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HEICOPTER AIR SERVICE PROGRAM     479

This requires a systems approach which would recognize trade-off possibilities in the development of each of the components of the nation's air transportation system - the air vehicle, the airways and terminal air traffic control system and the runways. Such an approach would involve a cost/benefit analysis of alternative ways of accommodating future air transportation demands. 

This approach need not imply a strict and total exercise of centralized planning and control on the part of the Federal government. A coordinated industry/government planning program could be adopted which would leave basic public and private responsibilities untouched but which would provide a forum for a recognition and measurement of total benefits - public and private alike - which are involved in the potential application of vertical-lift aircraft. However, recognition must be given at the highest level of authority in those government agencies which are responsible for the promotion of US aviation and for the development of all parts of our air transportation system.

The accelerated development of a vertical-lift aircraft which would provide the means of transporting short-haul, intercity passengers more efficiently in high-density, congested areas would cover a gap in present government aircraft development programs. Quite properly, the Federal government is now embarking upon a program to develop a commercial supersonic transport. Vital as it is to US national and international aviation interests, the SST program will bring direct benefits to only a small portion of the US traveling public, however. If the economics of supersonic travel and sonic boom problems will allow aircraft hops of as low as 1,000 miles, SST operations can provide direct benefits to about 10 per cent of US domestic air passengers. The range is 1,500 miles, the area of direct benefits is reduced to about six per cent of the domestic air passenger market. In addition, of course, the SST program will benefit the growing number of US citizens who will travel overseas; their operations of the supersonic transport will increase, rather than decrease, existing airport and air traffic control problems.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Federal government is now engaged in the development of a short-haul aircraft designed to lower the costs of air transportation on local-service routes and in areas where the problem is light, rather than heavy, traffic density. These two vehicle development programs are necessary in the promotion of US aviation interests; at the same time, however, they provide no relief to the problem of moving people expeditiously over short distances in areas of severe air and surface traffic congestion. An accelerated program of development of commercial vertical-lift aircraft could provide significant relief in this area of US intercity transportation need.

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