Getting UK projects earlier

[uk 75]

The long development history of the F105 Thunderchief illustrates how far behind the curve the UK was

Republic F-105 Thunderchief - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

The only UK analogue to Thunderchief the Hawker 1121 is still only a mockup while the F105 is finally getting ordered for the USAF in the late 50s.
While F105s were being used up in Vietnam the RAF units in the same role were still using subsonic Canberras and Hunters.
The situation gets worse with TSR2. Look at the development of the very similar Vigilante

North American A-5 Vigilante - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Vigilantes with a very similar capability and role to TSR2 were in squadron service before the prototype TSR2 even flew.
Alternate History fans of UK designs need to get them designed and built a lot earlier than in real life.
Even the real stuff was much later than it should have been. Jaguar should have been in service by 1970 MRCA/Tornado by 1974 Typhoon by 1989.

 

[Grey Havoc]

HM Treasury, then as now, was a major roadblock to any sane procurement policy.

 

[JohnR]

P1121 was developed using private company funds and with no government funding.

TSR2 was smothered by government bureaucracy, with the reduction of the size of the UK Aerospace Industry and the reduction in the number of projects the civil service turned their attention to the only show in town the TSR2. If it had been a car they would have had a committee to decided where the cup holders should go - even though cup holders hadn't been thought of yet!!!!

 

[Pirate Pete]

Also, don't forget.
Although British aircraft manufacturers had been subjected to 'shotgun weddings' of amalgamations (the major exception being Handley Page who held out)...
Although you had two major aircraft companies B.A.C. and Hawker-Siddeley, there was still an incredible amount of internal squabbling and in-fighting with the various design teams from the old independent component companies putting up competing designs against each other internally!
At around this time (late 1950's/early 196's), they had not really adopted the unified approach which would have solved some of these issues.
Of course, there is also the age-old "the best is the enemy of good enough" scenario.
Would English Electric's P.17A have been a better bet than TSR.2, created as a result of combining English Electrics design and Vickers
Type 571?
Take the 'good enough' and bring to service, then TSR.2 becomes the NEXT project, incremental development instead of 'great leaps'?

 

[zen]

The closest thing to a UK Thunderchief is the Type 571 Single Engine.
P.1121 starts life as P.1103 studies. It's a pure fighter in origin. Adapted for other roles.
The parallel to the TSR.2 is the B68 that never made past a paper design.

While the UK did delay some progress, in comparing with everyone bar the US, the UK made good progress.

 

[uk 75]

Trouble is that the US bit of kit is the benchmark. Except in rare cases like the Hunter or Canberra where the US recognised the usefulness of the British design (or the US Marines with Harrier) the US analogue is earlier and dominates. Although noone else in NATO bought the F105 or F106, these planes were built and in service while P1121 and SR177 tried futilely to do the same job on a shoestring budget for a customer who did not know what it wanted.

 

[Zoo Tycoon]

This is not just yesterday’s problem. As a twenty something engineer in late 1980’s, I was doing tandem fan studies, with guys around me looking at other propulsion options for the next generation VTOL fighter aircraft. I think at the time we were it was for an entry into service in tens years from then. Of course this was the first steps of F35 which entered into service in 2016. For an engineer that follows this project from conception to sorting out the first front line problems is almost an entire career. (I know at least one that did)

The big, fully capable industry seems to have lost the ability to turn these projects around quickly. The reasons are various, increasing product complexity, an intolerance of any technical failure, the commercial environment, analysis paralysis to mention but a few. This is one reason I’m so in awe of SpaceX Falcon and Starship development. It’s a process that’s just so utterly alien to the big companies I just can’t see any being able to emulate it.

 

[Hood]

It was the second generation jets that were the problem. All the swept-wing transonic types (Hunter, Swift, Scimitar, DH110, Javelin) took an age to get from OR dreams to frontline fighter. In some cases, like the Sea Vixen, the delays were insanely long. In contrast the V-bombers were not so badly delayed as might have been expected.
The delays were due to inertia during the early 1950s (10 year rule etc.), lack of industrial resources, concentration on first gen production (Meteor, Venom and Canberra) as well as indecision (especially from the Admiralty) about what the next generation. should be. Korea came along and the crash programmes led to scrabbling around to get anything off the drawing board. That delayed the supersonic generation, even at the time of the Sandys Axe in 1957, many of them were still 3-4 years away from service use.

Too much time was spent faffing around with limited reheated Hunters and cranked wing Swifts which were strictly day gun-fighters, beefed up Scimitars, stretched and lumpy Victors and Vulcans and the absurd Thin-Wing Javelin during the late 1950s. All these 1940s era airframes should have been dumped, no point trying to make supersonic wonders out of outdated technology. Worse still, they overlapped efforts like FD.2, FD.3, Avro 730 - true cutting edge designs - and wasted resources. Thankfully most of these mutant versions never made it off the drawing board, but the designers should have been busy on the next generation.

