Since the White Paper appeared three weeks ago, there has been both the opportunity for an initial reaction to emerge and sufficient time for a more mature consideration of the policy conclusions and their implications. The symposium today provides the first occasion open to the Government to explain the policy to a wider audience—outside the House of Commons and the meetings which I have been holding up and down the country at particular airports—to comment on the principal views which have been expressed so far; and to receive a reaction to the White Paper and its recommendations from influential opinion within the airlines, airport authorities, local authorities, amenity organisations and airport users.

It is not my intention to comment on the detailed conclusions of the White Paper, which Neville Ledsome will be covering shortly. But I would like to refer briefly to the Government's overall approach; to the immediate reaction to the White Paper; and to the next steps in the development of airports policy, for which the White Paper marks a beginning rather than an end.

The White Paper has five main objectives. First, to establish a framework against which over an extended period airport developments throughout Great Britain should be considered; secondly, to assess the future demand for air transport and thus for airport capacity; thirdly, to explain how demand might be met during the period to 1990; fourthly, to examine the noise and other environmental effects of airport developments; and finally, to outline the airport options to be considered for the longer term.

I need not, for this audience, outline the history of airport development in Great Britain over the past 30 years. The approach to the South East problem which was characterised by efforts to find the grand solution; the failure to consider the requirements of the South East within a wider national context; and the absence of any proper guidance for the development of airports outside the South East with the consequent over provision of facilities in the regions which we face today.

I should like to discuss six aspects of the White Paper which seem to me to be of significance. First, the demand forecasts. I suppose, from personal experience at least, it has to be said that no forecast will ever prove to survive reality; for as Peter Parker put it, the goalposts keep moving. So it is today, for the White Paper includes traffic growth assessments based on fare levels and conditions much as experienced during the past few years, but not reflecting the competitive race to reduce fares and to ease restrictions which we have seen in progress during the last few months. New lower readily accessible fare packages are now available on the Atlantic routes, and the trend will spread to other markets—indeed this is already beginning. There are similar pressures in the air cargo field, and the resulting upward movement in demand levels is already evident.

It would be amazing if everybody agreed with all of the contents of the White Paper—with the possible exception of its author!

A first reading of ‘Airports Policy’ brought to my mind a stage show, very popular some years ago, called ‘1066 And All That’. With satiric comment, the show traced key dates in British history from the landing of the Conqueror until what was then the present day. With a proper sense of chauvinism, it placarded 1776 and American independence in the dismissive comment: ‘1776—End of American History’.

My contribution to these proceedings will be to comment on the strong and weak points in the Government's White Paper from the standpoint of the major airport operator concerned—the British Airports Authority. There cannot be many other businesses operated today which are subject to such a numerous and varied number of voices and influences telling the operator what to do, how to do it, when to do it and where to do it. If there are, I'm sorry for them!

The British Airports Authority is a profitable public enterprise set up 11 years ago (as the result of the last White Paper) to own and operate airports. We run seven airports, four in Scotland (Aberdeen, Prestwick, Edinburgh and Glasgow) and three in the South-East of England (Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted). About 75% of the UK's passenger traffic and 85% of air cargo go through the BAA's airports.

Most regional airports are grateful for the flexibility of the approach in the White Paper, but I feel that some more positive guidance ought to be given in some cases. Many airports are still very uncertain of their future. The importance of this longer term planning is very relevant because people in authority have got to make their minds up; some airports have to decide whether to exist or to go under, and they can only make that decision on what happens after 1990. There is a certain freedom of choice obviously left to airport operators and airlines, and one question which we have to ask is, will new services be allowed into regional airports, outside the Government's policy, if both the airport and the airline feels it is going to be a viable service? I think a great deal of care is needed to ensure that any such move of that sort does not undermine the basic airports policy and dilute its effectiveness.

The title ‘The Community Response’ sums up very aptly, if inadvertently, the place of the community as the Government sees it in the formulation of airport strategy. In other words, to respond rather than to participate; a sort of reluctant anchor that has to be dragged along in response to proposals made by others. Airports should be planned to serve the Community; that is their function. They do not exist merely to facilitate the landing and take-off of passengers and freight in a vacuum unrelated to the locality in which they are sited. People who use airports have an involvement with the community whether it be through business, tourist or domestic connections.

The GLC has consistently recognised the importance of London's airports, especially Heathrow, to the economic well being of London and the South East. With the abandonment of Maplin we have accepted that at least for the time being, the increased demand for airport capacity in the South East will have to be met by some expansion at existing airports, but we have a wider duty also to ensure that the social planning and environmental aspects linked with airport developments are taken into account.

