BBC 4 tonight. Jet. When Britain Ruled the Skies
Discussion
Eric Mc said:
Here are the pictures I took on Friday of the TSR2 temperature test article. It is "stored" at the moment in a compound at the rear of Farnborough Technical College. It has been outside for the best part of a year now, which I am sure is not the best place for it.
Well it's been outside for about 30 years so not likely to come to much additional harm. Disappointing to see it has apparently been dumped there instead of being reunited with a radome and returned to display at Brooklands though.
Eric Mc said:
The failure of the British airliner manufacturers to sell and build in volume their products (with a couple of notable exceptions) is one of the great national industrial disasters of the 1950s and 60s.
Or was it the demise of the Comet which let Boeing in?Then again, in a head to head sales fight with the Americans, I doubt Britons of that era would have coped very well. Rolls Royce managed to do it though.
Nope - Boeing would have been affected very little if the Comet had sold better and had been available in the years 1954 to 1958.
Boeing executives had visited De Havilland at Hatfield as guests in 1952 and reported back to the Boeing CEO, Bill Allen, that the Comet was not a significant threat to their plans to build a jet airliner. They were more concerned about any response from the three main airliner manufacturers of that era, Douglas, Lockheed and Convair.
Boeing executives had visited De Havilland at Hatfield as guests in 1952 and reported back to the Boeing CEO, Bill Allen, that the Comet was not a significant threat to their plans to build a jet airliner. They were more concerned about any response from the three main airliner manufacturers of that era, Douglas, Lockheed and Convair.
Simpo Two said:
Or was it the demise of the Comet which let Boeing in?
Then again, in a head to head sales fight with the Americans, I doubt Britons of that era would have coped very well. Rolls Royce managed to do it though.
Only after having been bailed out by the Heath Government in '71.Then again, in a head to head sales fight with the Americans, I doubt Britons of that era would have coped very well. Rolls Royce managed to do it though.
Maybe the Yanks would never have bought our aircraft in sufficient quantities to make a difference. What is far more disgraceful is the likes of BOAC, who after having been heavily involved in the spec and design of British made aircraft went on to buy Boeing anyway.
Perhaps, all else being equal, it goes like this:
America has the biggest market for airliners. Therefore it makes good financial sense for its airliner manufacturers to design and build airliners.
Now they have an airliner desinged and ready to go for the home market, it is easy to sell it to other countries. After all, why try to make your own from plans, with all the costs and risks involved, when you can buy one ready to go?
America has the biggest market for airliners. Therefore it makes good financial sense for its airliner manufacturers to design and build airliners.
Now they have an airliner desinged and ready to go for the home market, it is easy to sell it to other countries. After all, why try to make your own from plans, with all the costs and risks involved, when you can buy one ready to go?
Eric Mc said:
Nope - Boeing would have been affected very little if the Comet had sold better and had been available in the years 1954 to 1958.
Boeing executives had visited De Havilland at Hatfield as guests in 1952 and reported back to the Boeing CEO, Bill Allen, that the Comet was not a significant threat to their plans to build a jet airliner. They were more concerned about any response from the three main airliner manufacturers of that era, Douglas, Lockheed and Convair.
Wasn't the cancellation of the V1000 more significant in giving the market to Boeing and Douglas though? That rather than the Comet was the 707 rival.Boeing executives had visited De Havilland at Hatfield as guests in 1952 and reported back to the Boeing CEO, Bill Allen, that the Comet was not a significant threat to their plans to build a jet airliner. They were more concerned about any response from the three main airliner manufacturers of that era, Douglas, Lockheed and Convair.
It's odd that the program mentioned the problems caused by designing aircraft specifically for UK airlines but didn't feature the Trident which was the prime example.
Dr Jekyll said:
Wasn't the cancellation of the V1000 more significant in giving the market to Boeing and Douglas though? That rather than the Comet was the 707 rival.
It's odd that the program mentioned the problems caused by designing aircraft specifically for UK airlines but didn't feature the Trident which was the prime example.
Yes, it was the V1000 which BOAC were expected to order but instead went for a Rolls Royce Conway powered version of the 707. It's odd that the program mentioned the problems caused by designing aircraft specifically for UK airlines but didn't feature the Trident which was the prime example.
Although BOAC did launch the first trans-Atlantic jet service with the Comet 4, it was more of a publicity operation as the Comet 4 was not really optimised for Atlantic operations. The same was also true for the 707 service launched by Pan Am a couple of weeks later. The initial version of the 707 they were flying wasn't really up to trans-Atlantic operations either. However, the difference was that the 707 had lots of development potential and the longer range Intercontinental family of 707s (the series 300 and 400 versions) are coming along and entered service in the early 1960s.
The story of the Trident is very similar to that of the VC-10 - an airliner tailored so closely to the national airlines requirement that it very little chance of being sold to other airlines - and then finding that the national airline involved (BEA in this case) had decided that they didn't really want the aircraft anyway.
As mentioned above, the main problem was that the British industry found it very difficult to develop the aircraft at a fast enough pace to enable upgraded versions of the aircraft to come along in time to suit changing airline needs,
The best point made in the programme, and one I have been aware of for years, was that the manufacturers couldn't actually cope with success. The building capacity just wasn't there.
DamienB said:
Also worth noting that Vickers/BAC's concentration on VC-10 development took their eye off the TSR2 ball, to the detriment of that project, undoubtedly contributing to the managerial cockups and cost rises that eventually killed TSR2.
At least something fantastic came from itThe only error I noticed was the mentioning of Sopwith as a company exhibiting at the Farnborough Airshow. Sopwith was closed down at the end of World War 1, so many years before teh SBAC shows started - although it was immediately re-established under the name Hawker. If TV's "Watchdog" had been around back in 1918 I'm sure they would have been accusing Sopwith of being a "Phoenix" company - leaving their creditors high and dry.
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