So we had Hunter in 1954, Sea Vixen in 1957, ideally both should have been in service around 1952, gun armed but suitable enough until true supersonic aircraft with missile armament arrived in 1957. Was this realistic? In some cases yes, in some cases no. Nothing exists in a vacuum, you need the engines and avionics and guided weapons ready to match the airframe. There were not enough industrial resources to match the pace and breadth of US progress.

I think comparisons to the USA and the USSR in this period are a fallacy. Pre-war it might have been a fairer comparison on many levels, but post-1945 the term superpowers pretty well sums up the situation. Britain was trying to punch well above its weight. I prefer to compare the industry against its continental European competition which was far closer in size, scope and spending power to enable a fair comparison. British fighter development is more in step with France's experience; they managed not to cock up the transonic fighters and ensured a smooth continuation into supersonic fighters, even though many of these were culled due to economic pressures.

Post-Sandys the Air Staff became lost in a high-tech superpower dream of world-beaters which were technically impossible to realise (P.1154, TSR.2, HS681 with VTOL pods). Industry had to jump from souped-up late 1940s designs to the height of 1960s technology and its no wonder that the transition was strained and ultimately led to several failures. It was akin to Camm rocking up for his first day of work at Kingston in 1923 with the plans of the Typhoon rolled under his arm.

 

[uk 75]

Comparison with the USA is relevant since the numerous threads that appear on this site keep trying to argue that British programmes in the late 50s or early 60s were as good or better than US analogues and would have been really competitive if they had been allowed to carry on.
This is also fed by the myth that the US wanted to kill off British competition. The P1127 was only possible because of US funding and its survival as the Harrier helped by the enthusiasm of the US Marines.
TSR2 was not killed by those nasty people at General Dynamics or McDD but by the boneheaded combination of British politicians, officialdom and industry which is today doing such a fine job of dealing with a certain Virus.

 

[Hood]

It was a resources issue.
Countless MoS memos in the 1950s files have a lot of hand wringing about design capacity, numbers of draughtsmen, numbers of redundant workers, whether X project might affect the progress of Z, whether company A could be trusted with a complicated project, whether company D might just squeeze in a basic aircraft job. There were assessments of people like George Edwards - the MoS lamented his rise in the Vickers hierarchy as it took him further from direct contact with the shop floor.

By 1960 its as if the MoS/MoA and Cabinet had worried themselves into such a feverpitch that they used the concept of international collaboration as a smokescreen so they didn't need to panic or spend as much money.
By 1960 an industry capable of developing supersonic fighters, strategic bombers, GW etc. only a decade before wasn't even given the chance to build a supersonic trainer on its own. The industry could have built something like the Viggen or Jaguar no sweat, but it wasn't given the option. Instead they got Dan Dare VTOLs and TSR.2 instead. It wasn't as if the industry put up a fight either - though perhaps MRCA was BAC's persistence in making some use of its VG wing capability. But then by the end of the 1960s we couldn't even sell Bulldogs to Sweden without nearly cocking it all up.

 

[zen]

And so we veer back to the inevitable realities of post war Britain.
Among which is the sheer inertia inherent in what was still much more like a Communist Command Economy.
Were rationing was worse, were changing jobs for certain skilled staff needed government permission.
A make do and mend world, of which my own parents grew up in. Hording materials because new was not just expensive but hard to come by.

Were the chaps at ECKO knew the future was transistors but feared to experiment with the few extortionately expensive components they could get, lest they blew one up.
DH might propose the DH116, but couldn't allocate drawing office staff for all the component drawings needed.
No wonder Camm stuck with Hunter variations, even as it increasingly become clear none of them would do.

 

[Grey Havoc]

By 1960 its as if the MoS/MoA and Cabinet had worried themselves into such a feverpitch that they used the concept of international collaboration as a smokescreen so they didn't need to panic or spend as much money.

In part, it was because they had by then begun to realise just how much of a disaster Sandys had been, but they couldn't bring themselves to just disavow him and his actions because of the likely political fallout (which would have involved more than a few heads sent rolling all over the place).

 

[Hood]

By 1960 its as if the MoS/MoA and Cabinet had worried themselves into such a feverpitch that they used the concept of international collaboration as a smokescreen so they didn't need to panic or spend as much money.

In part, it was because they had by then begun to realise just how much of a disaster Sandys had been, but they couldn't bring themselves to just disavow him and his actions because of the likely political fallout (which would have involved more than a few heads sent rolling all over the place).

