National Affairs: Ploy in the Sky

Visible only by its landing lights in New Jersey’s night sky, the aircraft whined in a circle above vast McGuire Air Force Base, then touched down and taxied up to a pack of reporters and cameramen on hand to meet the first Russia-to-U.S. civilian flight in 20 years.* There was an intense, high-pitched roar from the twin jets as the sweptwing, silver-and-blue plane rolled to a stop.

As 30-odd junior members of Russia’s U.N. delegation debarked and an official of Aeroflot, Russia’s civil airline, made a pitch for regular flights between the two countries, cameramen clicked away at the glistening TU-IO4A (a 70-seat civilian modification of the Badger medium bomber), which makes daily passenger runs between Moscow and Prague. Later newsmen and aviation experts clambered aboard for a firsthand look at the only type of jetliner in passenger use since the decommissioning of Britain’s flawed Comets in 1954. Their assessment: good, but in some ways surprisingly crude.

The jet engines are the world’s most powerful (in military trim, each develops 20,000 Ibs. of thrust, 25% greater than any U.S. or British engine in production), but are so fuel thirsty that no nonsubsidized airline could operate the planes at a profit. Some of the radio equipment, including an obsolete, ice-catching clothesline antenna, is far below U.S. standards. Outside, riveting on the plane’s skin was inferior. The galley had ornate wood paneling, but no refrigeration.

The plane had landed at McGuire because the Port of New York Authority has banned all jets except the comparatively quiet French Caravelle (not yet in regular use, but cleared for Idlewild) from New York-area airports. The Authority refused to make an exception unless the plane passed a sound test, which the Russians refused to permit.

Late last week the jetliner screeched airborne at McGuire for the trip home, was rated during its less-than-top-speed takeoff as noisy as most jets, far louder than prop and turboprop planes.

The Russians’ jet-fueled ploy had some propaganda value, calling attention to the fact that they are ahead in the passenger-jet field. One side effect: the British, apparently suffering from wounded pride, hurriedly announced that they will fly a revamped Comet II this week from Northern Ireland to Orlando, Fla.

* In 1937 three Soviet flyers in a single-engine A.N.T. 25 flew the polar route from Moscow to Vancouver, Wash., where they were received by the Army air base commandant, Brigadier General George Catlett Marshall. A month later another A.N.T. 25 repeated the crossing, landed in a field near San Jacinto, Calif.