PMN1: your most intriguing What If? but you miss the key issue. No Spey, Merlin of the jet age: no RR after c.1964. Why no Spey? Because if Medway had won DH.121 in Mar, ’58, and then 727 in late-1960, any tributary would have been dammed.

A big wet Medway could have been a credible pitch in late-1959 for TSR.2, so for Concorde. Hunting H.107, so BAC 1-11 might have been bigger sooner, giving DC-9 a real fight, and deterring an entry-level Boeing (737), 4th. (Medway/Caravelle 10) to market.

Attempting more than one of the above would have so dissipated RR’s resources as to replicate 1937, messing up the lot. No RR interest in V/STOL liftjets, nor in F-4B; Bristol+ASM combine (as BSEL) to adapt Pegasus (as BS.100) for P.1154 and HS681, and for the German projects obliged to choose deflection in the absence of RB162/XJ99 liftjets. BSEL flourish as RR choke. RB207 has no MoS funds, but BSEL/SNECMA/PW JT9D does. France agrees with Wilson in 1965 to abandon the glider-sonic Transport. BSEL rides to RR’s rescue.

Oh, boggle!

Oh, yes: FAA Air Wings. Buccaneer abandoned in Gyron Jr. inadequacies; UK carriers take a US selection as is – F-8, A-7A, later, A-6. Victorious, worth repairing in 1967, and Eagle live on, even into 1982…

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