MinTech - what's its place in UK Aerospace history

[CJGibson]

Morning chaps,

Since my last (topical) attempt descended into the forum equivalent of a Michael Frayn farce, I will rephrase the question.

What did MinTech do for UK Aerospace and UK technology in general and do we need one today?

Discuss.

 

[CNH]

It would be very easy to say we don't need one today because we no longer have an aerospace industry. Not entirely true, I know, but what industry we have is very different to that of the 1960s.

A more apposite question might be whether the MinTech contributed to the demise of the aerospace industry.

FWIW, I think the major issue for the British civil aviation business was BOAC and BEA, who produced difficult specifications, then changed their minds when they got the aircraft. VC10?

 

[JFC Fuller]

I have always felt the the fundamental problem of the UK Aerospace industry, and the ministry of technology, in the 1950s/60s was a failure to understand a consumer economy. Concorde being emblematic of this, a giant ego-driven corporate welfare programme with highly limited market potential.

The UK aircraft market was always going to be small, it is a small country easy to get round by car or train with Europe just a short boat ride away. UK industry therefore needed to pursue the global market- not the niche subsidised requirements of state owned airlines. By contrast the US is a large country and travelling either across it or out of it almost requires flying; the US commercial aerospace industry evolved to meet this need by meeting the requirements of commercial airlines operating in this natural environment. RR has effectively survived (albeit with a state bail-out) by pursuing opportunities beyond UK industry, the UK plane makers didn't.

If there is a lost opportunity I would say it is the money squandered on Concorde, it could perhaps have been put towards a subsonic airliner (or series of airliners) from a 1966/7 merged BAC/HS commercial interests company taking the work done on wings by HS and fuselages by BAC to beat Airbus to market. Instead focus was on the "white heat of technology" rather than the creative destruction of capitalism. Of course, today the UK has an excellent aerospace industry and does just about everything except actually assemble commercial aircraft meaning it has most of the highest value market segments.

 

[alertken]

CJG/CNH/JFCF: Stimulating Q, which I will respond to blind to having taken their shilling for years.

We subsidised UK Aero, 1943-c.2000 in 3 ways: a) frontiers of knowledge. Establishments did Basic Research, then disseminated free;
b) Risk-sharing (like,100%:0%). Civil Launch Aid for R&D/Production Investment;
c) Protection of the Home Market, in 2 ways: shotgun orders by Parastatal operators, and tariffs/Exchange Control v. imports.

So: Q2 first: do we need a Mintech today?
Civil A. No. It's illegal. See: EU Competition Laws, and the fun WTO Cases, Embraer v. Bombardier and Boeing v. AI.
Military A: No. Defence is no longer at the frontiers. Tin platforms are only as effective as the digital cyber-clutter inside. That techno evolves in very-commercial businesses.

 

[alertken]

Q1: good riddance? or RIP? Well...it's all to do with money. We built this industry on taxes because it sat in target range of Zeppelin, then Heinkel. So, out of habit, we continued to fund from taxes in 1943 when we tried to convert this resource to civil. So, everything the industry did was a partnership of Basic work in Establishments, money from (the many names of) Mintech, and Applied Engineering/innovation by rude mechanicals. Now, almost invariably, they failed at market. Yes they did, save Viscount, Dart, Hunter, Canberra, Spey....er, maybe some more, can't think, though. So, why? Despite Mintech, or because of it? Anything Rolls sold after 1971 was because of (Govt.) who bailed them out, till 5/87. Very little commercial risk investment featured in UK Aero...yet very little Specification-direction came from the suits in Whitehall. It was BEAC, BOAC and Sir Geo.Edwards who decided that Viscount Major should copy Electra, not Caravelle and that to beat 707 and DC-8 in 1957 it would be good to hang the engines on a massive lump of mariners' structure. .

Today: around JV Boardrooms: techno-decisions are made in the interests of the Project, risk-investment decisions are made as the art of the possible. Payback schedules and such. So: in that sense: Mintech hurt the industry, by its commercial ignorance. So, your opinion: if UK Aero had been obliged to put its own money where its mouth was...what would they have built? My A: most Boards would have folded their tents and sold the land.