Sorry but that is a load of old cobblers.
As has been said many, many times before, Sandys was Macmillan's hatchet man - he WAS government policy, not some aberration let loose in the Ministry. Aubrey Jones was Minister of Supply but Macmillan thought he was too weak to take on the aircraft industry, so Sandys as Minister of Defence was given the task instead.

The industry was a paradox, it was fat yet thin.
Lots of productive capacity left over from the remnants of smaller companies that had been brought up (Fairey, Airspeed etc.), remnants of wartime and superpriority factory expansion schemes, lots of smaller companies doing odd jobs and throwing in designs as they needed the work and the bigger companies which were improperly merged with resulting competing internal structures and feuds (even the newly formed Beagle was a fresh battleground for the Miles bros). The MoS hated competitive tendering, they knew every Tom, Dick and Harry could throw in designs that they then had to shift through. TSR.2 was the first time they had the stick to keep the tenders on track.
Resources were finite, design teams spread around the country, hopping from one company to the other in some cases as projects ebbed and waned. A stressman or draughtsman working on a low key job like a basic trainer tender that had no hope of an order for a small company was wasted when the bigger firms with ten projects on the go lacked enough manpower - this wasn't wartime so there was no way of moving the workforce around any more.

So the weaker parts had to wither (except in Northern Ireland and Scotland where local employment policy and government shareholdings trumped all other considerations). You couldn't force companies to close, some like Boulton Paul took the hint early on and went into conversions and power controls, Fairey did much the same thing eventually as naval programmes became like hen's teeth. Companies like Blackburn persevered, Handley Page tried the hardest to keep going alone without any outside help and got kicked to death from all sides.
Selective tendering didn't really work under the MoS regulations, complaints in the House of Commons was a powerful rebuffer to this policy too. Even Attlee's Labour didn't dare to nationalise the lot.
So it wasn't until Macmillan arrived with the plan to free up industrial manpower and money into boosting the consumer goods and housebuilding programme (these were vote winners, only planespotters like planes and they get outvoted). So TSR.2 and the BEA Jet were too big sticks to make the industry start to act like its not 1930 anymore.

Yes, modernisation! The gleaming stainless steel 60s chic modern Britain of Wonderloaf bread, cheap nuclear power, shiny jets, a car in every drive, a telly in every front room, a skilled workforce with jobs for all, no more tooth decay and modern management methods to make Britain more productive than ever before!
So the MoA starts importing US management techniques... but doesn't quite know how to go about it and management courses for Whitehall wallahs must have been pretty sketchy. The result was the Frankenstein setup for TSR.2 of labyrinthine committees and contract cockups (McNamara tried the same in the USA and failed even harder).
The British public like fair play, so when Ferranti earns a big profit on Bloodhound contracts everyone kicks up a fuss. The MoA tries to defend itself but its clear the contracts department is overworked, under staffed and just plain incompetent at times. Thankfully Ferranti doesn't ditch avionics in favour of televisions entirely.
The aviation industry tries to get with the times too, but they now spend as much on fallbacks for the shareholders as they do on aircraft; Canadian lumbermills, hovercraft, heavy machinery while trimming back as much unused factory capacity as possible. That doesn't win votes as skilled people lose their jobs - despite this being the government's original plan.
The airlines try a hand at market forecasting. BEA gets scared nobody wants to fly anymore so chops Trident in half. BOAC reckons by 1980 everyone will be flying supersonic. Nice work chaps.
The Air Staff wants everything from Dan Dare with more bells and whistles on. They want to avenge Sandys by leapfrogging even the Yanks in having the best possible - presumably also with an eye on the future given government parsimony, they are still flying Meteors so its possible TSR.2 might have to last until 1985 at least so it had better be good.

The government still hates the idea of spending money. Why can't plane builders be more like Victorian railway builders and get investors to back their hairbrained schemes? They don't exist with a nationalised and airline industry and even a conventional airliner costs millions to develop and several years of work. The lure of sweet, sweet Dollars and Sterling from exports keeps Macmillan's purse partially open (he'll give you half the cash in return for a slice of the profits). Joining the EEC looks good too, so tempting to appear international by building planes with the French, Germans, Italians, anybody really who might stump up some cash. Sometimes we come late to the party and come away empty handed (Alpha Jet), sometimes we come first and still come away empty handed (P.1150, AFVG), sometimes we get the deal and it doesn't seem to go as planned (Concorde, helicopters, Jaguar), sometimes we throw our toys out of the pram (Airbus).

Ultimately government policy 1950-65 is like a smoke, it winds its way through but you can never really pin it down. Pragmatism trumps everything, Sandys was cutting back waste, within five years launch aid became a reality. No state support is not an absolute policy, you can get it if the government thinks you might make money. No more expensive military jets soon ends in favour of fewer but still highly ambitious and expensive projects. After Folland's Gnat there are no more military private ventures (Strikemaster might count). The idea that BAC or HSA might design an airliner that isn't wedded to the needs of the two State airlines becomes alien, the BAC 2-11 and 3-11 nearly break the mould but in competition with the US and now Airbus Industrie it seems an uphill battle that can't be won.

