In some quarters it has become almost sacrilege toquestion Treasury dictation on what should or shouldnot be spent. One cannot repeat too often that, inan industry so bound up with national well-being, theinescapable fact is that unless a forward policy forBritish aeronautics is established, after the mpst care-ful analysis of all factors, and then that policy isimplemented at the cost it requires to achieve success,then we shall fall behind for ever in maintaining ourposition as a world power.

Of one thing there can be no doubt. Whatevertasks are demanded of it, technically, the Britishaircraft industry has shown itself capable ofachieving them at a lower cost than in either theU.S.A. or the U.S.S.R.

And so I say this — in these times of change andevolution, we need that clear statement of a Govern-ment lead which can be the only means of pointingthe way ahead and of building on a foundationestablished through 50 years of endeavour.

DISCUSSIONIn the Chair :

Mr. D. L. Wiggins,M.I.Prod.E.

Mr. W. E. W. Petter, C.B.E., M.A., F.R.Ae.S.{Managing Director, Folland Aircraft Ltd) thankedMr. Masefield for his most stimulating and excellentlydocumented review and suggested that the Institutionof Production Engineers must possess some electronicmachine which sampled the climate of the day,political and industrial, and on the present occasionhad suggested the subject of " Where are we going?"The theme of the present Conference had been verywell chosen, because they were on the verge of a newage; the whole situation was one of indecision, witha wide range of choices before them. Backgroundinformation of the type which Mr. Masefield hadprovided was essential if they were to go in the rightdirection.

It was difficult to see how, in the face of theappalling development costs which had been men-tioned, action could ever be justified when ordersfor only 20 or 30 machines could be envisaged.Lord Douglas had shown that British types of civilaircraft were rarely used in more than 40's or 50's,and that had to be accepted as one of the factsof life in this country. It was not good business tomake only 40 or 50 aircraft, and if only ten wereto be ordered the position would be much worse.

The British aircraft industry liked to be fairlyindependent, and would wish to be more indepen-dent of the official godmother than was possible inthe circumstances. They had to recognise, however,the need for Government support. The excellentexport figures achieved since the War had all beenbased on that nice lower part of the iceberg repre-senting home orders, the Meteors and Vampires andCanberras, and even some of their civil exports hadbeen at least indirectly assisted in the same sort ofway. But that help had now been cut short and itwould be necessary to ask for more rather than lessGovernment support for the few projects whichremained, especially if the numbers were to be verysmall.

Prestige was all very well, but it could beexpensive, and practical considerations had to betaken into account as well as honour and glory. Theindustry had 80,000 skilled people to maintain inemployment. It was not just an industrial problemof the industry being paid enough for its developmentwork to get its money back; it was also a nationalproblem of employment and exports. There was onlya limited amount of money available to pay foremployment, from which come exports, defence andprestige; prestige should be regarded as a "freeissue ", deriving from the other things, and should notbe regarded as the primary objective.

Sir Claude Pelly had mentioned three new typesof aircraft — the T.S.R.2; a medium-range freighter;and a large long-range freighter — which mightslightly revive the aircraft industry, but it was hardto see how any but the third would lead to exportorders to provide employment for a long time onproduction as distinct from development.

With this rather sad picture before the industry,Mr. Masefield had performed a valuable service byraising the whole subject of the supersonic transport.The cost of £300,000,000 for developing supersonicaircraft was one factor to bear in mind, but therewere others. Work on this supersonic aircraft woulduse up far too large a proportion of the industry'stechnical man-power. There was not in this countrythe know-how which was available to the Americans,who had aircraft today which were cruising at M:2.The British aircraft industry would have to acquirethat know-how by some means or other if it were toproduce M:3 transport aircraft. It could not be donewithout grave danger of failure, and they could notafford to fail in a matter of this kind.

Mr. Petter thought, therefore, that Mr. Masefieldwas right, and that a thorough inquiry had to beundertaken. They must not be rushed for politicalreasons into a decision of such magnitude, involving

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not oniy technical and financial but very importantemployment and export considerations, because itmight, in effect, stop work in what could be veryfruitful fields. There must be a wholly independenttechnical consideration of the problem on more prac-tical lines than anything done so far. Mr. Masefieldhad pointed out the desirability, if the project weretaken up, of a higher speed than those recommendedby the Committee set up by the Ministry of Supply,and people concerned with business, finance andproduction must consider these vital points and studythe whole matter thoroughly before the countrylaunched out on an undertaking which might bebeyond its resources, when compared with those ofthe United States and of Russia. That was a personalopinion.

