Jane's pocket book 6 [antikvár]

FOREWORD This fourth volume in the series of Jane's Pocket Books of Major Aircraft deals with what the US industry calls "General Aviation" types. As a class, they are the smallest and least powerful products of the world aerospace industry. They are also, by far, the most numerous, and closest to the kind of flying machines of which the pioneers dreamed for countless centuries. In the eyes of the man and woman by the television screen, combat aircraft will always be flown by a race of dedicated supermen; and airlines offer air travel rather than flying. Not until size and power are scaled down to produce the designs illustrated in this book are the grim purposes of war and the economic dictates of airline operations replaced by thoughts of pure pleasure, competition, and attention to the personal, everyday crises in which the lives of our neighbours can be saved by speedy transport to hospital, and the lives of our crops can be saved by the efficient application of chemicals. The two largest air forces in the world each possess about 14 000 aircraft, for first-line, transport and training duties. The International Civil Aviation Organisation, counting most of the world's aircraft-operating nations among its 1 24 member states, reported a total of 7 454 commercial transport aircraft in worldwide service at the last census. By comparison, the USA alone claimed a total of 131 870 "active" civil aircraft when statistics were last compiled in November 1 973, of which the vast majority were clearly in the categories covered in this book. According to the Aerospace Industries Association of America, the number of utility and executive aircraft built in the USA in 1 973 was expected to total approximately 1 3 600, compared with only 300 turbine-powered airliners. The Soviet Union cannot match such production, with only 7 000 of its standard Yak-1 8s built to date; but flying for fun is encouraged there too. Membership of its technical sports organisation, DOSAAF, costs a mere 1.5 roubles (less than L1) a year for students or 3 roubles for working adults, after which all expenses - aircraft, tuition, fuel and airfield charges - are met by DOSAAF. The number of aircraft engaged on agricultural flying in the Soviet Union can be gauged from the fact that 1 250 million acres of arable land are being treated with fertilisers and herbicides by spraying and dusting aircraft during the period of the current five-year plan. Confronted with such statistics, one gains a fresh appreciation of the importance of these seemingly less spectacular brethren of the Jumbos and supersonic fighters found in the earlier Pocket Books. As always, the information given for each type is that which will best aid its identification, without extraneous facts about its history and structure. Anyone who wants that much detail can find it in the million and a half words of each annual edition of Jane's All the World's Aircraft. The Pocket Books are intended as easy-to-handle day-to-day working aids for people whose job or delight it is to recognise aircraft. JOHN WR TAYLOR