BAC 2-11 & 3-11

[Hobbes]

I found a BAC 3-11 brochure at this year's SMW.
Here are some highlights and a PDF of the whole brochure.

I've been after something like this for a while. The BAC 3-11 book by Graziano Freschi doesn't include a dimensioned 3-view.

 

[Cjc]

If only the UK government had given industry a blank cheque they would have ruled the world. Definitely not like those times they spaffed it up the wall...

And there's definitely no UK aviation industry left today...

Unfortunately UK aviation history is usually written by ex-Industry types with a grudge or journalists who've been wined and dined by Industry. Objectivity ha

Well in this case its a journalist, a accountant actually who moved into aerospace journalism because of his love of airplanes.

These two schemes have evolved into son-of-V1000. But the blunder would have been to invest further in any of them. Freschi and other fans miss the essential point of any R&D investment, which is to pay off in volume production. Here: no way, Jose!

Timelines: BAC 2-11:
11/11/55: 1 prototype+6 V1000/RAF cancelled. No BOAC interest in VC7. Purge GRE's moan ("biggest blunder of all") from your mind. It was in his scope to go to Vickers Ltd Board for their money, but he knew better than to try. So he tried:
20/7/56: Viscount Major (to be Vanguard): BEAC orders 20, soon TCA 23. Vickers Ltd accepts PV spend, to avoid 7.5% Sales Levy on Treasury Launch Aid: why pay that cost-of-money when we have upfront deposits? Write off by Vickers Ltd: £16.7Mn. (by us £0).
14/1/58: BOAC orders 35 (Standard) VC10. V-A receives £10.25Mn Launch Aid. Yield on our money: £0.943Mn. Vickers Provided £20Mn. H.Evans,Vickers Against the Odds,Hodder,78,P86: “(Result) probably a breakeven position.”
9/5/61: new BUA launches BAC 1-11/200, which has Treasury Launch Aid. Sales follow inc to US, then stall as Viscount Customers TCA buys DC-9-14, Lufthansa, 737-100 (these are shocking losses).
What all this means is that Weybridge has no civil rain-maker status at BAC's Board, and then:
7/10/66: RR becomes proud owner of Bristol's 20% of BAC.
15/10/66: UK/France Govts reject Sud/BAC Galion as Euro Big Twin, for (unbid) Sud/HSAL/(to be)DASA) Super Galion, launched:
25/7/67: as A300 with RB207, Launch Aid all round (France, 100%).
BAC schemes (to be) 2-11, also pitches for workshare on Lockheed schemes.
15/12/67: Ministers decline BAC 2-11 Launch Aid (doing A300). BAC, nowhere with Lockheed (no Launch Aid), starts scheming (to be):

BAC 3-11:
29/3/68: RB211-22 exclusive on L-1011, 450 engines ordered at fixed prices, while also trying to develop RB207 for A300.
6/9/68 Weinstock/GEC buys EE Co, inc poison pill 40% of BAC; lets BAC spend £2Mn. 3-11 PV C.Gardner,BAC,Batsford,81,P182 and to seek Launch Aid by asserting capacity for 50% of £150Mn. R&D R.Payne,Stuck on Drawing Board,Tempus,04,P143.
9/12/68: A300 lapses; A300B emerges, Launch Aid assumed from 3 Govts.
16/4/69: UK quits A300B, to the joy of Treasury (£), BEAC (required to take L-1011), RR (L-1011). HS Group face civil Aero exit.
29/5/69: FRG accepts HSAL wing (18% of airframe R&D) to count towards its 50% of A300B and to pay 60% of DM250Mn. R&D Estimate, HS Group to find 40% +100% of any overrun. No Treasury Launch Aid: HS Group's exposure is PV.
2/12/70: UK declines BAC 3-11 Launch Aid: potentially cannibalising HS' plucky risk. Markets-Rule OK Ministers staring at RR bankruptcy.

G.Freschi,BAC 3-11,Tempus,06,P104 has denial of 2-11/3-11 Aid as Opportunities Lost. But 1-11 was losing to DC-9/737; VC10 sold none open-market (Ghana/EAAC: BOAC Associated Companies; BUA trying to curry political favour): heavy; rickety Support, languid Product Devt - Britcraft norm: why would 3-11 have done more? Sold to whom? Not AF, DLH, or in US versus the Triplets. (uk75 #29: ) it would have confused and cannibalised HSAL's A300B wing, to the benefit only of DC-10/L-1011.