The collaboration with the United States whichhad been suggested was worth considering. It mighttake many forms.

What alternatives were there in the developmentof the small general aircraft and in the militaryaircraft field ? Why should not an attempt be made todevelop an up-to-date Bristol Freighter with asimple form of turbo-prop engine? There should bea demand for such a type in the Commonwealth andin newly-developing countries elsewhere. There mightalso be a demand for a small Naval fighter. Thiscountry had sold four or five small aircraft carriers tocountries, some in the Commonwealth, threatened bysubversion, the cold war and local hot wars, but thosecarriers were languishing because there was not asmall, up-to-date swept-wing fighter which couldfly on and off their decks. Britain might make money,and play a useful role in helping to keep the worldfree, by meeting that need, even if it was not a largeone.

In the last few years, Mr. Petter had travelled agood deal, in the Commonwealth in particular, andhe knew that there was a very real fear in thosecountries that Britain, by trying to stay in the " bigleague," might leave them high and dry so far asprovision for their more limited and less expensiveneeds were concerned. It was worth consideringwhether the British aircraft industry could not putsome of its eggs in that basket, not only for prestigeof the kind that mattered but also from practicalmotives.

He felt that Mr. Masefield had presented a mostvaluable Paper. Mr. Masefield had quoted the Bookof Common Prayer, and Mr. Petter wished to do soas well and to express the hope that the Paper wouldenable them to avoid the pitfalls of doing thosethings which they ought not to do, and of leavingundone those things which they ought to have done.

Mr. Masefield expressed general agreement withMr. Petter's remarks. On the particular question ofwhat ought to be done, he said that certainly, asLord Douglas had pointed out, there was a real fieldfor a Viscount Replacement; the world wanted one,even if B.E.A. and B.O.A.C. did not. There was alsothe old and succulent chestnut of the DC-3 Replace-

ment, and moves were being made there. Therecould also be, as had been suggested, a new examina-tion of ways of getting costs down. On analysis hebelieved it would be found that the cheapest way ofcarrying people relatively short distances, though itwas unfashionable, was by the use of two large, well-tried piston engines, unpressurised. If it were possibleto sell an aeroplane of that sort and the public wouldride in it, that would be the cheapest way of flyingtoday. But would it sell?

The French aircraft industry provided an exampleof some of the things that Mr. Petter had mentioned;they had had a few striking successes in a limitedfield and it might be worth looking at the sort ofapproach which they had adopted. Mr. Masefieldbelieved that there would be a real demand for alight aeroplane which would be a sort of "Jaguarcar in the air," and that the R.A.F. could well spenda little money on a communication aeroplane of thatkind. There was a great deal that could be done.Some of it might not be very sophisticated, but itwould provide work, and work was what they allneeded.

Mr. E. Turner (Chairman and ManagingDirector, Blackburn & General Aircraft Ltd.) con-gratulated Mr. Masefield on his Paper and said hewas beginning to think that, almost for the first time,there were signs of a certain amount of agreement inthe industry. Often it was found that the variouscompanies disagreed so violently that it wasimpossible for the industry to have a policy, but heagreed wholeheartedly with almost everything {in thePaper. He felt, however, that it did not do sufficientjustice to the aero engine side. The aero enginebusiness was still about 40% of the total business ofthe industry.

Mr. Masefield had referred to the divergencebetween high speed and high cost on the one handand medium speed and low cost on the other, andthere was a divergence on the aero engine side aswell. The engine makers would be keener than mostof the airframe makers to see the development ofsupersonic transport, because they were willing tosell their engines to the Americans or to anyone else.Below the supersonic level, where the great futureof the British industry would probably lie, we hadan advantage compared with the U.S.A. in our muchlower labour costs, and if we could produce an air-craft in quantities comparable with those common inAmerica, we could beat the Americans. It would notbe possible to get those quantities in the field ofsupersonic aircraft, which was perhaps another reasonfor concentrating on the lower-cost, lower-farebusiness; but it was worth saying, in the presence ofLord Douglas, that until it was possible to get somereal economics into aviation generally and have asuitable fare differential, however cheaply Britishproduction engineers could produce aircraft whichwere cheap to operate there would be no market forthem, so long as the passenger had to be chargedthe same amount for travelling in a Ford Zephyr ashe paid for travelling in a Rolls-Royce.

