Alternate Brabazon Committees

PMN1

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The Brabazon Committees remit was prepare an ‘outline specification for several aircraft types needed for post-war air transport’.

With the benefit of hindsight, what ‘Types’ would you request specifications for and what designs would you use to fill them to produce a healthier UK aircraft manufacturing industry.

I’m not sure if it looked into powerplants, but are there any that you would have chosen rather than the one actually used?
 
The Miles X.11 design in place of the Bristol one for the Type 1 !!!!!!
 
Type 1 was Transatlantic, inspired by Lockheed 089 R6V Constitution; 2 was Continental to match CV110; 3 was Empire to beat Connie/DC-4; 5 was Feeder, v. Lockheed Saturn (it was not just Brits that bred turkeys). Types 1/3 were to have ex-military big pistons in Marks I, (Tiger Force Bomber-intended) Bristol Theseus/Proteus or RR Clyde in Mk.II because Brabazon's Committee thought there we had something US did not. Only Type 4 was not a US-clone: Express, to be Comet 1. PMN1 is enquiring: what should Type 6 have been? and: Should a bespoke civil powerplant have been funded?

Brab ignored marine, so MAP added (to be) Saro Princess. He ignored cargo, because C-46/47 would do the job at scrap prices. He ignored Mom-and-Pop-and-the-kids and the entry-level 2-seater, because Grasshoppers would lead in to high-volume US types. UK auto industry did not lie down like that, and tried Austin Metropolitan, Austin-Healey 3000, MG TF...&tc for fun, and took the Willy's Jeep headon with the Land-Rover. That, but not the other autos, was State subsidised. The private-funding option was open to Aero, but only Cunliffe-Owen and Miles had a go, on Concordia and Aerovan: both firms expired and venture finance fled from UK Aero.

There was no missed-opportunity Type 6. We did miss out on powerplant economy/reliability, by pursuing military high-performance. Napier attempted boosted-diesel Nomad, as economical Big-Power, but dribbled time away. Metro-Vick was moved by MoS back to electricity turbines, so we were back to ASM/Bristol/RR, who had no desire to risk their own money on anything, then or ever - there was never a PV UK turbine. Brab could not have won State funds for a purely civil powerplant when so many military ones were late.
 
alertken said:
He ignored Mom-and-Pop-and-the-kids and the entry-level 2-seater, because Grasshoppers would lead in to high-volume US types. UK auto industry did not lie down like that, and tried Austin Metropolitan, Austin-Healey 3000, MG TF...&tc for fun, and took the Willy's Jeep headon with the Land-Rover. That, but not the other autos, was State subsidised.

This bit confuses me? I thought that Brabazon only dealt with aviation?
 
Apologies for my shorthand, Mod. I'm trying to say that UK auto industry did not lie down in face of US' domestic volume, but found niches - fun, sport, feel. Aero could have tried to do the same with general aviation, but lacked the gumption to put up its own money. Chrislea tried, with that odd (no feet) Skyjeep/Super Ace, and expired.
 
(There is a Bristol Brabazon thread on WW.2 forum. "Our" Schneiderman has articles in current Aeroplane Monthly surveying the actual Types. So, tangent to original Q) . No Brabazon Committee?

What if... Churchill had banished the Pretender for his job, sending him not to Aircraft Production but some other backwater.

Actual: was that R.S.Cripps tried to oust Churchill, but lost to elAlamein. He could not decline MAP, 11/42, because we needed Heavies and he accepted PM's flattery that he was the man for the job. But he was a noisy Christian Socialist, had been critical of area bombing, and let us know he had a conscience. So he needed penance, was Bristol E. MP. He accepted CAS Portal's dumping of 100ton Bombers to accelerate Halifax and Lancaster NOW! although the Bristol A/c scheme was of interest. Sir R.Fedden (ex-Bristol, Centaurus designer) was MAP Special Technical Adviser, who told him the 100t wing could lift people. So RSC told PM: "I'll deliver Heavies, you let me put such spare resources as I can find into Civil A/c." Deal, said PM, then imposed on him the ex-Minister, ousted by Unions+Cripps 22/2/42 for suggesting "it suited us" that Germany had turned East. So: the Brabazon Committee. See how it is the players that make the play.

What If...PM had put anybody else into MAP, 22/11/42? AN.Other might have produced the Heavies, but would not have given a moment's thought that day to Civil Aircraft. So no 2/43 Brabazon Report. What then?

Ponder these Options: * more C-54s and some C-69s come our way, free. In 1946 we pay to keep them.
* Bristol try harder, post-Fedden, to make Theseus work for Windsor, do so, and fix it by say 1945: Bristol Aeroplane start scheming it into (what emerged as) Britannia and interest BOAC/BLAAL in it, but:
* V-A make Windsor work, too, so pitch Civil variant with Theseus or RR Clyde.
All firms think about (what Brabazon called) Empire Type, because we can count on good sales volume to our buddies. No-one bothers with mail Express (no volume) or Continental (which exists as DC-3).
 
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