For anyone who thinks that by 1969 we could compete with the USA I would just say... Beagle.
Masefield's dreams of recapturing a slice of the general aviation market from the US giants lasted less than a decade and was a fiasco from start to finish.

 

[Zoo Tycoon]

the boneheaded combination of British politicians, officialdom and industry which is today doing such a fine job of dealing with a certain Virus.

It a good job that these guys aren’t responsible for anything really dangerous such as nuclear weapons.

 

[zen]

Ahhh British Government........you only survive if you like your humour black and by the truckload.

 

[red admiral]

The industry could have built something like the Viggen or Jaguar no sweat, but it wasn't given the option. Instead they got Dan Dare VTOLs and TSR.2 instead.

Which 1960s companies could have realistically done this though? Amalgamation and consolidation was pretty necessary. Industry much preferred to spend taxpayers cash on it's wet dreams rather than useful military aircraft.

 

[zen]

Brough seemed to have the right ideas, but they weren't flavour of the decade and doomed (condemned even) for having the Buccaneer.

Yet looking at some of their studies you cannot help but think this was along the right lines.

 

[Nick Sumner]

Why can't plane builders be more like Victorian railway builders and get investors to back their hairbrained schemes?

Because for UK banks its easier and more profitable to lend abroad. Has been since the 19th Century. The UK government became the first last and only resort for finance for the aircraft vehicle and ship building industries. But the money came with strings, principally meddling by people (govt and CivServs) who had no idea how business or manufacturing industry worked or worse still looked for political rather than business outcomes (cf Wedgie Benn at British Leyland - but plenty of blame for all political stripes). One of the main reasons UK industry is a shadow of its former self is under investment.

 

[zen]

Why can't plane builders be more like Victorian railway builders and get investors to back their hairbrained schemes?

Don't forget property, which started outgrowing middle class incomes by 1972 but had been heading that way since the early 60’s.
Property was and is more profitable than industry.

Because for UK banks its easier and more profitable to lend abroad. Has been since the 19th Century. The UK government became the first last and only resort for finance for the aircraft vehicle and ship building industries. But the money came with strings, principally meddling by people (govt and CivServs) who had no idea how business or manufacturing industry worked or worse still looked for political rather than business outcomes (cf Wedgie Benn at British Leyland - but plenty of blame for all political stripes). One of the main reasons UK industry is a shadow of its former self is under investment.

 

[Zoo Tycoon]

Because for UK banks its easier and more profitable to lend abroad. Has been since the 19th Century. The UK government became the first last and only resort for finance for the aircraft vehicle and ship building industries. But the money came with strings, principally meddling by people (govt and CivServs) who had no idea how business or manufacturing industry worked or worse still looked for political rather than business outcomes (cf Wedgie Benn at British Leyland - but plenty of blame for all political stripes). One of the main reasons UK industry is a shadow of its former self is under investment.

While what you say is correct, I would add a lack of ambition within the industry from the beginning in the late sixties, has been a major contributor. We’ve lacked leaders with real aero entrepreneurial spirit. Yes, some of this is due to pressure from the city to appoint leaders (CEO) motivated by the demand for quick rewards which is incompatible with the longer project timelines.

 

[uk 75]

To some extent the alternate history threads are also victims of our own personal faves.
I make no secret of liking the crazy projects of the 1960s
TSR2 is perhaps the icon of these. In reality the RAF managed perfectly well with stopgap Vulcans, Bucs etc until the Tornado turns up in the 80s. But TSR2 was achingly cool. It should have worked. To quote Clarkson in Top Gear "That went well".
As I wrote, politicians, officials(uniformed and civilian) and industry (in its broadest sense from engineers who thought they knew better than the customer to the banks who wanted quick returns) were all to blame.
But we the taxpayers and voters must share in it. As someone once said the Brits want Scandinavian levels of public service with US levels of taxation.
And yet, despite all the screw ups the UK did do more with less than any other country. Our nuclear subs were playing at the top of the class with the US and Sovs. British Airways did make Concorde work and was once genuinely the world's favourite airline. And despite our xenophobic press we built things with our traditional enemies from France to Germany, Italy and Japan.
We had Chieftains when the US only had M60s. Even the Lightning could still get to the Inner German Border faster than newer F15s and F16s (not sure about that one, as noone dared let an F2A go full tilt in peacetime).

 

[Hood]

The industry could have built something like the Viggen or Jaguar no sweat, but it wasn't given the option. Instead they got Dan Dare VTOLs and TSR.2 instead.

