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Eight
THE AIR LINE PILOT
August, 1947

They Carry the Ball for Safety on Capitol Hill
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Three veteran and capable air line pilots are carrying the air safety ball for ALPA in the nation's capitol as the President's Special Board of Inquiry into Air Safety brings air line safety into the limelight. Their untiring efforts have already resulted in the temporary adoption of several of ALPA's basic recommendations. Pictured above, they are (left to right): H. B. Cox, ALPA's official member on the President's Board, and the men who have been serving in an advisory capacity to him: J. E. Wood, ALPA's first vice-president, of Local Council No. 51, EAL-New York; and R. N. Buck, long active in ALPA safety promotion activities, of Local Council No. 2, TWA-New York.

Recommendations Broad in Scope
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the special board are those of the air line pilot voiced by the men who have been carrying the ball for them on Capitol Hill—H. B. Cox, of Local Council No. 31, AA-Burbank; ALPA's official member of the five-man board; J. E. Wood, ALPA's first vice-president, of Local Council No. 51, EAL-New York; and R. N. Buck, well known for his thunderstorm research for the Army and the air lines, of Local Council No. 2, TWA-New York.
The recommendations of ALPA, some of which have already been temporarily placed into effect, have comprised an impartial list indicative of the multi-faceted nature of air safety inclusive of Civil Air Regulations, Air Traffic Control, aircraft engineering and structure, airport design, and navigational equipment and facilities.
Although the list submitted by ALPA has been comprehensive and lengthy, the basic recommendations of the air line pilots have been:
• Revision of the Transport Category, or so-called "T-Category," to eliminate misinterpretation through more stringent temperature accountability and the limiting of the use of wind and other variable factors for increasing gross weight in relation to runway length.
• That a study be made of low approach procedures of four-engine aircraft, and that all minimum instrument altitudes above 4,000 feet be raised 1,000 feet.
• That a check be made into structural considerations that permitted an increase in the gross weight of DC-4's from 65,000 pounds to 73,000 pounds.
• Inauguration of a concentrated program aimed at the elimination of fire hazard primarily through the discontinuance of integral fuel tanks and more workable fire warning systems.
• Runway lengths of sufficient proportion to provide an adequate margin of safety in relation to takeoff and landing speeds plus reaction time factor and a simultaneous reduction of the stall speed from 85 to 80 miles an hour because of the interrelation of the stall speed and runway factors.
• Installation of better navigational facilities through: (1) approach and runway lights and locator stations to complete all presently installed ILS (Instrument Landing Systems); (2) Installation of ILS at all air line airports not covered in 1. with the installation of at least approach and runway lights; and (3) Use of Fido and surveillance radar on an experimental basis and installation of GCA (Ground Control Approach) at nearby military fields. The air line pilots are not in favor of GCA as primary aid.
Pilot Comment
"We consider the installation of adequate approach and runway lighting the main item which will make the greatest contribution to safety of all the aids presently available," Captain Cox maintained.
"Approach and runway lighting," he declared, "are necessary for normal four-course range approaches and are also part of the ILS system when it is installed and will not require additional funds at that time."
Testifying before the Board, Captain Buck strongly stressed the need for adequate safety margins all along the line.
"The air line pilot," he stated, needs adequate margins to help when all of the variables that can cause trouble begin to heap one upon the other during a takeoff that is supposed to be routine, but instead turned into a desperate experience. Air line pilots do not fly in perfect airplanes on nice, sunny days. They fly in all conditions . . . with good planes, with old planes, with badly loaded planes. We cannot cut margins close; we must have something to fall back on when things get tough. Only a flying man appreciates these things."
Stall Speed Hit
Dangers of high stall speed, short runways, and a naive dependence on brakes to do the job were outlined by Capt. Wood in a letter to the Board in which he stated:
"To bring the plane in at a high rate of speed with the idea of getting the wheels on the ground, and then depending on excessive use of brakes to dissipate such high speed is the wrong way to go about it. An airplane that uses 70 per cent of a given landing area is, in the language of the pilots, "landing rather hot."
The air safety picture is looking up and many constructive recommendations have been made. There is no doubt that many more will have been made before the Board, which has announced its plans to continue throughout the summer without a recess, is dissolved. Whether they will be followed up is a matter that only time will tell.

AND NOW THEY CRY
Some years ago the Air Line Pilots Association made numerous recommendations to aircraft manufacturers on design requirements for transport aircraft and were blandly ignored . . . but now the crows have come home to roost and one after another aircraft manufacturers are asking the other one to move over and make room at the wailing wall as it looks like the deadline for transport category requirements of the DC-3 and other old type aircraft might be extended to 1951 although it was originally scheduled to expire in 1947.
Aircraft manufacturers, as a whole, now complain:
1. That the difference in design requirements between the old regulations and the new transport category regulations are appreciable to the extent that many hundreds of pounds of additional payload are made available to the older type airplanes.
2. That the aircraft manufacturing industry is being stymied by a lack of market for replacement designs because the older type airplanes are being made available for indefinite operations in large numbers and at prices that are no more than residual value after many years of service.
What should have dawned on the aircraft industry years ago is summed up in the comment of one engineer quoted in American Aviation Daily for August 4, 1947:
"Safety cannot be regulated into an airplane design. It must be developed into it."
Yes, the crows are coming home to roost and because they were invited the aircraft industry has little room to complain about the company. If they had followed the recommendations of the air line pilots, there wouldn't be nearly so many crows.

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GLOBE GIRDLERS
A new era in American and world aviation—a regularly scheduled around-the-world commercial air service—was ushered in by PAA with their epochal first around-the-world passenger flight that circumnavigated the globe in a total elapsed time of 13 days, three hours, and ten minutes from take-off to landing at La Guardia field, point of origin and termination of the flight. The statistical log of the flight showed that the Clipper America, a new type Constellation, was int eh air a total of 101 hours and 32 minutes. Block-to-block time, including taxiing, totaled 106 hours and 33 minutes, while point-to-point distance covered was 22,219 statute miles, although actual distance flown, including circling and turnback was 25,003 statute miles. Passengers aboard the plane on its around-the-world circuit were 20 editors and publishers of America's leading newspapers. Shown at the Chicago Municipal Airport, with the route of their history-making flight superimposed on the photo, are members of the crew as they paused on the last leg of their flight to honor the midwestern metropolis as the world's aviation center. They are (l. to r.) Third Officer J. Dailey; Radio Operator H. Simpson; First Engineer D. Fowler; Second Engineer E. J. Heas; Navigator S. B. Robinson; Purser R. Turnstall; Stewardess Alice Lemieux; Captain Hugh Gordon; and Captain Dick Campbell, who served as first officer on the transcontinental leg of the flight. At the extreme right is ALPA President Behncke, who was on hand at the invitation of Chief Pilot Dick Campbell to welcome PAA's first around-the-world commercial flyers of whom he said: "This crew represents the tops in skill, training, cockpit coordination and accomplishment in international flying. They were visibly tired. The next hop—Chicago to New York—was the last and they were glad." PAA's regular globe-shrinking schedule began on June 27, followed subsequently by weekly flights from New York to Calcutta, India, where connections are made with Clippers from the West Coast. Now the flight belongs to history.

Are you wearing a new ALPA emblem? The new pin, which is superior to the old in every way, is available at Headquarters for $1.20 each. It has a bronze base and is gold plated with the letters, ALPA, cut clear and distinct. "EMBLEMIZE" now.