Mar 29 1968
From The Space Library
Space News for this day. (2MB PDF)
FAA released 12-yr forecast of aviation activity. Number of airline passengers was expected to triple, from 126 million in FY 1967 to 444 million in FY 1979; revenue passenger miles would quadruple, from 86 billion to 342 billion; and airline fleet would increase from 2,272 aircraft to 3,860. General aviation fleet would double, from 104,706 aircraft on Jan. 1, 1967, to 203,000 by 1979, and its flying hours would increase from 21.9 million to 403 million hr. Total flights under instrumented flight rules (ma) would increase from 5.8 million in 1967 to 18.7 million in 1979. (FAA. Release 68-21)
NAA announced award of 1967 Frank G. Brewer Trophy to New York Univ. Professor Emeritus Dr. Roland H. Spaulding for "continuous, outstanding, and pioneering contributions in aerospace education to the youth of the nation. . . ." (NAA News, 3/29/68)
Sen. Karl E. Mundt (R-S.D.), ranking member of Senate Committee on Government Operations, praised March 28 decision of Senate Committee on Armed Services to disapprove additional funds for F-111B aircraft and urged that F-111As in combat zone "be brought back immediately . . . and not returned to combat until they are fully tested and ready." He said it was "imperative that the production line be held up until the design of the airplane number 160 configuration is completed and tested and can be incorporated into the very next plane the Air Force buys. If this drastic step is not taken, then we will truly be committing another billion dollar blunder in this TFX program which already has cost the American taxpayers many, many fruitless billions of dollars." (CR, 3/29/68, S3657-60)
USA and Western Electric Co., prime contractor, signed six-month, $85,480,628 initial production contract for Sentinel ABM system. Western Electric would receive $28 million of total; balance would be shared by eight subcontractors. Contract would be managed by Sentinel System Command, Redstone Arsenal, Ala. (DOD Release 284-68)
Lockheed Aircraft Corp. announced orders for 144 triple-jet L-1011 airbuses totaling $2.16 billion. Eastern Airlines, Trans World Airlines, and U.K.'s Air Holdings, Ltd., ordered 50, 44, and 50 aircraft. Order, largest in history for aircraft, was dramatic reentry for Lockheed into commercial aircraft industry, which it left in 1962 at conclusion of turboprop Electra production. U.K.'s Rolls-Royce, Ltd., was selected to build engines for 250- to 275-passenger aircraft, which would be delivered starting in fall 1971. (Hudson, NYT, 3/30/68, 1)
U.N. Secretary General U Thant presented to U.N. Economic and Social Council Resources of the Sea, urging world action to regulate use of sea's largely unexplored riches. (Brewer, NYT, 3/30/68, 16)
Nearly 200,000 mourners filed past biers of Cosmonaut Yuri A. Gagarin and Col. Vladimir Seryogin in Soviet Army House in Moscow. Premier Alexey Kosygin, President Nikolay V. Podgorny, and Communist Party leader Leonid I. Brezhnev briefly joined honor guard of soldiers near biers. (Winters, B Sun, 3/30/68; NYT, 3/31/68, 21)
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