Vague , where did it all go wrong thread

Davidth88

Hi

I was thinking about the Concorde thread this morning.
I remember sitting on the Queens Building at LHR back in the mid 70's.... and the line up to take off could in theory have been the following


BA Concorde
BA VC10
BA BAC 111
BA Trident
BMI Viscount
BIA Herald
BA Cargo Vangard

Ok..... what on earth happened , where did it all go so wrong for the British Aviation industry ?

I remember driving up to Hatfield to watch the Chinese Tridents coming off the line etc......

Lapin

Davidth88 wrote: »

Hi

.....where did it all go so wrong for the British Aviation industry ?

Thatcher, Unions, Globalisation.....

Take your pick. There are similar questions relating to the British motor, coal, shipbuilding, steel industries etc etc.

The aviation industry suffered as much as many others despite numerous amalgamations and mergers in an attempt for survival.

While Britain still has expertise and a workforce in the industry, production costs remain higher there than elsewhere.

xflyer

BA Concorde
BA VC10
BA BAC 111
BA Trident
BMI Viscount
BIA Herald
BA Cargo Vanguard

Well let's see Concorde, actually the way forward as in international cooperation but ultimately a demonstration of the folly of throwing tax payers money at a prestige project that never really had a market. Nevertheless as failures go it was a great aircraft.

Both the VC10 and the Trident were classic examples of why government should stay out of business because effectively the main customer of the aircraft were government entities. The Trident in particular suffered from this because it was essentially specifically tailored to BEA's requirements. It would have been a contender in the B727 market. But that was ceded to classic Boeing thanks to BEA.

The BAC 111 and Viscount are examples of getting it right. Ryanair got it's start with BAC 111s albeit Romanian built versions.

The Herald, I know little about, so resorting to Wikipedia. I see they place some blame on the British government which fits with my comments above. But also HPs inability to judge the way the markets were going.

As for the Vanguard, in fact I must correct you there straightaway just to be pedantic. The cargo version was known as the Merchantman. I must claim a personal interest there. G-APEP, now preserved in Brooklands overnighted in Dublin just before it was retired. I jumped in my van and went to have a look around it. Impressive, also impressive was the fact that it's only aircraft I ever knew where you could actually walk around the pilots seats. It reminded me of a ship's bridge. It also had that wonderful old aeroplane smell.

But it's flaw was that although it was one of the fastest turboprops it was just that a, turboprop when the world was buying jets. Again a failure to judge the market. But also perhaps a finger could be pointed at BEA who favoured turboprops.

I don't think you can blame Thatcher. The game was up before she arrived. Maybe not even the unions. The British aviation industry failed to change, failed to build aircraft customers would buy. Not helped by the persistent 'empire' mentality of BEA and BOAC. Nationalisation didn't help.

The irony is that the British still has a strong aviation industry particularly it's involvement with Airbus which of course most people seem to think is French.

kona

What would have happened if the De Havilland Comet was a success? The first Jet powered passenger Aircraft, which was a victim of a tragic design flaw that has led to a better understanding of metal fatigue.

If the comet hadnt had this issue, it IMO would have given serious competition to Boeing and its new 720 and later 707, If Boeing hadnt established a dominance in the jet market, perhaps they wouldnt have had the backing to establish the research and eventual production of the 747. If this didnt happen aviation would be very very different, how long would it take for the P&W JT9-D to be developed if the 747 wasnt left waiting on it?

British engineering no matter what some people say is the Best in the world. Its Tragic that it doesnt get the recognition it deserves.

Interesting that the BAC 111 were romanian built? Was Romania Communist at that stage? Was the Aer Lingus BAC 111 romanian built too?

Davidth88

XFlyer
I stand corrected , of course we still called them Vanguards. My interest at the time was to see them , cross them off the list and move on.

Re Vanguard ( Merchantman ) ...... wasn't the Herc also a turboprop operating in the jet age ? ( Civilian world not Mil ).

I always thought the Trident was way ahead of it's time. As a spotter you could spot one a mile off because it's nose gear sat to one side ( easy way to differentiate it from a 727 on approach , the TU154 looked totally different).

Weren't the seats put in backwards on the prototype , but it was considered that passengers ' wouldn't like it '

If I look now , the Bae 146 is still flying , and seems to be pretty successful. There are still HS/Bae 125's around I think ?

The VC10 had a great reputation with flyers , I used to love the weird whine as they taxied past , they were also GREAT looking aircraft. I stand corrected but were they not designed with the African routes in mind ?when the UK had colonies all over there .

You are right about Airbus of course , but somehow they are not British :-)

I suppose I could have included Jetstreams in there , but you didn't see them often in LHR

If I think back to spotting at Gatwick , you used to see the Dan Air Comets there...