(uk75 #30) 3-11 and BEAC, RR: there's what I say...and there's what I think.
RR could not develop RB199/MRCA, RB211/L-1011, RB211/BAC 3-11 concurrently, nor as a BAC equity-holder did they have capital capacity (or appetite) for their share of BAC 3-11 airframe R&D net of Treasury Launch Aid. MRCA+L-1011, that'll do nicely.
BEAC at Farnborough, 9/70 Show made a "provisional commitment" to 3-11, in part to deflect HS Group's efforts to extract an A300B order, and in part to dissuade new Ministers from optimism on BEAC's offtake from Air Holdings Ltd "order" for 50 L-1011s (a dodgy feature of UK efforts to land RB211 exclusivity: all puff). BEAC's 1964 Spec for a Big Twin envisaged an order of 6.

Well his point (now that I have actually read the book) is that the bac 3-11 was already a international project with focker and alenia building significant parts of the fuselage. The A-300B wing could only have been biult with hawker Siddeleys knowledge and to build it domestically in Germany would have created a 2 to 3 year delay and added billions to the cost of the a-300B, probably a non starter consdering the plane didn't even have any orders by this point. Meaning that France and Germany would have had to crawl to bac inorder to get in on the bac 3-11 ( which he is convinced would have sold well thanks to all the other planes boeing biult in the same size bracket and how well they did lol) meaning airbus (or what ever this new conglomerate would have been called) would have had its headquarters in London and its leading industrial center in Weybridge. This seems to come from his belief that France is the one that runs airbus and all the major decisions are made in toulouse, the resident blow up in the FCAS project i think shows rather clearly that it doesn't really mader were the headquarters are, its were the money comes from and despite airbus supposedly being a 50-50 venture between France and Germany, Germany has pumped a lot more money into airbus to keep it going even from the start (he talks about how it was Germany who payed for hawker Siddeley to stay as part of airbus as a kick back for British troops in Germany).

 

[uk 75]

Given that the Airbus A300 has evolved into a full family of widebody aircraft it is hard to see what could have evolved from the BAC311.
Podded wing mounted engines have consigned rear jet engines to exec jets.

 

[hesham]

From Interavia 1969.

 

[Caravellarella]

Dear Boys & Girls, I had the opportunity, last weekend, to buy two sets of BAC manufacturer's modelmaking plans for the a/the BAC 2-11 (I didn't buy). Have any of you come across similar type drawings/plans of the BAC 3-11 perchance?

Terry (Caravellarella)

 

[MDF1]

These two schemes have evolved into son-of-V1000. But the blunder would have been to invest further in any of them. Freschi and other fans miss the essential point of any R&D investment, which is to pay off in volume production. Here: no way, Jose!

Timelines: BAC 2-11:
11/11/55: 1 prototype+6 V1000/RAF cancelled. No BOAC interest in VC7. Purge GRE's moan ("biggest blunder of all") from your mind. It was in his scope to go to Vickers Ltd Board for their money, but he knew better than to try. So he tried:
20/7/56: Viscount Major (to be Vanguard): BEAC orders 20, soon TCA 23. Vickers Ltd accepts PV spend, to avoid 7.5% Sales Levy on Treasury Launch Aid: why pay that cost-of-money when we have upfront deposits? Write off by Vickers Ltd: £16.7Mn. (by us £0).
14/1/58: BOAC orders 35 (Standard) VC10. V-A receives £10.25Mn Launch Aid. Yield on our money: £0.943Mn. Vickers Provided £20Mn. H.Evans,Vickers Against the Odds,Hodder,78,P86: “(Result) probably a breakeven position.”
9/5/61: new BUA launches BAC 1-11/200, which has Treasury Launch Aid. Sales follow inc to US, then stall as Viscount Customers TCA buys DC-9-14, Lufthansa, 737-100 (these are shocking losses).
What all this means is that Weybridge has no civil rain-maker status at BAC's Board, and then:
7/10/66: RR becomes proud owner of Bristol's 20% of BAC.
15/10/66: UK/France Govts reject Sud/BAC Galion as Euro Big Twin, for (unbid) Sud/HSAL/(to be)DASA) Super Galion, launched:
25/7/67: as A300 with RB207, Launch Aid all round (France, 100%).
BAC schemes (to be) 2-11, also pitches for workshare on Lockheed schemes.
15/12/67: Ministers decline BAC 2-11 Launch Aid (doing A300). BAC, nowhere with Lockheed (no Launch Aid), starts scheming (to be):

