March 9, 1959

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SPECIFICATIONS

Leading Foreign Aircraft, Military and Civil

ARGENTINA Fabrica Militar de Aviones (Instituto Aerotecnico) Cordoba AUSTRALIA Commonwealth Aircraft Corp Pty., Ltd. Lorimer Street, Port Melbourne, Victoria Fishermen’s Bend, Melbourne, Victoria BELGIUM Avions Fairey S.A. Gosselies

116

Missiles

Missile Gap Flares as Crucial Issue

Los Angeles—The “missile age,” that hypothetical point in time when U. S. retaliatory and defensive capability would depend to a significant extent on unmanned, rocket propelled weapons with electronic brains, came closer in 1958. But it did not arrive.

By Richard Sweeney17 min

258

Foreign

Britain Tailors Industry to New Era

London—Vital new contract for the TSR. II supersonic tactical strike reconnaissance aircraft, imminent orders for a tactical and a strategic freighter, and for second generation helicopters were among a series of fast moving events which helped clarify and improve the confused aeronautical picture in Britain early this year.

By John Tunstall16 min

Military

Usaf Faces Technical, Budget Problems

U. S. Air Force is facing one of the most difficult periods in its history as a combat service. During 1959 it will begin to grapple fully with the problems of integrating basically new weapons—ballistic missiles—into its combat forces while attempting to expand three major lines of technical development in the face of the limitations of a constant-level budget.

By Robert Hotz15 min

274

Foreign

‘algeria First’ Stalls French Air Pace

Paris—Unrealistic government airpower policies continued to plague the French aircraft industry during 1958. “It was a year,” as one company official put it, “that we’d like to forget.” Behind the familiar tale of costly production stretchouts and the near total absence of French NATO airpower loomed the same old problem: Algeria.

By Robert Farrell14 min

Military

Navy Stresses Simplicity, Reliability to Ease Budget Pinch

Washington—Navy, crimped within the restraints of the Administration’s Fiscal 1960 balance-the-budget policy, is spending its dollars cautiously—and in many instances thinly—in an effort to maintain a strategic capability for all-out nuclear war and a tactical capability for limited war.

By Cecil Brownlow13 min

164

Air Transport

Nations Scramble to Fill Bigger Fleets

Airlines throughout the world last year fought with expanded piston fleets for traffic that increased, but at a slower rate, during the interim before the full-scale jet age. Many carriers received the last units of their piston aircraft orders and total capacity offered outran the available traffic, resulting in load factors which in many cases were down, at least to some extent.

174

Manufacturing

Research Scores Gain on Heat Problem

Metallurgists last year registered some of the most significant technical gains of the past quarter-century in the development of high temperature, high strength and light weight materials for the aviation industry. Among the more notable advances were those resulting from the combined military-industry effort to raise the useful operating temperatures of aluminum and magnesium, two of the lightest and best known aircraft structural materials.

By Michael Yaffee12 min

Space Technology

U. S. Hammers Out Integrated Space Plan

Washington—Space exploration within the next year will involve the launching of 30 or more U. S. satellites and space probes to as far away as Venus, and the expenditure of almost a billion dollars. Hardware that will make possible such ambitious missions as landing men on the moon and Mars and returning them to earth already is under development.

By Evert Clark12 min

134

Air Transport

Resurging Trunk Traffic Won’t Be Cure-all

Washington—Prospects that the trunkline industry will return to its historic growth pattern after suffering its first traffic decline in 10 years during 1958 now appear bright. General optimism throughout the industry over the renewed expansion of airline traffic during the next 12 months ranges in forecasts from a 3% increase over 1958’s revenue passenger miles to a 10% rise.

By L. L. Doty12 min

March 21959

March 161959

March 9, 1959

March 9, 1959