The Brabazon I

By IVOR THOMAS*

IT is unfortunate that the Government's decision not to order any production models (that is, models for commercial use) of the great Brabazon I airliner should have come so soon after the abandonment of the East African groundnuts scheme. In fact, the cases are quite different, and the £12,000,000 so far spent on the Brabazon I project has left substantial assets, both tangible and intangible. I do not say that these assets could not have been obtained for a smaller sum, but the project was one which a country aiming at predominance in the air was right to

take up. - The decision has, indeed, come as no surprise to those familiar with the full history of the project, though I have myself always hoped that some.means might be found by which the Brabazon I would carry passengers on scheduled services. As far back as March, 1946, it was made quite clear to the Prime Minister and his colleagues that the potential operators could give no undertaking to put the aircraft into service. There were, however, other aspects of the project besides the needs of commercial aviation ; and I believed then, as I believe now, that these considerations were sufficiently weighty to justify the Government in authorising the completion of two prototype aircraft. There is nevertheless some- thing sad, and perhaps significant, in the abandonment five years after the end of the war of an ambitious project conceived in the days of our embattled greatness. It was in December, 1942, that an inter-departmental committee was appointed under the chairman- ship of Lord Brabazon to prepare outline specifications of the several aircraft types that would be needed for post-war air- transport. It recommended in February, 1943, that work should

be begun immediately on the design of five new types of aircraft, which have subsequently been known as the Brabazon Types I to V. The Brabazon I, which is now commonly but erroneously called " the Brabazon "simpliciter, was to be a landplane capable of doing the journey between London and New York without a stop, and therefore needing a range in still air of 5,000 miles.

I have often wondered whether this first Brabazon committee would have requested this type if they had realised all the implica-

tions. I have a strong suspicion that they were thinking in terms

of an aircraft rather larger than the present Stratocruiser, and not one more than twice as big. At that time B.O.A.C. thought that

an aircraft capable of flying non-stop between London and New

York would have an all-up weight of about 150,000 lb., and would carry twenty-five passengers. But the Bristol Aeroplane Company,

to whom the work was entrusted, maintained from the outset that

such an aircraft would need an all-up weight of 250,000 lb. and would be Able to carry seventy passengers westbound and a hundred

eastbound. During the construction, as nearly always happens, the

all-up weight has been raised to 300,000 lb. (over 130 tons). No runways or hangars in use during the war were capable of taking

an aircraft of such dimensions, and the need to construct at Fitton

a runway of the requisite bearing strength 2,750 yards long and 100 yards wide, together with an assembly-shed 1,045 feet long (capable of housing the ' Queen Mary' comfortably), has added vastly to the cost. Nevertheless, the Government decided in March, 1946, although no guarantee of civil operational use could be given, to authorise the completion of two prototypes for the Ministry of Supply (the first to be powered with eight Bristol Centaurus piston engines and the second with eight Bristol Proteus gas-turbine engines driving propellers) together with the runway (involving the demoli- tion of a village where Mr. Bevin had played as a child) and the assembly shed.

Since Mr. A. J. Pegg, the chief test pilot of the Bristol company,

* Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation, 194546. took the vast but graceful body of the first prototype into the air on September 4th, 1949, all doubts about the technical qualities of the aircraft have been silenced. In a demonstration at London Airport last year he handled it as though it were an Auster. There is no reason to doubt that the gas-turbine Version, now scheduled to fly in September, 1952, will be equally successful. But the operators must take economic as well as technical considerations into account. The purpose behind the aircraft is to fly non-stop between London and New York ; but is there any real reason why we should do the journey non-stop ? The aircraft was intended to be a Queen Mary' of the air and to gain the " blue riband " of the Atlantic ; but cannot prestige be bought too dearly ? Would not the capital investment be better spent on several medium-sized machines making one or two intermediate stops ? If a non-stop flight is desired, would it not be better achieved by the refuelling in flight of a smaller aircraft off Ireland and Newfoundland ? If speed is the criterion, and not simply the vaunt of a non-stop journey, will the Brabazon I cruising without a stop at 350 miles an hour (in the gas-turbine version) be really much faster than the Brabazon 1V (the De Havilland Comet) cruising at 490 miles an hour and making two stops ? Is it not tempting fortune to have so many passengers in one aircraft ? As there are few aerodromes in the world that can accept an aircraft of this weight and size what will happen if an emergency landing has to be made ?

These are big questions, but the determining factor has been that of cost. It may seem strange that B.O.A.C. was represented on the second Brabazon committee, which laid down a detailed specification for the aircraft, was consulted at all stages with regard to the lay- out and has had a permanent representative at Filton for that pur- pose, and yet has been under no obligation to accept the aircraft ; but it would have been even more indefensible not to have con- sulted B.O.A.C. or to have required B.O.A.C. to purchase pro- duction models without some knowledge of what their cost would be, especially when the Corporation was under attack for the size of its deficit. B.O.A.C. would need three aircraft to maintain a commercial service across the Atlantic. Probably not even the most rigorous economic purist would suggest that B.O.A.C. should bear not only the cost of building these three machines, but the cost of the two prototypes, the runway and the assembly-shed, amounting in all to perhaps £21,000,000 or £7,000,000 for each aircraft! It would seem reasonable for the Government to bear the cost of the prototypes, the runway and the assembly-shed. But could a com- mercial operator afford to pay even the bare cost of construction of the production aircraft, say £3,000,000 each ? Clearly not. I have always hoped that a round figure of £1,000,000 might be agreed upon as the price to be paid by B.O.A.C., and at that figure it might prove possible to operate the aircraft commercially. There might be objections from other operators that this was subsidisa- tion, but I think they would be sporting enough to regard it as a very special case.

This is not to be, and we have to consider what the country will have obtained for the £15,000,000 ( ?) which will eventually be spent. First of all we shall have the two largest civil landplanes in the world, and they will not be museum pieces, but can be put to many practical uses. Apart from commercial uses, there is the possibility of swiftly moving substantial bodies of troops to distant parts where they may be suddenly needed ; indeed, this aspect is so important that if the aircraft had not been ordered as a civil aviation project, I am inclined to think that the Service chiefs would have felt obliged to request it. (In the United States similar developments are in the hands of the Army.) Secondly, the aircraft industry and the Ministry of Supply have now acquired a valuable corpus of knowledge about the construction and aerodynamical characteristics of very large aircraft. It is difficult to assess the knowledge in terms of money, but in another war it might be regarded as cheaply acquired. Thirdly, the big runway and the assembly-shed at Filton remain as permanent physical assets. It is idle to pretend that they would have been built if it had not been for the Brabazon I, and it is now clear that they need not have been built on so grand a scale ; but as they have been built, they can be put to good use.