BAC 3-11:
29/3/68: RB211-22 exclusive on L-1011, 450 engines ordered at fixed prices, while also trying to develop RB207 for A300.
6/9/68 Weinstock/GEC buys EE Co, inc poison pill 40% of BAC; lets BAC spend £2Mn. 3-11 PV C.Gardner,BAC,Batsford,81,P182 and to seek Launch Aid by asserting capacity for 50% of £150Mn. R&D R.Payne,Stuck on Drawing Board,Tempus,04,P143.
9/12/68: A300 lapses; A300B emerges, Launch Aid assumed from 3 Govts.
16/4/69: UK quits A300B, to the joy of Treasury (£), BEAC (required to take L-1011), RR (L-1011). HS Group face civil Aero exit.
29/5/69: FRG accepts HSAL wing (18% of airframe R&D) to count towards its 50% of A300B and to pay 60% of DM250Mn. R&D Estimate, HS Group to find 40% +100% of any overrun. No Treasury Launch Aid: HS Group's exposure is PV.
2/12/70: UK declines BAC 3-11 Launch Aid: potentially cannibalising HS' plucky risk. Markets-Rule OK Ministers staring at RR bankruptcy.

G.Freschi,BAC 3-11,Tempus,06,P104 has denial of 2-11/3-11 Aid as Opportunities Lost. But 1-11 was losing to DC-9/737; VC10 sold none open-market (Ghana/EAAC: BOAC Associated Companies; BUA trying to curry political favour): heavy; rickety Support, languid Product Devt - Britcraft norm: why would 3-11 have done more? Sold to whom? Not AF, DLH, or in US versus the Triplets. (uk75 #29: ) it would have confused and cannibalised HSAL's A300B wing, to the benefit only of DC-10/L-1011.

(uk75 #30) 3-11 and BEAC, RR: there's what I say...and there's what I think.
RR could not develop RB199/MRCA, RB211/L-1011, RB211/BAC 3-11 concurrently, nor as a BAC equity-holder did they have capital capacity (or appetite) for their share of BAC 3-11 airframe R&D net of Treasury Launch Aid. MRCA+L-1011, that'll do nicely.
BEAC at Farnborough, 9/70 Show made a "provisional commitment" to 3-11, in part to deflect HS Group's efforts to extract an A300B order, and in part to dissuade new Ministers from optimism on BEAC's offtake from Air Holdings Ltd "order" for 50 L-1011s (a dodgy feature of UK efforts to land RB211 exclusivity: all puff). BEAC's 1964 Spec for a Big Twin envisaged an order of 6.

I think one of the key points of Freschi book is to view it without the benefit of hindsight! As he points out, at a given point in time at the end of the 1960’s Airbus was a struggling concept with only 4 commitments and dominated by the French and Germans, Britain’s in/out involvement is interesting in itself. At the same time BAC, an actual airliner manufacturer had put together a wider international consortium of suppliers to build the 3-11 which included Fokker and a German manufacturer but I can’t remember which and had commitments for 30-40 aircraft. You can question the validity of those commitments but looking from a 1969/1970 perspective, can you really state that the Airbus ‘dream’ made the most commercial sense? The only factor at play in giving launch aid to the A300B by the French and German governments was a political desire for a ‘prestige’ project. While the 3-11 was cancelled in 1970, it took Airbus another 7 years to gain credibility to win a significant none European order and in fact the entity of Airbus was only incorporated in December 1970, after the 3-11 had already been cancelled.....

 

[alertken]

Hindsight is the curse of AH. Freschi explores Ministers' grappling with issues as they reached 2/12/70 decision not to provide Launch Aid. We Now Know a GO decision would have lapsed 4/2/71 when RR entered Receivership. We, taxpayers, bailed out RR 22/5/71 after sifting Options including dismantling (aka asset stripping). It was complex enough for Ministers to face astronomic Lockheed claims if L-1011 suffered, and to deal with consequences if RB199 set back MRCA. They would have pulled any 3-11 plug pronto.

Can we agree that UK-on-Airbus is a Good Thing? Other threads have noted Lady Luck's role in that: A300B white tails littering Toulouse would have throttled any A310, so any Narrow Aisle, so no long term Airbus Industrie, were it not for 2 steps the Management Team took in response to Eastern/Frank Borman's interest in (a slightly -?30 seats) smaller A300B: they offered to pay the Direct Operating Cost of unsold excess seats ($0 was paid), and they stepped up to his demands for Product Support so responsive as to defeat the Atlantic separating Miami from Toulouse.

