Sidewinder AIM-9X Development - Have Thrust, Box Office, Boa, Top Hat

zjz said:
it is mind boggling that there are so many companies that has been consolidated in the 1990's .....
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I think it went too far resulting in an oligopoly situation, one prime example is Boeing's acquisition of McDonnell-Douglas. Long term this proved to be a serious mistake as while took over McD the McD senior executives took over Boeing and ruined its' corporate culture with the McDonnell Aircraft Corporation corporate culture, now look at all of the problems Boeing has had post-merger.
 
NMaude said:
I think it went too far resulting in an oligopoly situation, one prime example is Boeing's acquisition of McDonnell-Douglas. Long term this proved to be a serious mistake as while took over McD the McD senior executives took over Boeing and ruined its' corporate culture with the McDonnell Aircraft Corporation corporate culture, now look at all of the problems Boeing has had post-merger.
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I’d argue that McDonnell Douglas was already effectively dead before the merger. The DC-9 lineage was completely played out, the JSF bid lost and all they really had was the F/A-18 and C-17 order books. Boeing managed to diversify into defense, which is coming in handy now that their commercial aviation business is in seemingly terminal decline. There’s a reason why they’re moving their corporate headquarters to near DC.
 
zjz said:
Ya, just read up on the history/timeline ..... it is mind boggling that there are so many companies that has been consolidated in the 1990's .....
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In 1993, SecDef Les Aspin literally held a dinner where he invited CEOs from all the major defense contractors without telling them in advance what the invitation was about. At the dinner, he told them that defense budgets were going to go down, and that the future level of spending cannot possibly sustain as many defense contractors as then existed, and that the industry should consolidate heavily. There was even a presentation that listed various segments of relevant industry, the amount of companies currently working in those segments, and the amount that the DoD believed could be supported in the future. And that last number was typically a third or less of what currently existed.

Those present took this as a direct order to start merging with each other. The dinner came to be known as the "last supper".
 

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