People, Video & Book Reviews

• Hawker de Havilland Ltd has announced a reduction in profit for the first half of the year from $5. 66m to $225,000. Management blames redundancy payouts resulting from retrenchments, and industrial action. Further workforce reductions are planned to match the reduced demand for repair and overhaul work.

• Rolls-Royce interim results for 1991 disclose that while sales are up and the order book is at a record level, profits are down. Major factors affecting profits are a £32m ($A71m) higher net R&D charge in the half year, exceptional charges of £26m ($A57), mainly for restructuring and interest costs. • Cathay Pacific Airways earnings for the first half of the year are reported as $143m, down from $179m for the same period last year. However, profit for the period Is reported as $19m compared to $17. 4m last year. Cathay quotes similar reasons given by other world airlines namely the Gulf War and the generally softer world economy. • Air New Zealand reported a bottom line profit of just $NZ5. 49m for the 15 months to June 30, compared with a $NZ100. 9m profit for the 12 months to 31 March 1990. The reporting periods differ as the company moved from a 31 March to 30 June balance date. The Gulf War and the recession were blamed in line with world wide trends. • Compass Holdings Ltd has reported a $10. 31m loss for its first year but Compass Chief Executive, Bryan Grey has no doubts that the fledgling airline will succeed, having surmounted most of its start up difficulties. The delay in the delivery of aircraft during the period had been a major factor in limiting revenue. No final or interim dividend was declared. Mr Grey stated that no moves were being made to raise equity but this might be an option should Compass’s bid for Australian Airlines proceed. • British Aerospace pretax profits were reduced to £86m ($191m) for the first half of 1991. This represents a 41% reduction over the previous period. The company forecasts that pretax profits for the year, before exceptionals, will reach £150m ($333m). Restructuring, plant closures and workforce reductions all contributed to reduced profits. • Australian Airlines has announced a group operating profit, after tax and abnormals, of $65. 98m for the year ended 30 June 1991. This compares with a loss of $13. 7m in the previous year. Operating profit before abnormal items and tax was $6. 4m compared with a loss of $79. 85m for the same period last year. Abnormal profit of $65. 02m resulted from over provision in the pilots superannuation fund, and credit relating to aircraft overhaul.

 Australian Aviation Civil Aircraft Register 1991/92:

This valuable reference publication had its beginnings in 1984 when Australian Aviation published its first Australian Aviation Aircraft Register in the March issue.

Regular annual updates followed until this year when it was decided to publish a separate magazine to cope with the dramatic increase in information now available. This new arrangement has resulted in a significantly improved layout which includes serial numbers which have not been published before. Basic information is taken direct from the CAA computer and includes aircraft registration, type, maker’s serial number, and the owner’s full address.

Available for $9. 95 (includes postage in Australia) from AustAirData, PO Box 1142, Toombul Qld 4012.

Aopa Airfield Directory 1991:

This useful directory, now in its second edition lists some 1100 airfields with the addition of a further 300 ALAS.

The preface to the Directory stresses that the information is only current to October 1990 and that users should cross refer to ERSA for licenced airports, and of course to the owner or operator in the case of ALAS. Airfields throughout Australia are listed alphabetically with their latitude and longitude, elevation, runways, operator and telephone number, whether licensed, landing permission requirements, nearest town and appropriate cautions. Useful additional information includes an index by WAC chart, met forecast and briefing office telephone numbers, and NDB8.

Available for $25. 00 ($15. 00 for AOPA members) plus $2. 00 p&p from AOPA PO Box 1065, Fyshwick, ACT, 2609.

Air Crash:

Macarthur Job One of the smartest things anyone can do is to learn by other people’s mistakes.

What most people usually do though is to forget the lessons gleaned often painfully from others and rush headlong into catastrophe, in the process learning the hard way and usually at considerable cost. Air safety is sadly no different and the lessons we can all learn from past accident investigations are significant to say the least.

With this in mind noted aviation writer, and safety specialist, Macarthur Job (author of AA’s own monthly Air Safety column) has set about writing a very readable history of the RPT crashes that have made our airways the envy of the world.

