PROTOTYPE AIRCRAFT DEVELOPMENT

THURSDAY, MAY 11, 1950

UNITED STATES SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AVIATION OF THE

COMMITTEE ON INTERSTATE AND FOREIGN COMMERCE,

Washington, D. C.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to adjournment, at 10:05 a. m., in the committee room, United States Capitol Building, Senator Edwin C. Johnson (chairman) presiding.

Present: Senators Johnson, Brewster, and Williams.

The CHAIRMAN. The hearing will please come to order.

First is Mr. A. B. McMullen.

Mr. MCMULLEN. Mr. Snow is representing us, Mr. Crocker Snow. The CHAIRMAN. Oh, yes. All right, Mr. Snow.

STATEMENT OF CROCKER SNOW, REPRESENTING NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF STATE AVIATION OFFICIALS

Mr. SNOW. My name is Crocker Snow, and I represent the National Association of State Aviation Officials, which is made up of the aeronautics departments of 43 States and 2 Territories.

We are very grateful for this opportunity to present our views to you on Senate 2984.

I would like, first, to qualify ourselves. We operate State airports and airplanes. We plan, supervise, and in many cases contribute funds toward the development of municipal and commercial airports. Where State channeling is in effect, we administer the Federal Airport Act for the States.

We establish and enforce safety regulations which pertain to flying operations within the States.

We conduct programs of air-age education, and we are generally responsible for all of the aeronautical administrative and development activities of the several States.

Since time immemorial, mankind has wanted to fly, not just for military destruction, which he has accomplished to an alarming degree, not only as one of many passengers in a scheduled airliner over a predetermined route which he can do with great efficiency to every corner of the inhabited world, but most of all by himself or with his family and friends for pleasure or business.

In February 1946 the magazine Fortune, in an article entitled "New Planes for Personal Flying," recognized this, and it begins:

Like many Americans, you may have assumed that because of the progress made in military aviation, private flying would be easier and cheaper after the war-and that when it was easy enough and cheap enough, you would learn to fly. Now, 6 months after VJ-day, you are ready to shop around, to sample the promised millennium of fewer training hours, easier flight tests, foolproof planes, and lower prices.

On most of your assumptions you are right. Two major events in personal flying, which make important news for both the beginner and the experienced pilot, are occurring this year. The first is the appearance in sizable numbers of spin-proof and spin-resistant airplanes, some of which have simplified controls that make flying easier and quicker to learn. The other event is that large aircraft companies with military experience are building planes for the personal market and are beginning to break down the high costs that have always palgued the industry * *

In the same year, the Saturday Evening Post published the results of an aviation survey which represented interviews with adults of both sexes from all walks of life and from cities and towns in each of the States.

Thirty-two percent of the people queried, with no marked variation between those of differing income or occupation, said that when private planes became available they would like to own one.

Seven percent of the total said that they were definitely planning to buy a plane; and 95 percent of those questioned intended to use for pleasure, and 71 percent intended to use it for business.

It was not just the editors of Fortune and the Saturday Evening Post that felt that way. Practically all of Government, the aviation industry, the investing public, and even a large New York department store, reached the same conclusions.

After all, 7 percent of the adult population of the United States represented a pretty sizable market. Federal and State airport plans were predicated upon the great increase in flying activity of all sorts.

Now, what happened? In 1946, the year of these surveys, 33,000 personal aircraft were built and sold. This number decreased annually and regularly to 3,400 in 1949. If the rate for the first quarter of 1950 is any criterion, there will be less than 3,000 personal aircraft manufactured and sold in 1950, more than a thousand percent decline in 5 years.

During the same period, automobile production increased from 2 to over 5 million cars a year.

Contrast Fortune and the Saturday Evening Post of 1946, with an article that appeared in the Washington Star of March 5, this year, entitled, "Promised Boom in Private Flying Fails to Come Off."

It starts out with something that I am sure will be familiar to you, as testimony before this committee. The article says:

No phase of aviation has proved more disappointing to everyone concerned in and out of Government than the poor showing of private flying since the war,

This gloomy report was given Congress a few days ago by the man who is empowered and directed by law "to encourage and foster the development of civil aeronautics and air commerce in the United States," D. W. Rentzel, head of the Civil Aeronautics Administration. Along with other high officials of Government agencies dealing with transportation of all kinds, he was called before the House Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee to bring the legislators up to date on this broad subject which has concerned the President, Congress, executive departments and the industry in recent months.

Quoting Mr. Rentzel, this article says:

Personal flying has the potential, to all appearances, of becoming a major industry like that of the automobile, yet since the war, with one-half million trained pilots and general prosperity, it has spiraled downward until only 3,400 private planes were manufactured in 1949.

Gentlemen, this is a matter of national importance or we would not have bothered you with it.