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Mr. Masefield accepted the criticism of the Paperlor its treatment of the aero engine side of thebusiness. He had tried, he said, to be general ratherthan specific there, but he had in mind two BristolGentaurus engines as the cheapest way of carrying100 people, and he thought that if this country didcome to collaborate with the United States on asupersonic aeroplane, British engines might be partof that collaboration. With the rest of what Mr.Turner had said he entirely agreed.

Professor E. J. Richards, M.A., B.Sc, F.R.Ae.S.{University of Southampton) said it struck him thatnot sufficient emphasis had been laid on thewhole problem of increasing the domestic market inthis country. There was always a tendency in aviationmatters to look abroad and to assume that there wasnot likely to be a large development of domesticaviation; but, looking at other products of thiscountry, we sold motor cars abroad because therewas such a large sale for them here, and we soldwhisky abroad because in the past so much had beendrunk here. It was important, therefore, to seewhether or not the domestic market for civil air-craft could be extended.

In that connection, he felt that there was a newand revolutionary step which could make a bigdifference, namely, the successful automatic landingand take-off achievements of this country. Aviationhere had been hindered partly by the short distancesinvolved but mainly, he thought, by the weather.With automatic landing and take-off there was goodreason to try to expand the domestic services to avery large degree. He would like to know whetheror not the extent to which the domestic services couldbe enlarged was in fact greater and whether, forinstance, the development of air travel over distancessuch as London to Manchester had such promisingpossibilities that it would, like the consumption ofwhisky, open the door to greater exports, in this caseof small civil aircraft. Had that been looked into?It seemed an important matter to investigate. Therewas a good deal of talk of putting satellites into spaceand building M:3 aeroplanes, but at a lower levelthere might be a good market which was beingneglected.

Mr. Masefield agreed, but thought the questionwas more one for Lord Douglas to answer. He wasdelighted to see that B.E.A. had specified automaticlanding for the D.H.121. The real problem presentedby the domestic services, however, was that they wereso expensive as a result of the tax on fuel whichapplied to flying within this country, and the veryhigh costs of short haul. With automatic landing,however, it would be possible, as Professor Richardshad said, to overcome that other great obstacle tothe development of domestic air services, irregularityin the Winter. It had been Mr. Masefield's experiencein his B.E.A. days (and he felt sure that it musthave happened in the past Winter) that an early

foggy period killed traffic for the rest of the Winter,because people were frightened off until the Spring,if that difficulty were overcome there should be muchgreater development of domestic air travel, and hehoped and believed that that would happen.

He felt that if only it were possible to get a small" executive transport" aeroplane flying in thiscountry great use would be made of it, but it wasnecessary to get the Government to realise theimportance of such a development. The attitude ofmind which had led to the closing of Groydonaerodrome, which a few years ago had had moremovements than London Airport, did not help thisdevelopment. It should be made clear that thismarket could be important to British industry in thefuture. It was a market which should be developed.

Lord Douglas of Kirtleside (Chairman, B.E.A.)agreed up to a point with what Professor Richardshad said but pointed out that the big problem wasthe short distance of the internal routes. Withhardly any exceptions B.E.A. did not make a profiton any run under 250 miles; for instance theybarely broke even on the London-Paris route, wherethere were a great many passengers, because thedistance was so short. With a short run there wasthe whole business of landing fees, getting thepassengers from the airport to the aircraft andputting them on board, and so on, and thesame at the other end, so that it was difficult tomake the fare cover the cost. That, he thought,was the main obstacle, though he agreed that auto-matic landing would make some improvement.

Mr. A. Vines, A.F.R.Ae.S., A.M.I.Prod.E. (Pro-duction Director, Fairey Aviation Ltd) referred toone matter about which not much was said in thetwo stimulating Papers which had been presented.They were now looking six or seven years ahead.Anyone who had travelled by road from Londonto Southampton that morning would probably havefollowed a long string of enormous lorries creepingalong the road. The railways had failed to providea satisfactory service for goods; had they done so,there would not be so many lorries in use. Beforelong the roads would become completely congestedwith lorries and it would be necessary to take tothe air for internal short-haul transport.

If there was to be efficient transport inside thecountry, and there was no alternative to the air forthat transport, it would be necessary to provide anefficient transport service to other countries. LordDouglas said in his Paper that the aircraft industryof today would have to replace the shipbuildingindustry of former decades which built thousands oftramp steamers to deliver goods made in thiscountry all over the world. At present the main airlines did not seem keen on delivering big consign-ments of goods over long distances, but it wasnecessary to have a really efficient transport systemfor heavy as well as small goods, and it seemed

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probable that there was an enormous market waitingto be opened up for the efficient transport of goodsnot only inside this country or inside Europe, butcovering the whole world. Such a service wouldrequire not 10 or 20 aeroplanes but hundreds, andpossibly thousands.