Volume one of Air Crash deals with the major airline accidents from 1921 through to 1939 and this will be followed next May by Volume two which will cover the period from the war years up till today.

Centrespread

The RAAF is continuing to build up an excellent collection of museum aircraft. Depicted here are Sabres A94-983 and -970 in company with dual seat Vampire trainer A79-636.

Richmond based 2AD have done an excellent job in refurbishing -970 to near flying status. This Sabre was used for a long time as an instructional aid at Wagga before being shipped to Richmond for preservation and to be used as a ground systems testbed for -983. Sabre-970 was displayed at the 1988 ABAS in the colours of 20CU before being stripped and painted in its No. 76 Squadron livery.

The RAAF operated a total of 112 Sabres between 1954 and 1971 and 36 two seat Vampire trainers designated as T338 in addition to five for the Navy. An additional 68 T358 were ordered in 1955 with the Vampire serving in ADF colours for 20 years from 1949 through till 1969 in both trainer and fighter versions.

Australian Aviation would also like to congratulate the crew at 2AD for their continued support of projects such as the restoration of -970, most of which is done on a voluntary basis. Good work chaps.

A highly readable book that is not merely a compilation of the facts of each accident but also a thorough analysis of the practical lessons to be learnt from each disaster, disasters that led to profound changes that ultimately led to the safest air transport system in the world.

Available from Aerospace Publication P/L, PO Box 3105, Weston Creek, ACT, 2611. (06) 288 1677 or fax (06) 288 2021 for $19. 95 soft cover and $29. 95 hard cover plus $3. 95 p&p. Soft cover editions also on sale at major newsagencies, hard cover editions available only by mail order.

Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft 1991-92:

The publishers of Jane’s All The World’s Aircraft (JAWA) decided that it was necessary to rewrite some 80% of the 1991-2 publication, compared with the usual 50 to 60%, to cope with the rapidly changing nature of the world with its attendant affect on aircraft manufacturers.

The latest edition even contains information from this year’s Paris Air Show including changes in the organisation of the Soviet industry. A new format for the main aircraft section has been introduced which has eliminated the unstructured preamble to each aircraft and has placed the whole of each entry under subtitles. The CD-ROM version of the book, now in its third year, has generated the changes in format which according to the publishers has resulted in a very compact, note form style of writing, which speeds up access to information. It is believed that the new arrangement will ably serve both the needs of the CD-ROM, and the “manual” reader.

This valuable reference book is available from major aeronautical bookshops.

Videos

Eyes in the Sky:

AVI Eyes In The Sky deals with airborne surveillance and recce platforms and is a part of the AVI Strange Planes series.

This tape appropriately deals with that all important aspect of combat – intelligence gathering. From the very first attempts to take photos from the air through to the modern day space based sensors that showed their worth during the Gulf War. Footage even includes the first in-air shots taken aloft by Wilbur Wright in 1909, amazing filmwork considering the infancy of both moving pictures and flying planes! Without doubt one of the preeminent aircraft designs ever, the unique SR-71, just one of the aircraft in the AVI Eyes In The Skies video.

The tape looks at reconnaissance pho- tography throughout WW1 and then into WW2 where it literally came of age with specialist high speed long range variants of modern fighter aircraft. Intel and recce missions became as important as the capabilities of the primary strike and fighter groups and by the time Korea occurred it represented an art form that also drew away the veil of darkness as night time photography was developed. The Cold War similarly produced the need for a very high altitude intruder that became the legendary U-2 spyplane which went on to become today’s TR-1 and also led the way for the unique Mach 3 SR-71, unarguably one of the most incredible aircraft of this century.

An interesting one hour tape that informs and entertains. Available in VHS only direct from Australian Aviation, PO Box 3105, Weston Creek, ACT 2611 for $39. 95 +$5. 00 p&p. Credit card orders taken on (06) 288 1677 or fax (06) 288 2021. Substantial discounts exist when ordering two or more tapes in the Strange Planes series.