All The World’s Aircraft

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31543, 4 December 1967, Page 11

All The World’s Aircraft

<N.Z. Pre** Attn.—Copyright) LONDON, Dec. 3. China would have a significant nuclear missile arsenal by the mid-19705, Jane’s “All the World’s Aircraft” reported. It suggested a United States-Soviet mutual survival pact that would be powerful enough to crush any aggressor. The fifty-eighth annual issue of the authoritative Jane’s predicted that China almost certainly would have nuclear-tipped medium-range ballistic missiles within a year and an Inter-continental ballistic missile capability in tfie early 19705. France also would have a formidable array of missiles, all with nuclear warheads, by the 19705, Jane’s predicted. It was easy to foresee a time when five, six or 16 nations would acquire the superiority complex that the possession of nuclear strike power induces, the editor, John W. R. Taylor, said in a foreword. He noted that in the Mirage, the French already had a swing-wing (or variable geometry) plane under test. Some people, he said, had suggested the French withdrew from the Anglo-French project because they had this plane and did not need another. "There is little substance in such a suggestion,” Taylor observed. “When an international programme appears to be producing the aircraft they want, the French eo-operate wholeheartedly, putting all. their skill and enthusiasm into the project. . . . “It seemed that by- switching to a purely national de-

sign, France would get exactly what it wanted for. its own use at less cost” Taylor said a twin-engined offspring of the Mirage “G” Could be expected in due course, "publicised as being a new plane—llo per cent French—airframe, engine and equipment." While the United States also had a highly mobile tactical air force, Taylor said in an interview, none of the Western Powers seemed keen to develop ait forces on the lines the Soviet Union was adopting. Taylor predicted that France would become the dominant force in European aviation and research. He said the French were likely to design and build an allFrench swing-wing fighter to replace the Anglo-Freneh swing-wing for which France Withdrew support in. June on the grounds of expense. “France, unlike Britain, has an aviation plan and sticks to it,” Taylor wrote; “She is not alone in this.” Advocating a United StatesSoviet mutual survival pact, Taylor said: “This would be a great deal less expensive and far more, effective than the United Nations fire brigade which ran the other way when fire broke out in the Middle East this year.” Jane’s said the- Soviet Union now was concentrating on building a formidable tactical air force that could go anywhere. Jane’s reported the Soviet Union now apparently preferred short take-off and landing aircraft as against vertb ca| take-off and landing piands for its tactical force. Addition of jet-lift engines to other conventional designs provided a practical and economical way of producing specialised tactical units able to fly anywhere and fight anywhere at a moment’s notice, Jane’s noted.