The French Mystere has a dual role. Although it is primarily designed as a day interceptor fighter, it is capable of a secondary mission, that of a ground fighter. Consequently, its structure must be capable of withstanding higher loads. It will be initially powered with a French engine called the Tay engine. The design of this particular engine originated in Great Britain. Incidentally, it is the same British engine from which the United States J-48 engine was designed. So once again you can see that the initial engine installation in this airplane is comparable to one of our own United States Air Force engines. The later models of this airplane will be equipped with an allFrench designed engine called the Atar. Both the Tay and the Atar engines at the present time have similar thrust ratings, but the Tay has gone about as far as it can go in thrust increase, while the Atar, being a newly designed engine is capable of model improvement which eventually will give it a much higher thrust and consequently a much higher airplane performance. It should be noted that the performance of both of these aircraft are comparable to the performance of United States aircraft. It is rather difficult to find the right models to use for comparison. I have here the Hawker-Hunter, the MD-452, the F-86D, not because it is a day fighter-it actually is an all-weather fighter-but because it is in the same weight category as the Hawker-Hunter and MD-452. The day fighter, the F-86-H, which comes out in approximately the same time period as the foreign-built aircraft, has the same basic mission, that I have used. However, it is a heavier aircraft because it is a special-purpose aircraft and is designed for very violent maneuvers at high altitude. The takeoff weight of these three aircraft is in the neighborhood of 17,000 pounds. The F-86-H is considerably heavier at 22,000 pounds. The takeoff ground run, which is a very important factor in Europe because their runways are not always as long and as good as ours here, also is comparable to our airplanes. (Discussion off the record.) Colonel TAYLOR. The rate of climb, which is also a very important characteristic of the day fighter because it must reach its target rapidly, is also comparable. (Discussion off the record.) Colonel TAYLOR. For your information at sea level under general conditions, the speed of sound is about 660 knots. That is interesting as a means of comparison. You can see that although we are comparing aircraft that were originally designed for a little different role their performance is all of the same order of magnitude. Mr. BENTLEY. Mr. Chairman, I wonder if the colonel could supply for the record comparable figures on the types of planes on the other side of the curtain so we can have the real comparison. Colonel TAYLOR. Sir, I can supply that for the record but I do not have that with me today. I will get that. Mr. VORYS. How long can they operate? Colonel TAYLOR. I can give you a general idea of that. I have left it out purposely because the Europeans and the United States Air Force do not compute our ranges on the same formula so I did not want to mislead you. (Discussion off the record.) Mr. VORYS. That Mystere has them all licked up and down the line, has it not? Colonel TAYLOR. Yes, sir; and I can tell you why. The HawkerHunter is an aircraft practically in being. The first one of those will come off the production line, starting quantity production in July of this year. As you know, the F-86D has been in being for sometime and will soon be out of production. The F-86-H is a special-purpose airplane, it is an interim model and though it is just coming off the production line at the present time, it is a special-purpose airplane with a fighter-bomber capability, so it is not quite fair to compare it here. The MD-452-although there are prototypes in existence, production is still a year off, so it is a newer airplane; it should have better characteristics and it does. I think it shows the soundness of our offshore procurement aircraft program. Mr. VORYS. Is that slide-rule performance or has one of these Mysteres delivered that? Colonel TAYLOR. Sir, these are slide-rule figures which have been substantially verified by our own United States Air Force test pilots who have flown both of these airplanes, not once but several times. We are not taking anybody's word for either one of these airplanes. Mr. HALABY. As a fellow naval aviator, Mr. Vorys, that airplane is young and it has a lot of growth. Next year this time if we come back and say that due to a lot of "improvements" which always mean more weight and so on and so forth, that the weight has gone up, the rate of climb has gone down a little and the speed has gone down a little, I know you will understand. Colonel TAYLOR. Both of these airplanes are structurally capable of growth potential. Both the French and the British have higher thrust engines coming along so that