Buy American

Britain's troubled aircraft industry last week got one more blow in a long series of wallops to British pride and pocketbook. British Overseas Airways Corp., the Empire's biggest airline, formally applied to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation for permission to buy 19 U.S.-built Douglas DC-7C airliners for its transoceanic routes. BOAC and its Chairman Sir Miles Thomas, who once placed their bets on the ill-fated Comet jet transports, now want a modified version of the piston-engined DC-7 of U.S. airlines, enlarged to carry 68 passengers nonstop across the Atlantic. Cost: $42.7 million.

"No. No. No." At news of the request, Lord Beaverbrook's Sunday Express exploded into enraged spluttering: "What reaction to Sir Miles's request? It should be: No. No. No. Not nineteen, not nine. Not a single one . . . His job is . . . to buy British--and fly British."

But BOAC had no choice. Ever since the war, Britons have dreamed of the day when British lines would be flying British planes around the world. But with the exception of Vickers' short-haul Viscount turboprop (TIME, Jan. 3), most of Britain's postwar transports, especially its long-range planes, have been expensive flops. Avro's huge, highly touted Tudor transport failed in a series of disastrous crashes; Saunders-Roe's immense, ten-engined Princess flying boat has been in the prototype stage since 1946, still needs better engines; Bristol's equally large Brabazon, designed to carry 100 passengers across the Atlantic, never got into production, was finally broken up and sold for scrap. And De Havilland's famed four-jet Comet I was grounded after three crashes.

Flurries & Facts. To carry BOAC into the age of nonstop transatlantic flying, the line had counted on the Comet I's big sister, the Comet III. But its future is still clouded; safety modifications may keep the new jet off commercial routes until 1960. Another hope is the Bristol Britannia, a long-range, 340-m.p.h. transport with four turboprop engines. BOAC has poured $20 million into the project, ordered ten planes. But the Britannia, too, is a question mark. With little transport experience, Bristol is already 14 months behind schedule, will probably not deliver the first plane until 1960. Furthermore, BOAC has serious doubts whether the plane can compete safely over transoceanic air routes. Though its range is listed as 5,100 miles, it drops to 3,900 miles at full payload, leaving only a slim margin of fuel on nonstop flights against stiff North Atlantic headwinds.

After the first flurries of angry disappointment last week, sensible Britons were reconciled to the unpleasant facts. Intoned London's staid Times: "BOAC must be allowed to purchase the best aircraft for their services irrespective of the country in which they are made. Otherwise the corporation cannot compete with other airlines, not merely American airlines, but all others which use American airliners where they give the best performance."

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