This is the period for a decision, Pan American feels. Serious consideration will be given anyone offering to build a jet transport in terms of "an outright offer or business deal" with cost and delivery indicated. To date, no one has offered. As early as 1945, PAA had proposals of its own for a commercial jet transport, which it discussed with American manufacturers. Today the company has further developed its idea of what it wants. As vice president Franklin Gledhill puts it: "We feel the best designers in the business are in the aircraft factories. Our business is to provide them with the operational requirements, and we are busy doing so." PAA feels that a specification for a United States-built jet transport will be the result of mutual airline-manufacturer cooperation. As things stand today PAA officials have an open mind on several major design issues, issues which represent the basic differences in jet transport designs submitted for discussion. The airline has looked with interest on the three major designs now being discussed in the United States but still awaits a "business deal" on any one of them. One important criterion, Gledhill feels, is that the aircraft be as near to conventional design as practicable. Certain major innovations will be required, such as swept wings, leading edge slats, and even parachutes for emergency-braking use on landing. PAA might be prepared to adopt some of these features, but feels at present that the pilot should not be further loaded down by such items as the bicycle-type landing gear, tricky wing designs, further cockpit complexity, etc. Some of the key factors, as PAA now sees them : Top cruising speeds in the Mach .85 to Mach .95 range, as contrasted with those under .80 for the present Comet. Pressurization provisions for 8,000-foot cabin altitude at 50,000-foot operating altitude. This calls for 9.2 pounds per square inch pressure differential. Low-wing design. Flexibility in passenger arrangements, allowing for PAA-type sleeperette accommodations for 50 to 60 passengers, with rapid change-over provisions for a tourist-type, high-density interior, as in PAA's Douglas DC-6B's. Keeping fuel out of the fuselage, including keeping it out of the wing center-. section if possible. Operation without engine after-burners, although some other type boosting which doesn't present as serious a noise problem may be acceptable. Operation on heavy fuel, possibly on No. 2 fuel oil, as used in domestic oil burners, or marine Diesel oil. Pan American's basic desire is to get a jet transport which will fly the North Atlantic nonstop. The Comet, even in the Avon-powered version, will not serve this route as a practical operation without two fueling stops, westbound, according to PAA's calculations. Unfortunately, early United States designs do not yet show promise of practical nonstop operation, although designs are now aimed at this objective. NEW TRAVELER ON AN OLD CONTINENT Starting May 2 British Overseas Airways Corp. will operate one round trip weekly between London and Johannesburg, Africa, with De Havilland Comets, the first scheduled passenger operation in turbojet aircraft. Flight time for the 6,724-mile flight is 18 hours, 40 minutes. The plane will carry 36 passengers, 4 operational crew members, and 2 cabin attendants. By June this schedule will be boosted to three trips weekly. Initially the flight will operate via Beirut, but later this will be changed to a Cairo stop, cutting 450 miles off the flight. Performance here will be controlled largely by the engines. Engines rated in the 12,000- to 15,000-pound-thrust category appear to fill the need. However, to be successful in commercial operation, the engine must be developed with the Engine location is still a debatable issue. The pod appears to offer the best characteristics as regards maintenance accessibility, isolation of engines in the event of fire, or mechanical problems which might otherwise spread. It would appear particularly necessary to study the effect a pod might have in upsetting the aircraft in the event of a water ditching. FUSELAGE-BURIED Pan Am looks on the fuselage-buried engines as providing more advantageous noise levels in the cabin if located behind the passenger cabin. While the pod advocates claim that asymmetric control problems in the event of an engine failure are taken account of in other respects, the fuselage-buried engines provide complete assurance that no such problem will exist, the airline feels. There is considerable question in PAA's view as to the merits of these side-by-side engines as regards fire protection and isolation in the event of mechanical problems although it is realized that such problems can be controlled by careful design. It is interesting to note that Pan American prefers either of these engine proposals advocated by American designers to the wing-buried engine installations practiced abroad. MULTIENGINE Still in the formative stage is an idea that a multiengine jet transport which would be certificated for passenger-carrying service with