Which 1960s companies could have realistically done this though? Amalgamation and consolidation was pretty necessary. Industry much preferred to spend taxpayers cash on it's wet dreams rather than useful military aircraft.

My argument is that everyone had lost the plot; government, the ministries, the industry, the Air Staff.
But you are right that industry was in wet dream mode (I would add civil aircraft too).

I ask another controversial question. What did the UK actually bring to the Anglo-French projects?
Concorde wing, two good engines in Olympus and Adour, the rigid rotor for Lynx, a decent inertial nav system for Jaguar are the only stand out items.
They adopted Jaguar, Puma and Gazelle without protest and its clear that no British company had anything comparable to these three designs. For example, for AST.362 BAC insisted on their pet toy VG wings, HSA insisted on their pet toy vectored thrust with PCB. Quite rightly the MoA said "no thanks" and went with the Br.121.
A lot has been said over the years that the French were reluctant to buy British airframes as part of these deals but in reality they did not spurn a superior option in these cases.

Brough seemed to have the right ideas, but they weren't flavour of the decade and doomed (condemned even) for having the Buccaneer.

Yet looking at some of their studies you cannot help but think this was along the right lines.

Brough were like Handley Page, some good designs but outside the mainstream to go it alone. They never seem to have been rated highly by the Ministries (to be fair since 1930 they had more flops than successes) but they had some realistic ideas. Within HSA the design competition was always going to favour the core companies.

Because for UK banks its easier and more profitable to lend abroad. Has been since the 19th Century. The UK government became the first last and only resort for finance for the aircraft vehicle and ship building industries. But the money came with strings, principally meddling by people (govt and CivServs) who had no idea how business or manufacturing industry worked or worse still looked for political rather than business outcomes (cf Wedgie Benn at British Leyland - but plenty of blame for all political stripes). One of the main reasons UK industry is a shadow of its former self is under investment.

While what you say is correct, I would add a lack of ambition within the industry from the beginning in the late sixties, has been a major contributor. We’ve lacked leaders with real aero entrepreneurial spirit. Yes, some of this is due city appointment pressure which has seen leaders motivated by quick rewards which is incompatible with the longer project timelines.

I was amazed to read this morning in my copy of Aeroplane Monthly Hawker Siddeley refused to spend £20,000 on the instrumentation to carry out spinning trials on the Sea Vixen FAW.2. Instead Desmond Penrose did it secretly without anyone knowing or he might have lost his job. There was no way as an ex-Service pilot that he would let a fighter go to the frontline units without being spin tested.

 

[Nick Sumner]

Because for UK banks its easier and more profitable to lend abroad. Has been since the 19th Century. The UK government became the first last and only resort for finance for the aircraft vehicle and ship building industries. But the money came with strings, principally meddling by people (govt and CivServs) who had no idea how business or manufacturing industry worked or worse still looked for political rather than business outcomes (cf Wedgie Benn at British Leyland - but plenty of blame for all political stripes). One of the main reasons UK industry is a shadow of its former self is under investment.

While what you say is correct, I would add a lack of ambition within the industry from the beginning in the late sixties, has been a major contributor. We’ve lacked leaders with real aero entrepreneurial spirit. Yes, some of this is due city appointment pressure which has seen leaders motivated by quick rewards which is incompatible with the longer project timelines.

Agreed, but again, forgive me if I point the finger at government for that. To governments, industry filled a single economic function: Jobs. Profit motive? There wasn't any. British industry came out of WW2 having built a huge amount of kit but had profits constrained by 'Cost Plus' accounting and plant completely knackered by running at full tilt 24-7. Then postwar austerity and wrecked world markets saw profit constrained further and half of the house of Commons was constantly calling for all industry to be nationalised anyway.

If you are in charge at Rolls Royce in 1950 you can look back on 10 years of world beating innovation, but the design of your two best products (Merlin and Derwent) have both been given away to commercial rivals and you haven't/aren't seeing any profits on them because they aren't paying any royalties. Meanwhile, the other main customer you have (UK govt) tells you how much profit you can take. OK, 1950, a government that claims to be friendly to industry is in power. But the opposition (who will probably be back in power in 4-5 years) are determined to nationalise you. Its not exactly an encouraging view from your desk.

 

[alertken]

Fings They Don't Teach Us at We Wuz Robbed School
NS. Or, to present the politics-of-business another way...
(Above GenAv) Aero was (is?) Munitions-driven and no Nation relishes profit by Merchants of Death, so...Regulated microscopically, Export Licences, monopsony, scrutiny of spend to exclude valueless bookings (cost-plus was not all gravy - only "admissible" cost clawed any "plus").

