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HELICOPTER AIR SERVICE PROGRAM

We have been talking about helicopter here, all morning. There are other devices on up the development ladder which we are climbing slowly. The helicopter itself has at least one, and maybe several, more rounds of development. By 1968 one of the companies which may be appearing before you will offer a much larger and fairly conventional helicopter company. Instead of carrying 25 passengers at perhaps 110 miles an hour, it will carry probably 65 passengers and it will cruise at perhaps 150 or 160 miles an hour. The direct operating costs should be greatly reduced once the development costs and the first service test models of such a helicopter have been worked out in the military services. 

Whether or not you could achieve reductions from 12 cents per available seat-mile down to 4 or 5 cents, which would not be comparable to the reduction achieved in the last 5 years by the twin-turbine helicopters, will be up to the future. But there is just no question but what it can work down to half of the present direct operating costs, and this is even more certain with respect to the longer ranges; that is, beyond the 10-to-20-mile-stage length. 

There is more research and development underway. The military are spending nearly $100 million a year for their own purposes in the field of helicopters and other high-lift devices. Out of this we hope to garner double-duty for a helicopter such as this one, and for some of the tilt-wing, vector-trust, and other devices of which there is a very substantial menagerie. If the committee is interested, we have some models showing some of the configurations that lie ahead. 

The worldwide problem here that seems to offer some hope for the long-term future of the helicopter, but not much help in the short-term, is that we expect the have more people, with disposable income for travel, and the fact that the automobile is about to choke the arteries of the United States.

I have seen estimates that show there are 69 million automobiles in the United States at this time, and that, within this century, the number will be more than 200 million automobiles.

I don't believe we can have a livable United States, with 200 million automobiles killing some 50,000 people a year at the present time, and Lord knows what at the end of the century.  We think in the air field we have much to offer and that, if we can only find some way to keep these operations continuing through their infancy——the infancy is over, but through their adolescence——and achieve the potentialities, that, ultimately, there is no question but what they will make a great difference in our society.

Senator LAUSCHE.  Thank you very much.  Did you read your paper or did you take excerpts from it as you were talking?

Mr. HALABY.  Senator, I put the prepared text in the record, read the last paragraph, and then I took off on some notes here.

Senator LAUSCHE.  You begin with the proposition that the President's recommendation should be put into effect and the subsidy should be ended; is that correct?

Mr. HALABY.  Yes, sir.

Senator LAUSCHE.  And the sum and substance of what you said is that there are ways and means available, separate and apart from Federal subsidies, that can keep these lines in life.