Aircraft Engines

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30626, 17 December 1964, Page 18

Aircraft Engines

Sir, —Pierre Clostermann is quoted in your issue of December 5 as saying, “British civil aero engines are far ahead of American ones.” Does he think our T.E.A.L. engineers did not know what they were doing when they specified Pratt and Witney engines in their DCB’s? Unfortunately for Mr Clostermann’s theories, all other operators of DCB’s and Boeing 707’s seem to be doing the

same as T.E.A.L. When the Boeing 707 and Douglas DCB came into service, a small proportion (about 15 per cent of the total) were fitted with British engines. All airlines which have originally specified these engines have, when reordering new DCB’s and 707’s, specified Pratt and Whitney engines. If British aero engines are so superior to American, why do the two leading British manufacturers, Rolls Royce and Bristol Siddeley, both build American engines under licence?— Yours, etc., PRATT. December 11, 1964.