less than the full number of engines in operation would be advantageous. Commercial engines of 12,000 pounds thrust might cost in the neighborhood of $150,000 each in development, but in commerical production it is hoped that this would be sharply reduced, according to present trends. This high cost will make the spare-engine problem at outlying stations critical. Inherent in any jet design would be a large surplus of power. Thus, if an aircraft were designed and certificated with the idea that, in the event of an engine failure, it could still be operated with passengers it would offer new operational flexibility. This would undoubtedly call for lower gross weights on such flights, to insure sufficient performance margins if even another engine should fail, but would do away with the spare-engine requirements at remote stations. In other words, the airplane would carry its own spares. Some other considerations which control Pan American's jet-transport concept: Window size should be smaller to minimize weight and structure problems asociated with high levels of pressurization. Exits and doors will have to be of the inward-opening variety, also because of pressurization requirements. Landing speeds should not greatly exceed those of conventional aircraft in present use (the highest stall speed now is 105 mph). Fuel gaging, quantity and flow, will be critical. This will require high-quality, capacitance-type fuel gages. Engines should be provided with both shutters and screens. The screens will be manually or automatically operated to insure against foreign matter entering the engine during take-off, landing, or ground operation. The shutters will be used to reduce drag during engine-out operation. Submered antenna will be mandatory. JET SCHOOLING Pan American is not merely talking its requirements. PAA pilots and engineers have gone to school at the turbine engine factories. Several PAA officers and officials, including Trippe, have flown in and observed the operation of different types of turbine-powered transports. Only recently, as a result of the mutual interchange of technical aid with British Overseas Airways, two of PAA's top maintenance and operations experts, Bill Taylor and Capt. Scott Flower, spent several weeks in London with BOAC's Comet units in a detailed study of Comet operation. Pan American admires the work that BOAC and the British manufacturers have done, and additional visits are scheduled. EQUIPMENT PROGRAM Some PAA experts are concerned over the tendency to keep adding to and retaining things in the airplane, including some items which have been made obsolete by operational procedures but which continue to require pilot attention. This is true both in conventional and turbine aircraft. Consequently PAA will soon set up a program to evaluate every item of equipment in the aircraft, determine the need for each unit, its suitability for the job required, and related factors. Some units may be removed, others added. These changes will be reflected for the first time in the company's jet-transport purchase, when it comes. How FAST CAN WE BUILD United States manufacturers can build more advanced turbine transport than the British, but there is no known short cut for delivering production aircraft according to officials of the Boeing Airplane Co. Labeling the production-schedule concept of Congress, the airlines, and the general public as false, Boeing officials set the following schedule as a realistic one, and then only if there is full cooperation from the military in making engines, materials, and accessories available: Development of detail. Specification of mock-up, 9 months. Boeing feels that there will probably never be another advanced turbinepowered transport, nor even a local-service aircraft, manufactured in the United States without Government support. The CHAIRMAN. Admiral D. C. Ramsey. STATEMENT OF ADMIRAL DE WITT C. RAMSEY, UNITED STATES NAVY (RETIRED), PRESIDENT, AIRCRAFT INDUSTRIES ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA, INC. The CHAIRMAN. Admiral Ramsey, we wrote, as you may know, to many of the aircraft companies with respect to this problem which is before us, and we received answers from 11 of them. I suppose you are familiar with those letters. Admiral RAMSEY. I do not know as I have seen all the letters. I have seen from the manufacturers of transport-type airframes, but I don't think I have seen all the others, sir. The CHAIRMAN. We will put the letters in at the end of your testimony. I think that would be fairer to you, if you haven't gone over each of them. You may proceed, Admiral. Admiral RAMSEY. This statement is made on the prototype question. I am Admiral DeWitt C. Ramsey, United States Navy, retired, president of the Aircraft Industries Association of America, Inc. I would like to speak particularly for those companies of Aircraft Industries Association identified with the development and production of commercial-type transports. I feel that the views of these companies reflect all-important aspects of industry opinion