentagon is proposing a change to United States law to permit easier and larger arms sales to overseas customers. Head of the Overseas Weapons Sales Office, Lt Gen Earnest Graves, wants to set up a special fund for allied purchases during an emerg ency and raise the limit on the number of military advisers that can be dispatched at short notice. Graves tells the House Foreign Affairs Committee that his department is often faced with the choice between diverting equipment from US inven tories and orders or doing nothing immediate at all. Graves proposes the Record aviation insurance claims? LAST year appears to have super seded 1979 as the most expensive ever for aviation hull underwriters. Jack Webb, outgoing chairman of the Aviation Insurance Offices Association in London, reveals that payouts total about $220 million on the losses of 23 Western-built hulls and seven or eight Eastern-built ones. The destruction of two widebodies—a Saudi Arabian Air lines Lockheed TriStar and a Korean Air Lines Boeing 747—accounts for half the total payout. The accident record during the year was not exceptional, says Webb, but the effect of inflation on settlement of small, frequent claims was consider able. He also cites serious non-opera tional losses—for example a heavy hailstorm at Johannesburg's Jan Smuts Airport brought $10 million dollars in airline claims. Webb says 1980 has been a difficult year for the London market because of a world aviation insurance over capacity. He adds that companies in the reinsurance market have been withdrawing from aviation business following bad losses. In the general aviation market capacity has reduced and rates have gone up, but profit ability is not yet ensured. Satellite business has been unpopular since bad experiences in 1979. Moderate rate rises in general have not proved enough, so aviation insurance is going to become more expensive even where there is overcapacity. Airline accident • GHANA Airways Fokker F.28-20O 9G-ACA crash landed at Accra Inter national Airport on March 11. There were no injuries among the crew on board the training flight, which car ried no passengers. The aircraft is re ported to have been written off. Swissair result IN the issue of Flight for March 28, page 899, we inadvertently inflated Swissair's 1980 operating loss to SFr20O million. The correct figure is SFrSO million (£12!2 million). setting up of a Defence acquisition fund to allow procurement of items which are in high demand by allies but which are, or would be, for the procurement period, in short supply in US service stocks. Such items could be used by the US forces if not needed abroad. Another improvement asked for is a waiver or reduction in surcharges on US military sales to Australia, Japan and New Zealand, a right avail able only to Nato countries at present. To speed up arms sales, Graves pro poses that the figure for weapons sales requiring Congressional permis sion be raised from $7 million to $14 million, thus avoiding review delays. Graves also points out that on many occasions it has been expeditious to increase US manpower in foreign countries. But current US law forbids stationing more than six military advisers in a foreign country without Congressional approval. Graves wants this limit raised to a new minimum, as yet unspecified. Dr Kenneth Bergin PHYSICIAN and aeromedical consult ant Dr Kenneth Bergin has died at 69. A pilot since 1929, he served during the Second World War in the Royal Air Force Medical Service before joining British Overseas Airways medical services department in 1946. He was chief medical officer from 1957 to 1959 and, later, personnel and medical services director (1963-64). Dr Bergin held many posts and appointments, including Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators mastership (1959-61), Airlines Medical Directors Association president (1965-66), College of Air Training governors board vice-president (1960-63) and Aerospace Medical Association vice- president (1965-66). Among many awards made to him were the Interna tional Aerospace Medical Association award for outstanding research on airline pilots' health (1971) and the Airline Medical Directors Award for contributions to aviation medicine (1978). His Aviation Medicine text book was published in 1948. British Airways VG10 valedictory THE last British Airways commercial VCI0 flight has taken place, nearly 17 years after the first service with BA constituent British Overseas Air ways Corporation. The last scheduled service on March 29 was followed by a 2hr enthusiasts' charter trip on March 30. British Airways operated 12 Stan dard VClOs and 17 Super VClOs, which flew more than 560 million miles and recorded 1,137,000 flight hours among them. The BA fleet is estimated to have carried at least 13 million passengers, and to have made 250i,O0O landings without a single fatality. After initial drag problems with early aircraft, cured by slightly tilting its four rear-mounted Rolls-Royce Conway engines, BOAC VC10 G-ARVJ made the first commercial flight on April 29, 1964, from London to Lagos. The inaugural Super VC10 service (G-ASGD, London-New York) was flown on April 25 the following year. According to British Airways, the VC10 immediately proved so popular with passengers that its average load factor on transatlantic services was later estimated to be 20 per cent above that of BOAC's nearest rivals. The airline claims that the type main tained its passenger-popularity even when faced with competition from widebodied aircraft. Consideration was given at one stage to the con struction of a two-deck version, in tended to carry more than 200 pas sengers. British Airways' remaining Super VClOs will go to the Royal Air Force for spares (see Flight for March 14, 1981, page 717). No VClOs remain in airline operation and, apart from one aircraft flying privately in the Middle East, the RAF is the only operator. It has 13 VClOs in transport use and nine VClOs being converted to tanker aircraft.
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