BRITISH CIVIL AIRCRAFT

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25766, 30 March 1949, Page 5

BRITISH CIVIL AIRCRAFT

REPLY TO MR NASH’S COMMENT “STATEMENT RECEIVED WITH ASTONISHMENT ” (Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) (Rec. 8.30 p.m.) LONDON, March 29. “Mr iSasn’s statement in Auckland, expressing douots whetner Great Britain will ever produce airliners as good as those designed and uuilt in the United b cates has been received by the British aircraft industry with astonishment and quiet confidence that Mr Nash will be proved very wrong indeed,” said Mr Edward C. Bowyer, director of the Society of British Aircraft Constructors, to-day. Mr Bowyer was commenting on a statement by the Minister of finance (Mr Nash) at Auckland on February 22. Mr Nash spoke at a ceremony held by British Commonwealth Pacific Airlines to mark the departure of a new DC6 aircraft on the first northbound flight of the faster British Pacific service.

Mr Nash, in his address, expressed doubt whether Britain could overtake the United States in the production of transport aircraft. He said that Britain had got behind during the war, when she was developing other types of aeroplanes for war work. Tnere was, he said, a story that in a year or two Britain could be ahead, but he did not know whether she could catch up with Skymasters, Constellations, and DC6’s.

American Opinions “Perhaps Mr Nasn s best course would be to consult the better-in-idrmed American airline operators and aircraft manufacturers for their opinion of what they have heard aoout some of the new types of British airliners which will be flying within the next year or two, and will be in operation on the world’s airlines from 1951 onwards,” Mr Bowyer continued.

“He would find that they by no means despise the potentialities of such aircraft as the de Havilland Comet (designed to fly from London to New Zealand, including all stops, in 40 hours), the Vickers viscount (the world’s first turbo-propeller airliner), the large twin-engined Airspeed Ambassador (better than anything the Americans can offer in its field), the Handley Page Hermes IV, which greatly impressed experts at the display by the Society of British Aircraft Construction last September, and the smaller four-engined Marathon, perhaps the most efficient feeder-line aircraft in existence.

“In addition, he would find that the Americans are watching with considerable interest the development of the very large Bristol Brabazon landplane and the Saunders Roe, a 45-pas-senger. 10-engined flying-boat, and regard them as bold and purposeful advances in the technique of building large airliners which may revolutionise long-range air transport. “Information Out of Date” “Mr Nash’s information is obviously out of date. I would like Jo invite him, if he could spare the time, to fill a serious gap in his knowledge by a visit to the society’s display and exhibition, which we intend to hold again in September this year. He would be very welcome. lam sure he would see more than enough to convince him that the Old Country has still a lot to give the world in the air transport field, and, if he comes to England. I shall be prepared to make a small bet with him that, within the next four years, he will have radically changed his mind.

“I wish our friends overseas would now forget the old familiar apologia about our being too busy building fighters and bombers during the war to make any progress in civil aircraft. It still remains perfectly true, but that is all in the distant past. The British aircraft industry nowadays expects to be judged only on the competitive merits of its products.” Mr Bowyer visited New Zealand to investigate aviation problems early in 1948. He met most of the leading personalities in New Zealand aviation, but he did not meet Mr Nash.