A comparison of railway goods stations withpassenger stations would give an idea of what wouldbe required; there might be 50 runways with hundredsof freighters coming in and with short-haul planesto deliver the goods to the place of use. It shouldthen be possible to show the world how to dealwith the transport of goods.

Mr. Masefield said that domestically it mightbe a question of motorways as against internal airtransport. He was not sure which would cost less.The market for air freight existed if the cost couldbe brought down. It was a question of cost per ton-mile. If the cost per ton-mile could be brought below,say, one shilling, there would be a tremendous fieldfor development. But freight would not pay highton-mile costs unless for special items such as goldor racehorses; for the "common or garden" stuff,it did not matter whether the transport time wastwo hours or 200 so long as the transport was cheap.At the moment air transport had not got the costsright, partly because it had gone after " speed atany price " and the aircraft industry had not beenasked to produce a low cost aeroplane. If they wereasked to produce an aeroplane which would carry30 tons for 1,000 miles at the lowest possible cost,he believed that it would be possible to get down tothe right figures. But they had never been asked todo it or been given an order on that basis. That wasa challenge to the operators.

Mr. Vines pointed out that the aircraft industryhad never advertised the fact that they could do it.He felt sure that the machine tool industry wouldgain enormously if it were able to ship its machinescomplete. Almost every machine from Europe camein with all the electrics corroded and unusable. Theaircraft industry should sell the idea of freight trans-port by air.

Mr. Masefield agreed.

The Rt. Hon. the Earl of Halsbury (Presidentof the Institution) asked Mr. Masefield to elaborateon the concept of very fast aeroplanes doing a shuttleservice across the North Atlantic, so that only fourwere necessary. How would that fit the physiologicalrequirements of passengers? No one would want topay a premium with his firm's money in order to getup in the middle of the night or go to bed justbefore breakfast. Flying west the aeroplane wouldbeat the clock and there might be a uniform loading,but flying east there would be a heavy peak loadof people who wanted to leave at two o'clock in theafternoon and arrive in London at ten o'clock local

time. It seemed, therefore, that the load would bepeaked at one end and spread at the other.

Mr. Masefield, agreeing with Lord Halsbury,remarked that it had been said that the only way toget full utilisation of a supersonic aeroplane was tokeep on going West. If one went from London toNew York, San Francisco, Sydney and so back toLondon it was fine, because one arrived everywherein time for breakfast. One reason why it would bedifficult to make the supersonic aeroplane pay wasthat the utilisation would inevitably be lower thanwith an aeroplane taking longer on the journey, andthe supersonic aeroplane would spend more time onthe ground. A supersonic aeroplane carrying 150passengers and making three round trips a daywould suffer from the fact that no one would want totravel between midnight and 4 a.m., and the presentdifficulty in securing good utilisation of the seatswould be multiplied many times by high speed.

He believed that when they examined theeconomics of the problem they would be horrified.He did not believe that pre-production costs of£300,000,000 could be written off. Somebody hadto pay that cost, and the air transport operatorswould probably be asked to do so.

There were other problems, of which one wasnoise. It would be necessary also to climb up35,000 ft. subsonic before becoming supersonic, whichagain would affect the utilisation of such aeroplanes.

Air Vice-Marshal G. R. C. Spencer, C.B.,G.B.E. (Technical Liaison Officer, Wm. Jessop &Sons Ltd.) asked how, if only a few M:3 aircraftwould be required, it would be possible to justify themanufacture of the 100 needed in order to make acommercial profit.

Mr. Masefield replied that it could not be done,and that was why he thought it unlikely that thisproject would come about. It should be examinedfrom the wider aspect, because it would be foolish tosay that they would not embark upon it because itwas too difficult or expensive without being surethat all sides of it had been examined; but his pointwas that if there was a production of only 10, andthey cost £30,000,000 each, they would not con-stitute an effective output from the production pointof view for this country, or from the design pointof view or from the operating point of view. Thusit might be found that the supersonic aeroplane wasnot worth doing. He did not want to be dogmaticabout it before it had been examined in all its aspects.They did not want to rule themselves out of the" big league" until they were sure that the " bigleague " was not for them.

The Chairman, on behalf of the Institution andof everyone present, thanked Mr. Masefield for hisPaper, and the Conference then adjourned until thefollowing day.

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