Firms' upside for listening to the Man: near-Guaranteed survival-in-the-National Interest, so work assigned without the faff of earning it in competition. That's why the Dot.com boom of 1935-38 was Aero. No free market/survival of the fittest here.

Tax-payers' Downside: Moral hazard - firms were Too big to fail. So we pay, nasally: not only GW, but also.

In common with everybody else, always, in UK Aero, RR could not spell R&D Commercial Risk because they had never encountered it. Neither Merlin nor Derwent were RR's best products. they were 2 of our best engine investments. We (=a Ministry with our taxes) owned them. We sold licences for money*, most of which we, not the firm, kept.

Purge from your memory any link between the words Private Venture and UK Aero Industry before very, very recently. Purge in particular assertions that Merlin, Spitfire, Hurricane, Mosquito, Avon were PV. Shamefully as we were trying in 1938 to build kit NOW!, RR claimed proprietary ownership of Merlin, as did Supermarine's MD for Spitfire. We got him fired, Vickers Board said, sorry, he was unauthorised, and put things right.
RR's Hives avoided the same fate by "courageously" offering to Manage a Ministry Merlin shadow in Glasgow.

Near-All Basic Research in all Munitions fields was in Govt. Research Establishments, put free into industry for Applied Research, Development, Production Investment...near-all of which we paid for. Does any Govt. want PV Munitions? We paid for it in 2 ways, 1 obscure: that's why myths could fly, of Private Enterprise prevailing over paper-pushing plodders.

1: we could place an R&D contract. That gave us Free User Right for Defence Purposes of the design, so we could put it out for production to whomsoever we might choose. That's why Ford/UK and Packard could build Merlins. To thwart that, firms might start a new scheme on an Internal Works Order not tied to a Ministry Job No...but every booked man-hour would pass across a very high desk before Approval. That's how RR could attempt to undermine Ministers' purpose, and assert "ownership" of PV12. But...(all piston Aero-engines are "influenced" by others) it drew on (Curtiss D-12 and/or Fairey P.12 Prince if you are so inclined) Kestrel, ran problematically, before attracting a to-Type-Test A.M. contract, accessing RAE and other input. Then we paid, high and long.

Whittle's gyrones were Merchant Bank (Vulture)-financed through first runs, then were A.M. funded, such that MAP could, in its own good time, take work from aero-outsiders (Rover, BTH, Vauxhall) and assign it to established aeronauts. The RR/Rover deal (Whittles for tank engines) was brokered by us; we paid to evolve Derwent.

Or, 2: "PV" R&D collected bookings to these Internal Works Orders, then massaged Ministry Technical Costs (Overheads) officials into admitting them as "cost" to be spread as overhead on Ministry cost-plus prices. If/when successful, the firm got the money back...later.

(* We put Merlin into Packard free of royalty. Like UK gave us BSA/Browning guns, Plessey/Pesco fuel pump, Plessey/Coffman/Breeze cartridge starter, DH (Ham.Std.) and ROTOL (Curtiss-Wright) propellers. Free.

We licensed Derwent to Pratt free, likewise (though somehow Keynes, settling Lend/Lease, got $800K within Reverse Lend-Lease). After 8/45 we all went back to business. Pratt paid good money 1947/48 to license Nene/Tay).

All this was under US/UK Patent Interchange Agreement, 24/8/42. Which is not taught in school.

.​

 

[Siberia]

Were the chaps at ECKO knew the future was transistors but feared to experiment with the few extortionately expensive components they could get, lest they blew one up.

Just to detour slightly could you expand on this?

 

[norseman]

If I could speak about some of the projects I have been involved in ;-) maybe one day. We have always been our own worst enemy but as per tech level, I could say hand on heart we have never been behind the USA, our application, funding, direction and management though............ (and susceptibility to political interference, internal and external)

 

[zen]

Were the chaps at ECKO knew the future was transistors but feared to experiment with the few extortionately expensive components they could get, lest they blew one up.

Just to detour slightly could you expand on this?

That was from a sadly defunct website covering ECKO, and their work on AI.20 which ended up as Red Steer rear hemisphere warning radar on Vulcans.
It also covered a bit of Firestreak effort.
I wish I'd saved the lot as it was fascinating.

 

[Siberia]

That was from a sadly defunct website covering ECKO, and their work on AI.20 which ended up as Red Steer rear hemisphere warning radar on Vulcans. It also covered a bit of Firestreak effort. I wish I'd saved the lot as it was fascinating.

Is this the site? It has a page on AI Mark 20 which mentions Red Steer. They're via the Wayback Machine so it usually doesn't save images, and some of the links are hit and miss, but the main parts seems to be there.

