The First Viscount

After years of flying in the prop wash of its competitors, Capital Airlines last week got a chance to zoom ahead of the pack. At Washington's National Airport, President James H. ("Slim'') Carmichael, tall, tanned and smiling, snipped the symbolic ribbon fastening Capital's first Vickers Viscount turboprop airliner to the runway. Minutes later, loaded with paying passengers, the first turboprop transport in U.S. airline service took off on a run to Chicago, landed at 10:42 C.D.T. at Chicago's Midway Airport after a flight of 2 hrs. 25 mins. (average speed: 335 m.p.h.). Said one passenger: "Best ride I ever had."

To Capital, which has 60 planes (worth $67.5 million) on order in Britain, the four-engined Viscount may mean the difference between success or failure in the race for Eastern air markets. As long as the line flew conventional planes, it had a tough time competing against National Airlines, United, Eastern and American. In the Viscount, it has a plane that is up to 65 m.p.h. faster than Convairs and DC-6s, has less vibration, bigger windows, and thus more passenger appeal.

No one knows how the planes will do after the novelty wears off, or how they will hold up under the day-in, day-out pounding of U.S. airline service. But on the strength of the first few days, the outlook was encouraging both for Capital and for British planemakers, who hope to break into U.S. markets. After three days, Capital's Viscounts were operating at 100% load capacity v. 47% for the Constellations previously used on the run. Said President Carmichael: "The ship exceeds anything we had hoped for. The passengers come up after a flight and begin to sell us on the Viscount all over again. We're just tickled."

The week marked another milestone for Capital. In Washington a Civil Aeronautics Board examiner, in an initial decision, approved an equipment interchange at Chicago with Continental Air Lines, thus in effect turned Capital from a largely Eastern carrier into a trunk line with routes spreading out over the Mid-and Southwest. But the day when Capital will be a true transcontinental airline is still on the far horizon. The examiner's decision must be okayed by the full CAB, and Capital is still too small and too busy battling for its share of Eastern air-travel markets to make much headway in the transcontinental business for some years.

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