Fly with jumbo

When Pan American's jumbo 747 failed to take off on what should have been its first, regular passenger flight, the reputation of the American aircraft industry took a terrible knock. This was the second time within two weeks that an engine had failed at take-off. Pilots say the overheating that made it necessary to disembark all 362 passengers, unload 15 tons of freight and find a replacement aircraft on Wednesday is unimportant and occurs only during slow taxi runs and never in flight. But it is alarming enough for a very senior captain to turn back after starting his take-off run, on the first scheduled flight of the first basically new aircraft for more than 12 years and in the full light of all the publicity an event like this attracts. A man needs to be both very worried and very tough-minded before he takes such a decision. And the fault that is plaguing the 747 could hit all jumbos for it appears to stem from certain basic features of the huge volume of art built into the design of the new generation of jets for jumbos.