Word: bus
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...sort of jet plain Jane that goes by the name of air bus may soon become a hot new piece of airline equipment. The concept-a subsonic job with double the passenger capacity of jets currently flying short-and medium-range runs-has been in the talking stage in both the U.S. and Europe for over two years. Now Lockheed Aircraft Corp. plans a 600-m.p.h., $15.6 million model which, if it draws enough orders, could go into production as early as next spring...
Designated the L-1011, Lockheed's air bus is the second of two projects on which the company had been pinning its hopes for re-entry into the commercial airframe business, a field that it left (except for business jets) in 1962, when it rolled out the last of 170 turboprop Electras. The No. 1 target was the Government-supported program to build a U.S. supersonic transport. When its SST hopes crashed last...
January (rival Boeing got the contract), the company immediately turned to the air bus. Seemingly unfazed by the $500 million development bill that Lockheed will have to foot on its own, Chairman Daniel J. Haughton is convinced that "this airplane will be a winner...
Lockheed expects an 800-plane market for the air bus by 1980, on grounds that it will become a physical as well as economic necessity. Designed for the long haul, Douglas' 250-passenger "stretched" DC-8 and Boeing's upcoming 490-passenger 747 and SST will not even begin to handle all the future growth in air travel, which is expected to more than double in eight years. Flocks of smaller, short-haul planes are even now jamming air corridors and ground terminals. Reflecting the desire of many airlines for more seats but fewer planes is the fact...
Lockheed was by no means first to see the silver lining in that vision. European airlines began calling for an air bus back in 1963, and the British, French and German governments got an aircraft-manufacturing consortium together to cash in on the demand. Their early lead disappeared as the partners fell to feuding. They also suffered a rude shock when American Airlines Chairman C. R. Smith allowed as how he would have none of a twin-jet design, considered anything less than three engines in a 300-passenger plane foolhardy for safety reasons...