 

[kaiserd]

If I could speak about some of the projects I have been involved in ;-) maybe one day. We have always been our own worst enemy but as per tech level, I could say hand on heart we have never been behind the USA, our application, funding, direction and management though............ (and susceptibility to political interference, internal and external)

In many significant/ critical civil and military aviation related and adjacent technology areas (both on the theoretically level and in application) the UK has for the majority of the post- WW2 era been notably behind the US.
There is absolutely no shame in that given the order of magnitude differences in size of industry, resources, R&D spend etc.

 

[zen]

Hmmm.... I don't think Manchester and Turing were behind, nor was Lyons Computers.
I don't think phased array radar theory was behind, maybe in practical efforts though.
But Elliott MRS.5 Type 905 effort was ahead if anything.
I don't think RR, AS, BS and DH were behind in jet engines.
I don't think Brakemine was behind as a SAM. Just lacking the final push into a service weapon.
I don't think .280 was behind, if anything superior to German 8mm Kurz and US had led if anything with the. 276 Pedersen.
Obviously we were behind after being cut out of Manhattan in practical nuclear weapons. But then we'd shared all our leading edge science on that from 1942 onwards if not earlier.

Electronics, that did have a lack, not ptinted circuit boards though.

So go, tell us were we lagged behind the US?

 

[Pirate Pete]

There was the Mile M.52 which was well down the road in development and would have flown before Bells X.1 - Just think, 'Winkle' Brown, yet another notch on his belt of records and firsts.
Like the nuclear data GIVEN to the U.S. prior to Manhattan being set up, we also shared info with the Americans on the M.52. They had been experiencing severe control issues prior to the 'gift' of design data!
As far as 'behind' in commercial aviation - we were very much tied to military aircraft (bomber) production, and it had been agreed that the U.S. would produce the transport aircraft during the war, so we were on the back-foot immediately after the war. Still did not prevent Comet taking the world by storm when launched (shame about the square windows!).

 

[norseman]

And without gifting a lot of crucial jet engine tech at the end of WW2 into the early 50's (to the USA and USSR) they would have been a fair bit behind the curve. There was so much chopping and changing in direction, requirements and projects politically in the UK though that getting some proper headway was always going to be an uphill task. The interference by the USA if anything has been under reported especially on product lines which directly challenged projects they were working on. One of my friends was involved in Challenger tank marketing early to mid 90's and he was always very frustrated by the American political strong arm tactics that were applied to potential customers, very much of the "buy our stuff or else you are on your own" approach and they were very good at it, the Americans know how to sell!

 

[Nick Sumner]

Fings They Don't Teach Us at We Wuz Robbed School

​

We wuz Robbed School (A view from the back of the class)

Alertken, your comments and observations are, as always, right on the money. What you present is very much the British government perspective, but we at the back of the class in We Wuz Robbed School can't help but notice the difference in the way the UK govt treated the UK's industrial assets and the way the government of South Korea treated the Chaebols post 1950. They too proceeded on a tide of American money due to the Korean War. What was the incentive for the Korean govt and the people they represented? Well, lots of high value, high wage (nice tax slice thanks very much) jobs for starters.

Also, the view from the back of the class can't help but notice how the French now have an aircraft and car industry and Britain does not. How did that come about? I would respectfully submit it was because of French government support. Who would have predicted that from the perspective of 1945?

 

[JohnR]

And without gifting a lot of crucial jet engine tech at the end of WW2 into the early 50's (to the USA and USSR) they would have been a fair bit behind the curve. There was so much chopping and changing in direction, requirements and projects politically in the UK though that getting some proper headway was always going to be an uphill task. The interference by the USA if anything has been under reported especially on product lines which directly challenged projects they were working on. One of my friends was involved in Challenger tank marketing early to mid 90's and he was always very frustrated by the American political strong arm tactics that were applied to potential customers, very much of the "buy our stuff or else you are on your own" approach and they were very good at it, the Americans know how to sell!

Even then they only managed to sell the M1 to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Iraqi and Kuwait all countries that use what I believe is called Pishkesh.

Other projects that were not behind the US - Blue Water, lighter, cheaper and easier to use, killed by political idiots. Rapier, lightweight, easy to deploy, accurate and sold well including to the US. L118 light field gun - which again the US bought. The M777 155mm Howitzer and again adopted by the US. Finally the L7 tank gun adopted by the US with adaptions as the M68.

 

[zen]

Shall we mention Type 984 CDS?

 

[uk 75]

I remain of the view that in the UK (especially England) politicians, officials and business have all contributed to the messes we have been in.
The higher reaches of all three have suffered from a cosy club atmosphere which persists today.

 

[SleeperService2]

Why can't plane builders be more like Victorian railway builders and get investors to back their hairbrained schemes?