we can expect the normal growth potential of these airplanes that we would expect of our own United States airplanes. Both of these airplanes have broken the sonic barrier. Not in level flight but in a dive. (Discussion off the record.) Mr. VORYS. How about the comparative cost? Colonel TAYLOR. I am coming to that. I know you are all interested in costs and because we compute our support requirements differently from the European method, I have used fly-away costs as a unit of measurement, which I think is fair. The Hawker-Hunter currently is costing us $220,000 each. The F-86-H-which again I want to remind you is a special-purpose aircraft-is costing us $398,000. Mrs. CHURCH. Would it be wrong to ask what the special purpose is? Colonel TAYLOR. Not at all. (Discussion off the record.) 33064-53--30 Mr. VORYS. You say the F-86D costs $390,000? I have not compared prices on the F-86D because it is a different kind of an airplane, it is a night, all-weather airplane, it is basically more expensive than a day interceptor fighter. Mr. VORYS. Would it cost more than $398,000? Colonel TAYLOR. At the present time it would not because it is well along in production. As a matter of fact, our 86D is about phased out. Mr. HALABY. That one has been in production for 2 to 3 years. Colonel TAYLOR. In fiscal year 1953 the fly-away cost in our own USAF program, of an F-86D was a little less than $316,000, but it is well into production. Mr. HARRISON. What is the difference between that and the Saber jet that is now fighting in Korea? Is that an F-86? Colonel TAYLOR. That is correct; but to my knowledge there are no F-86D's over there. The F-86D is designed specifically for night and all-weather missions. It has a lot of radar equipment in it and it is only economical to use it for that particular purpose. (Discussion off the record.) Mr. HALABY. I would like to bring out one thing, Mr. Chairman, and that is the delivery schedule on these aircraft. We faced, as you know, in the Mutual Security Act, the so-called terminal date. That provides in very general terms that there would be 12 months after June 30, 1954, in which to empty the aid pipeline. Now, we found when we negotiated with the British and the French with respect to these aircraft and with several countries with respect to minesweepers that we had some awful good deals in prospect there. We looked very carefully into the effect of the terminal-date provision, section 530 (a), I believe it is, in the act. Our lawyers advised us and the matter was considered at the Cabinet level. Our lawyers advised us that we could let a contract for deliveries that would occur after June 30, 1955, as long as we put a termination clause, a good, hard, termination clause in the contract. We were satisfied on the legal point but in view of the fact that termination charges might be incurred should the Congress fail to extend the terminal date, the matter as I said was taken up at the cabinet level and it was discussed with members of this committee and members of the Senate committee and members of the Appropriations Committee. In the light of all that consideration and discussion we decided to go ahead and let these contracts, knowing that should the Congress decide not to extend the act, these contracts would have to be terminated. The price was so good, the need was so great, the performance was so outstanding that we felt justified in going ahead. As a matter of fact, deliveries on these two aircraft before you, would not be completed under the contracts that we have let until early 1956. Mr. VORYS. When would they start? Mr. HALABY. We have it, I believe, in one of the charts we gave you, Mr. Vorys. It is about third from the end. Mr. VORYS. March 1955? Mr. HALABY. On the Hawker-Hunter they commence January 1955, and extend through about April or May 1956. We get our first Mark IV in the second quarter of 1954. Those are calendar years. Mr. WOOD. We are requesting, Mr. Chairman, the extension of that date in the legislative request this year. Chairman CHIPERFIELD. Does that complete your subject? Mr. HALABY. Yes, sir. I am sorry that proved so interesting that it took quite a bit of time. Now, we do have two other exhibits and we have Commander Danforth here. We can begin with those in the morning or we can complete them now. Chairman CHIPERFIELD. We will go right ahead. Mr. HALABY. We thought that we would select from the Navy enditem program, being procured offshore at least two items. We thought you would be particularly interested in items designed to meet the Soviet threat, so we brought up a minesweeper and a torpedo net. We asked Commander Danforth of the Department of the Navy to give you a very brief description of a typical harbor-defense layout, and then relate that to the net which we have over in the corner. We have a small sample of it over in the corner. (A chart was referred to entitled Typical Harbor-Defense Layout as follows:) |