I think most of the post war British designs went back the Brabazon Committee didn't they , that included the Devon/Dove, Viscount , VC10 things like that.

Of course the world changed a bit

xflyer

Yes I felt the namechange was unneccessary, it really should have stayed Vanguard. As for the C130, it was and is a very miltary aircraft. Not something for fare paying passengers. Just soldiers and cargo. A more apt comparison would be the Lockheed Electra which came at the wrong time too and ended up mostly in cargo. Americans made mistakes too. On a personal note if things had worked out better my first flying job would have been on Electras. As it is the closest I came was to taxy one once.:(

Dogwatch

It probably all went wrong for the UK Avaition with the TSR2.

It was so far ahead of its time, neither the Soviets not the Americans had a way of stopping it.
When Harold Wilson was persuaded to drop it and destroy all the plans,tools, mouldings and prototypes, it became very clear that UK Aviation would not be allowed to lead the way.

It is debatable wheter the Americans or the Soviets told Wilson to bin it.

If Concorde had been solely UK, it would never have been flown.


Sadly the biggest boys in the playground won.

cyrusdvirus

Dogwatch wrote: »

It probably all went wrong for the UK Avaition with the TSR2.

It was so far ahead of its time, neither the Soviets not the Americans had a way of stopping it.
When Harold Wilson was persuaded to drop it and destroy all the plans,tools, mouldings and prototypes, it became very clear that UK Aviation would not be allowed to lead the way.

It is debatable wheter the Americans or the Soviets told Wilson to bin it.

If Concorde had been solely UK, it would never have been flown.


Sadly the biggest boys in the playground won.

There are 2 surviving airframes, one in Cosford and one in the Imperial War Museum.

Having said that, you are right, the TSR2 was ahead of it's time.

“ All modern aircraft have four dimensions: span, length, height and politics. TSR-2 simply got the first three right. ”

— Sir Sydney Camm

Davidth88

Interesting I had not considered the TSR2 .

I was always struck by how similar the Tornado was to the TSR2


I was really thinking about civilian aviation , Britain in some ways led the world , think of the Comet, and the Viscount things like that.

Dacian

gatecrash wrote: »

Having said that, you are right, the TSR2 was ahead of it's time.

There is also the Saunders Roe SR.177 of the 1950s. It was for a dual rocket/jet powered interceptor. Similarly it was ahead of its time but suffered due to politcs. (In this case Lockheed bribed Germand and Dutch officials to get orders) The Luftwaffe order was cancelled in favour of the F-104 StarFighter. This left the remaining RAF/RN order uneconomical so the entire plan was shelved.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saunders-Roe_SR.177


If you look back at WWII. The UK aviation industry was the equal of the US in design. The US however had the huge economic advantage in actual production.
Lancaster, Mosquito, Hurricane, Spitfire, Lysander, Typhoon, Meteor etc.
B-17, B-24, B-29, P-38 Lightening, P-47 ThunderBolt, P-51 Mustang, F-4U Corsair etc.

Edit: Didn't realise the US used the Spitfire too. Thought they started WWII with P-38s/P-40 then transisted to P-47/51.

cyrusdvirus

Dacian wrote: »

There is also the Saunders Roe SR.177 of the 1950s. It was for a dual rocket/jet powered interceptor. Similarly it was ahead of its time but suffered due to politcs. (In this case Lockheed bribed Germand and Dutch officials to get orders) The Luftwaffe order was cancelled in favour of the F-104 StarFighter. This left the remaining RAF/RN order uneconomical so the entire plan was shelved.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saunders-Roe_SR.177


If you look back at WWII. The UK aviation industry was the equal of the US in design. The US however had the huge economic advantage in actual production.
Lancaster, Mosquito, Hurricane, Spitfire, Lysander, Typhoon, Meteor etc.
B-17, B-24, B-29, P-38 Lightening, Mustang, Corsair etc.

The USAAF used the Spitfire during WWII as a recon plane.

I think the Mossie was used by them as well

Davidth88

Dacian wrote: »

If you look back at WWII. The UK aviation industry was the equal of the US in design. The US however had the huge economic advantage in actual production.
Lancaster, Mosquito, Hurricane, Spitfire, Lysander, Typhoon, Meteor etc.
B-17, B-24, B-29, P-38 Lightening, P-47 ThunderBolt, P-51 Mustang, F-4U Corsair etc.

Edit: Didn't realise the US used the Spitfire too. Thought they started WWII with P-38s/P-40 then transisted to P-47/51.

Of course the US also had a huge advantage that their factories were not being bombed on a regular basis.

It's interesting if you compare the UK model to the French model. You don't see the French Air Force flying many US built jets . Rather like you would never see a French policeman driving a German car