Because for UK banks its easier and more profitable to lend abroad. Has been since the 19th Century. The UK government became the first last and only resort for finance for the aircraft vehicle and ship building industries. But the money came with strings, principally meddling by people (govt and CivServs) who had no idea how business or manufacturing industry worked or worse still looked for political rather than business outcomes (cf Wedgie Benn at British Leyland - but plenty of blame for all political stripes). One of the main reasons UK industry is a shadow of its former self is under investment.

While what you say is correct, I would add a lack of ambition within the industry from the beginning in the late sixties, has been a major contributor. We’ve lacked leaders with real aero entrepreneurial spirit. Yes, some of this is due to pressure from the city to appoint leaders (CEO) motivated by the demand for quick rewards which is incompatible with the longer project timelines.

Agreed, but again, forgive me if I point the finger at government for that. To governments, industry filled a single economic function: Jobs. Profit motive? There wasn't any. British industry came out of WW2 having built a huge amount of kit but had profits constrained by 'Cost Plus' accounting and plant completely knackered by running at full tilt 24-7. Then postwar austerity and wrecked world markets saw profit constrained further and half of the house of Commons was constantly calling for all industry to be nationalised anyway.

If you are in charge at Rolls Royce in 1950 you can look back on 10 years of world beating innovation, but the design of your two best products (Merlin and Derwent) have both been given away to commercial rivals and you haven't/aren't seeing any profits on them because they aren't paying any royalties. Meanwhile, the other main customer you have (UK govt) tells you how much profit you can take. OK, 1950, a government that claims to be friendly to industry is in power. But the opposition (who will probably be back in power in 4-5 years) are determined to nationalise you. Its not exactly an encouraging view from your desk.

In the world of economics many careers have been built on what you've covered in 5 paragraphs. Unfortunately it also covers why there is 'The British Disease' in that there are lots of politicians making decisions based on their own well-being for the next few months with no thought to what will come after.

Consider the two great success stories in the 40 years after WW2 the German and Japanese economies, related to America's ascendancy over the same period. Attached to the Marshal Aid was the Marshal Plan, the UK took the money but rejected the rest. The other two had no choice and, upon listening, realised that they were being given the keys to the kingdom. Continuous improvement, automation, ever tightening manufacturing tolerances, standardisation, and government oversight limited to duplication of effort and allocating funds where major investment was needed once the point was reached that it would be used. All of this could have been applied in the UK too (France cherry-picked the bits they liked) but it was a very long time before much happened. By then the others were so far ahead we were out of the running. Now it's China and India applying the same principles and starting to show signs of improvement.

As is becoming increasingly obvious the UK is rapidly becoming a 3rd world country with nuclear weapons. We have fallen some way from our technological peak and there are no signs of a turn around. Our kids and grand kids will despise us; either for causing it or failing to act to prevent it.

BOT in the Alternative Reality worlds it is easy to change one or two things and then develop the consequences. Finding those turning points for the UK anytime after 1938 has been beyond anybody so far. Some have tried but so many things need to change it becomes pointless, in itself no big deal but it does show the huge amount of inertia that needs to be overcome to change our destination. Frankly I can't see anyway it can happen.

Find those turning points and you have the basis for a very lucrative career.

 

[JohnR]

Zen what were you referring to with respect to Manchester and what was the MRS5 Type 905?

 

[zen]

Victoria University of Manchester Computing Group established 1946.
Later in 1964 Department of Computer Science.
Look up Manchester Baby.

Elliott MRS.5 combined a digital computer with an early electrically scanned radar for gunnery. Hence the Type 905 designation. Citting edge at the time.

 

[Pirate Pete]

Some years ago I visited the High Down rocket test sit on the Isle of Wight. There was a small exhibition set up in one of the old control rooms - a model of the Prospero satellite, and various pictures of the control room as it had been. Included amongst the display information were newspaper articles, I think from the Daily Telegraph for some, and there was an article about a United States visit to High Down, and one U.S. Official was quoted along the lines of saying that we (the Brits) had achieved as much, if not more, on our shoe-string budget as they had in throwing millions (billions?) of Dollars at theirs!

Yes, in Britain MANY things did go wrong, wrong choices were made, but we do have the benefit of hindsight...
Projects were started when they should perhaps have not, the old system of multiple (redundancy) systems were still being built - The V-Bombers were a classic in this - FOUR aircraft started - One, the Short Sperrin, was very much old technology combined with new (engines) - perhaps if it had been started at a similar point to the English Electric Canberra it would have reached at least limited squadron service!
The Valiant was excellent as far as it went (picked the wrong alloy for the wing spars) - should have followed the B.2 version!. Vulcan and Victor - one SHOULD have been selected, but no-one ever took the plunge!

Regrettably the list goes on and on, but, in all honesty, IF there had been a greater determination to follow some projects to their completion, and less 'oh no!' there's something better just around the corner, cancel this, cancel that! Things could have been different.