on this matter. Cognizance of Senate bills 2344, 477, 481, and 1402 has been taken by the companies concerned in the preparation of their state ments. Statement by William M. Allen, president, Boeing Airplane Co.: The Boeing Co. believes that the Government can be of assistance in connection with the particularly problem of turbine-powered transport development-which still has some unsolved technical questions connected with it-in two ways: (a) By assisting the airplane designers in obtaining access to data which accumulates from the testing and operation of turbine-type aircraft, military (b) By helping to arrange for experimental scheduled operation on a United States commercial airline, using a small number of existing turbine-type aircraft modified for commercial operation. The Boeing Co. is of the opinion that a practical solution would lie in the purchase of prototypes fully paid for by the Government and purchase of production airplanes paid for by the user with Government assistance. Contracts should be in accordance with provisions following accepted military contract practices. An existing agency should be used as the procurement agency for any prototype purchased by the Government. No new agency should be created. Government funds for the over-all program should be provided or appropriated by Congress separately and distinctly from any other Government appropriations, and so maintained. Statement by Joseph T. McNarney, president, Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corp.: Convair, of course, recognizes that the prime motivation of any aircraft company is to develop and produce such aircraft as will best serve the national interest. The growing awareness of the need for better integration of the commercial transport system into the military Reserve is leading to the close cooperation of the military, the airlines, and the aircraft manufacturers in the development of new transport specifications. Convair is interested in any action or legislation that will further the national and the public interest in this regard. However, Convair believes that the most effective means by which the Government can further the development of new commercial prototypes is to first concentrate on gathering the data, through operational tests, which is a prerequisite to the establishment of design parameters. Therefore, it is Convair's considered judgment that Public Law 867 should first be implemented by the provision of necessary funds to permit the testing of some appropriate jet aircraft already in existence. Only after the results of such tests have been carefully analyzed, can the next step logically be determined. Statement by Donald W. Douglas, president, Douglas Aircraft Co., Inc.: The Douglas Co. would not have been able to start the design of a jet transport before now regardless of how many millions of dollars might have been made available to us by the Government for that purpose. There has been one controlling factor all along which has prevented our going ahead regardless of other factors. That is the question of engines. We are completely dependent upon the military to develop these, of course, and it will not be until 1956 or 1957 that jet engines will reach the stage of development satisfactory for commercial use; in fact, it may be longer. We at Douglas would not wish to bring out a jet transport the cost of operation of which was higher than contemporary piston-type transports, and I think this attitude is fairly general among our competitors. Not until 1956 or 1957 will the specific fuel consumption and the engine weight per pound of thrust for available jet engines reach the stage that would yield a satisfactory commercial operating cost figure. What we have had to do has been to watch the engine picture very carefully and time our actions accordingly. This has now reached the point where it is logical for us to go ahead in an orderly fashion with the design of a jet transport because, if we assume that nothing in the international situation or elsewhere interferes with the orderly progress of the work, it will take about the same amount of time to reach the prototype stage as it will take to get the engines. We could not have done it sooner and we are not going to delay it regardless of the absence of Government assistance. We do not want Government assistance because it inevitably carries with it limitations, controls, and influences which make it more difficult to do the job the way we know it has to be done. We are just as anxious as Congress, if not more so, to keep foreign competition from getting ahead of us, but we are not too seriously worried about the competition. As things stand, it will probably make some inroads but, unless we are handicapped by future events we cannot now foresee or unless the British do a more outstanding job of detail design and of production than appears at all likely, they will not capture a very large proportion of the market before we get into it and have available something which is a marked step ahead of them. 20732-52-6 |