 

[Archibald]

Can we agree that UK-on-Airbus is a Good Thing? Other threads have noted Lady Luck's role in that: A300B white tails littering Toulouse would have throttled any A310, so any Narrow Aisle, so no long term Airbus Industrie, were it not for 2 steps the Management Team took in response to Eastern/Frank Borman's interest in (a slightly -?30 seats) smaller A300B: they offered to pay the Direct Operating Cost of unsold excess seats ($0 was paid), and they stepped up to his demands for Product Support so responsive as to defeat the Atlantic separating Miami from Toulouse.

Readily agree. This was Airbus much needed USA breakthrough (much like the Space Shuttle miserable commercial failure for Ariane).
The A300 luck was
-with its 265 seats it happened to be the perfect middleground between
-the largest 707/727/737 / DC-9 (210 seats max)
-and the smallest widebodies - DC-10, Tristar, 747-SP (300 seats +)
-It was de facto an almost perfect replacement for the DC-8-63 (260 seats)
-When this happened https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_Deregulation_Act - and changed USA air transportation forever.

 

[MDF1]

Hindsight is the curse of AH. Freschi explores Ministers' grappling with issues as they reached 2/12/70 decision not to provide Launch Aid. We Now Know a GO decision would have lapsed 4/2/71 when RR entered Receivership. We, taxpayers, bailed out RR 22/5/71 after sifting Options including dismantling (aka asset stripping). It was complex enough for Ministers to face astronomic Lockheed claims if L-1011 suffered, and to deal with consequences if RB199 set back MRCA. They would have pulled any 3-11 plug pronto.

Can we agree that UK-on-Airbus is a Good Thing? Other threads have noted Lady Luck's role in that: A300B white tails littering Toulouse would have throttled any A310, so any Narrow Aisle, so no long term Airbus Industrie, were it not for 2 steps the Management Team took in response to Eastern/Frank Borman's interest in (a slightly -?30 seats) smaller A300B: they offered to pay the Direct Operating Cost of unsold excess seats ($0 was paid), and they stepped up to his demands for Product Support so responsive as to defeat the Atlantic separating Miami from Toulouse.

RR going into receivership was planned for with talks to use the CF-6 having taken place. You might want to think that being part of Airbus was a successful strategy. However the fact is that significant sales of the 3-11 were already being discussed in 1970, including strong interest from US operators. The airframe had growth potential in the same way the DC-9 and 1-11 had been stretched and with significantly more interest from operators would have been better placed than you indicated to whether the oil crisis! The aircraft at risk would have been the Tristars and the A300 would have been stillborn. The consortium set up to build the 3-11 was diverse and not politically motivated meaning it could have run as a true business and develop future products on their sales merits…..

 

[red admiral]

Hindsight would be that government had had plenty of rosy sales projections before from previous projects and yet their previous investment had seen little return. Even the "successes" like the BAC 1-11 saw small returns compared to the government expenditure.

It's not that surprising they were rightly skeptical and wanted to try something different that had lower risk spread across multiple countries.

 

[BROF]

What a bad design for a large airliner with big&heavy turbofan engines! No bending-moment relief on the wings because of the lack of nacelles; heavy rear fuselage structure; high drag on the rear fuselage (worst place), that would preclude a long-range four-engine variants (A340); long, heavy complicated fuel lines from wing tankage to rear engines. To limit the risk of over rotation at zero-fuel/low weights, even when parked (!), leading to damage to rear fuselage (see RAF VC-10 incident), the main landing-gear and hence the wings have to be set too much to the rear, leading to over-large (heavy and draggy) stabilizer and heavy vertical tail to support it; deep-stall risk from T tail; (Ilyushin found a much better solution with their auxiliary landing-gear leg on Il-62). Like VC-10 but even worse. Would have been a huge disaster, and led to the non-refunding of English government subsidizes to launch it (Airbus repaid all of them multiple times). Fortunately Europeans escaped this ugly trap. It would have killed our aircraft industry, like theirs was killed. Airbus was an industrial project from the start, not a political one like this one.

 

[hesham]

From this book.

 

[Hobbes]

Does that book have detailed information on the 2-11 or 3-11, or just a general overview?

 

[hesham]

Does that book have detailed information on the 2-11 or 3-11, or just a general overview?

Partially.