Normally when I am speaking I have to balance both sides of the argument to make sure that everybody has a fair crack at the whip, and make sure that both points of view are put. Today I do not. It has been made abundantly clear to me they wish me to speak straight on an environmental point of view with particular reference to the noise problems. I will do so with the greatest of pleasure. We have a document here which has good and bad points, from the environmental point of view I would like to state the good, because there are some in this document. Firstly, we know where we are going and we know what we have got to argue about. We know where the Government wants to go in the size and use of our airports and from the Gatwick point of view this is something we have wanted for a long time. Secondly, major developments at the airports in future may be subjected to some form of local authority control, an argument the local authority has been making for a long time.

First some independent comments about the access issues raised in the consultation document originally and in the White Paper most recently, and I can do so with a fair degree of independence because now having got the Heathrow Underground link all we have to do is to run it properly and some of the current problems will look after themselves

Perhaps I can give a somewhat independent view on the access issues for airports generally. Just for the record we are interested in access not only for air passengers but also for airport workers who are almost as numerous in their movements as the air passengers are, and those doing business at the airports, particularly those involved in the movement of commercial vehicles. Access is important because, first of all, it can consume a good deal of time and effort on the part of a passenger as part of his total journey.

These are personal views immediately following upon the publication of the White Paper on Airports Policy and not those of any organisation with which I am associated. They are, however, my views of the national interest.

I would expect there to be considerable disagreement with a White Paper which traverses so many areas where local conflicts abound. No policy could satisfy all on a subject which evokes so great an emotive response from many quarters, and in which even the smallest of pressure groups reacts with frenzied fury against any proposal with which it disagrees.

A wide range of conflicting views has been expressed from all sides during the day. Indeed, they might be thought to cancel each other out. Altogether, it has been a most stimulating and successful occasion, even if, at times, it has seemed that some of those who have spoken have overlooked the fact that there must be airports— that they are now essential requirements for the development of our national trade, travel and economic future and that, somehow, they must meet the operational and economic needs of national and international air transport; or, as the American CAB would say, ‘public convenience and necessity’—though, sometimes, those words suggested different things on this side of the water.

Taken as a whole, the meeting seems to agree that the White Paper, the kernel of the debate, is a workmanlike, a valuable and a sensible document, which—with one or two notable exceptions—‘got it about right’. Different people have different reservations—and, all have some.

Recording devices have been used to help with the testing and understanding of aircraft behaviour since at least the First World War. Early reports to the Aeronautical Research Council reveal some most ingenious devices which were clearly invaluable in assessing the suitability of early Royal Aircraft Factory aircraft as gun platforms.

Since that time the flight recorder, in one or other of its many forms, has been an essential tool for the aircraft constructor and designer, used to establish the characteristics of the airframe itself and its ability to fly as the designer intended. The use of recorded behaviour, in comparison to that predicted by powerful digital and hybrid computers, has helped in recent years to minimise the amount of test flying required to bring a new design to operational service.

There is no general legal requirement in the UK for British civil aircraft to be fitted with an Airborne Integrated Data System. Although the Air Navigation Order requires all aircraft over 5700 kg maximum take-off weight with a Transport Category Certificate of Airworthiness to carry some form of crash recorder, this is not necessarily associated with an AIDS. However, in two areas AIDS have virtually been a requirement as part of the certification process. On Concorde the Anglo-French certification authorities produced a totally new set of airworthiness requirements to match the advanced and novel features of the aircraft. The several new and previously untried approaches to airworthiness, and the state-of-the-art of AIDS recording, caused the joint authorities specifically to require the analysis of in-service flight recorder data to validate certain certification assumptions. The Supersonic Transport Aircraft Requirements state ‘… it will be necessary … to gather, as far as possible, flight statistical data both before certification and in subsequent commercial operations. This information will be compared with the assumptions made for the application of the requirement (e.g. assumptions as regards system reliability, statistics of turbulence, etc).’

It is usual to consider AIDS as applicable mainly to digital data; this data can usefully be divided into two main data management requirements that are unlikely to integrate for many years.

Data is required for active control of the aircraft and weapons system. This data must be immediately available to the pilot, aircraft and weapons control system; its integrity tends to demand triplex or quadruplex data sources with comprehensive Built In Test and reversionary mode operation under fault conditions. Some data also needs to be stored to aid subsequent fault diagnosis and ground maintenance but usually represents a very low data storage and analysis requirement.

Despite the many learned books and articles which have treated the theory of spinning in some depth, there still remains an aura of black magic about it. This article is written in an attempt to explain the spin in simple language and hopefully to take away some of the black magic. It has been written primarily with the HS Gnat in mind, because, although it is forbidden to spin a Gnat, there have been incidents over the past fifteen years that it has been in service, where even experienced pilots have got into spin prone situations. Now, it might be said, that a new generation of pilots has emerged who do not appreciate the reasons for the prohibition of Gnat spinning, which have been lost in the mists of antiquity.