It is of peculiar significance at this time because there is not the slightest doubt in the world that the right kind of a small air vehicle

with an industry to produce it in great quantities and large numbers of people familiar through regular use with its maintenance and operation, could have as profound an effect on military operations as did the development and use of self-propelled ground vehicles.

Without our leadership in jeeps, weasels, ducks, and the many other devices on wheels and tracks that we have, we could never have accomplished either our Pacific or Normandy campaigns.

The next war may well be won by the force that leads in air transport, and air transport does not comprise just large passenger and cargo carriers, any more than military ground transport covers just trains and steamships.

Because of the situation I have described to you which evidenced itself forcibly in the States by the failure of many businesses, and the closing of numerous airports while we, at the same time were building others, the NASAO set out to discover the cause. In a report which I shall leave with you, we have drawn our conclusions from the evidence, and have suggested two specific remedies.

Very briefly, we have found that it is a lack of utility in today's personal airplane that has been the major factor in the great spread between reasonable anticipation and cold reality.

We have become convinced that only a revolutionary machine with a top speed of at least 200 miles an hour, so that it can efficiently buck the strongest headwinds, with a landing and take-off speed of zero, so that it will be completely independent of airports or even prepared landing areas, no matter how small they are, with the ability to slow down to a walking pace in the air to make it safe for anyone to fly in bad weather, and capable of being driven on the highways so that it can carry its passengers to downtown business areas or uptown apartments, only such a combination of characteristics will make of the personal airplane a vehicle of real utility for widespread individual use.

While we have aircraft flying today that will do one or more of these things, and do them well, we have none that even comes close to combining them all. There is not any intention here, incidentally, to be any disparagement of many of the fine products of today's personal and military liaison aircraft manufacturers, which, for certain limited purposes, are ideal.

Now, here is the real crux of the situation in our minds: We have been informed by several eminent aeronautical engineers that such an objective is quite possible of accomplishment using principles understood today if the necessary time and effort is devoted to it.

But we have also been told by many manufacturers and would-be manufacturers, that the cost of the necessary research and development is so great, due in part to cumbersome and impractical Government regulations and the possibility of profit, based upon the anticipated costs, is so small, that private capital will not undertake the job.

We believe that the proper remedies are, one, drastically simplified Federal airworthiness regulations; and, two, Government financing of the required basic research and development by private enterprise. We have already recommended to the Civil Aeronautics Board changes in their airworthiness certification requirements which we think will help.

In working out a plan for Federal financial participation we must set these goals. Our plan should not require a new Federal agency.

It must, to keep costs at a minimum, utilize to the greatest extent possible, existing Federal personnel. It should be administered by those Federal officials most directly concerned with the development and use of small aircraft.

It must provide for participation in policy by representatives of the interested public. It must exclude any government in business; and it should provide for recovery by the Federal Government to the extent practicable of public costs.

Now, we feel that S. 2984, with a few modifications that I shall suggest, meets all these requirements.

It calls for research and development contracts for small aircraft or aircraft components between the Government and private industry, to be directed by the NACA, the Army Field Forces, and the CAA, with the concurrence and advice of representatives of the aircraft industry, private flying, and the public.

The CAA will administer the program, and contracts with Government agencies are specifically barred.

Contractors who profit from their projects are required to repay the Government out of their profits.

We believe that this plan, together with enlightened action by the CAA and the CAB, will give our native inventive ingenuity a free rein to begin to develop what a large proportion of our people want, and what some of our military services urgently need.

Now, the minor changes that I would like to suggest to you, sir, have come up as a result of a study of this bill, as printed.

We would like to suggest these changes, and I will explain why we made them, as I come to each one.

On page 2, line 9, we would like to change the word "authorized" to the word "directed."

That particular section calls for the appointment of an industry advisory committee. We feel that the make-up and authority of that committee is vital to the success of this plan, and we feel that there must be such a committee, not that there may be.

On line 11, we would like to change the word "seven" to "nine.” I will explain the reason afterward.

We believe that there are more organizations than we originally thought that should participate in this plan. If we do that, we will have to change the word "one," the last word on line 11, to "a majority," and we will have to cross out the words "each of four" on line 12. The effect of those changes is to increase the size of the committee to nine members. The other words have to be changed to do it. We would like to change, to clarify the intent, the legislative intent of this law beyond any question of a doubt, we would like to change the wording on line 14, by crossing out the word "aeronautical," and add after "groups" the words "engaged in or having a primary interest in aeronautics.'

It would then read, the end of that sentence, "leading industrial, public, and private groups engaged in or having a primary interest in aeronautics."

Because of the change in number, we will have to cross out the last word on line 15 and the first word on line 16, and change those two words which we cross out to "five of these," instead of "such four."

On line 18 we would like to cross out the word "and," and add at the end after "National Association of State Aviation Officials," "and