British Aircraft Industry after WWII

BAe.146/RJ

This design was initiated to follow-up CAAC’s Trident order. More than 2 engines were required to serve Lhasa, but demand/runway did not support Trident. Start/stop, 1971-77, then funded by PM Callaghan as make-work for the newly Nationalised BAe. AVCO took a risk-sharing (deferrred start-up expense) role in wing+power; so did SAAB on the back end (later taken in as make-work at Prestwick), all salivating for a China bunfest. China did come good with an order for 10 146-100 (later 8 -300), but the context was sweetening their intransigence over recovering HK (Foreign Office had mooted a leaseback). So, launching this was a political step, largely funded on Civil Launch Aid, UK’s riskshare wholly underwritten by the State owner, 1977-1981.

As for profit…well, we all know of the creativity of the accountancy trade. What was published was that in 1998 BAe. Commercial A/c Divn. reported its first ever profit, £12Mn., but that was gross of £51Mn. to unload balance sheet exposure to the 146 fleet. Sales contracts had included a Residual Value Guarantee…before Gulf War 1 sent used a/c values down the gurglehole. Most 146/Avro RJs were sold by BAe. to BAe.; only last month did BAE finally unload its residual ATP/Jetstream/146/RJ exposure.

For me, p01, 11/10 has it: Sir Fred, for example, much preferred to deal with the Man in Whitehall. Johnny Foreigner was just too difficult. That is a cause for 48 Herald sales, Home and Away, cf. 786 F-27, almost all Away. In ’95 a ’71-built F-27 was bought by a UK Operator for $1.2Mn. to replace his last Herald whose ’63 price was less. Illustrated Parts Catalogue…who he? Guaranteed maintenance cost per flight hour…who he? 707 structure was agricultural cf., say, VC10. Average folk could build/repair it, not proud former craft apprentices.

Am I correct in thinking that it was the Citation that got Cessna in trouble from a business point of view?

No. As Ozplanes mentioned, the product liability shutdown had nothing to do with the jets. In fact, the jets kept the firm alive.

I’m sure Cessna has made a nice profit with their jets, the common ones (the original, the II, CitationJet, Mustang) make the money that some (like the Citation X…IIRC the fastest bizjet and not that big of a seller in comparison to the others) probably lost.

On this subject I recommend ‘The Quick And The Dead’ by Bill Waterson, chief test pilot for Glosters during the period in question. A forgotten classic, with regard to the way it illuminates what was occuring at the leading edge of aeronautical development in the UK at the time from the point of view of a man who test flew Meteors, Javelins etc, but in this context especially relevant for Waterson’s views on rhe state of the industry at the time. IIRC he even was so bold as to head one chapter ‘Why Britain has Failed’.

Funny that but every time i saw this gentleman fly the Javelin his name S/L W Bill WATERTON
thanks Brian

I’m sure a company the size of Cessna would be able to “screen” any loss-making divisions but I think the main reason they got in to trouble was the product liability insurance on their range of singles. At one stage the insurance was allegedly greater than the cost of manufacture of a Cessna 150. It wasn’t helped by a series of claims in which typically a pilot set his compass wrong by 180 degrees at night and flew out to sea instead of his home on dry land. That apparently was the manufacturers fault

The UK industry never fielded a small cheap jet in the Citation class or a large cabin aircraft in the Gulfstram/Falcon/Challenger class. Obviously you can’t look at all bizjets as one market when you consider the cost and size differences. Why did Cessna sell a lot of Citations? Its low cost made it possible to sell planes to firms that couldn’t afford or need a larger jet. Same reason why Ford sells more cars than Bentley.

Yes, you are certainly right there, and the 125 is one of the outstanding British designs, regarding the cabin size it seemed that British designers strived to have standing space inside a business aircraft.
But even here we have let a wonderful product partially slip from our hands, as final assembly is carried out by Raytheon in the ‘States.

Am I correct in thinking that it was the Citation that got Cessna in trouble from a business point of view?

Back to your analogy, I wonder who makes the biggest profit from their products, Ford or Bentley?

aerospacetech, I agree with your statement from an earlier history point of view, but surely from at least the expansion-era (’35-’39) period on the constituent companies within the HS group were a bit bigger than ‘cottage industry’?

The bit I can’t understand with the Hawker Siddeley group, was the way that in 1955, they had the P1121, Gloster GA6 and Avro Arrow all under development in different sub groups, all about the same take off mass, all similar range payload but radically different aero technology leading to vastly different performance. Clearly each sub group didn’t talk to one another and were actively protected there own technology……..what was HS group doing?……….What did HS group have to gain from such non-sense? ……….Did Dobbie really have control?

This stems from a fundamental misunderstanding about Hawker Siddeley group. Essentially, Tommy Sopwith had a habit of buying up struggling aviation companies run by his mates from the early era of aviation who got into financial difficulty. He then proceeded to let them run their own affairs largely untouched. So what looked on paper like a mighty big aviation concern was in large measure a collection of cottage industries dotted around the UK.

So all the different constituent companies ran pretty much as they did before becoming part of the group. They competed against each other on contracts, and even when specifically told to make a single submission to GOR 339 they failed to do so.

The numbers sold were still comparatively small compared with equivelant US types, ie Learjets, Citations, & Gulfstreams more successful than the 125 line should have been from early on. Other aircraft that should have done better with more planning and better backing were the 748/Andover and original HP Jetstream.

I don’t disagree…
but note that the HS 125 was very successful in the mid-size cabin segment of the bizjet market. It’s outlasted many of its competitors and remains in production.
The UK industry never fielded a small cheap jet in the Citation class or a large cabin aircraft in the Gulfstram/Falcon/Challenger class. Obviously you can’t look at all bizjets as one market when you consider the cost and size differences. Why did Cessna sell a lot of Citations? Its low cost made it possible to sell planes to firms that couldn’t afford or need a larger jet. Same reason why Ford sells more cars than Bentley.

The 748 was too large for “commuter”/feederlines of the 70s-80s. And then, it faced competition from re-engined (and fairly inexpensive) re-engined Convairs 580/600s and new and used F-27/227/50s.
I’m not sure the original Jetsream was ever competitve given the economic troubles of HP at the time and its French engines that limited its attractiveness outside Europe.

Yes, but that was pretty much from the mid 1960s onwards when attitudes in the industry changed.
Very strong? The numbers sold were still comparatively small compared with equivelant US types, ie Learjets, Citations, & Gulfstreams more successful than the 125 line should have been from early on. Other aircraft that should have done better with more planning and better backing were the 748/Andover and original HP Jetstream.

Agree wholeheartedly with the Hunter, Canberra and Viscount being successful. Slightly later the BAC 1-11 was a close run thing and I wonder if the B.Ae 146/RJ series ever made any money for their builders.

And don’t forget the Dove (a lot were sold as executive aircraft in the U.S.) and the DH/HS 125, not to mention selling Darts to power Convair 600 conversions. U.S. Logair firms (freight haulers that primarily contracted with the military) even bought a few new Argosys. And America took a lot of the Beagle 206s despite their being homegrown offerings. In the 80s, Jetstreams and Shorts 360s were popular third level airliners.

The UK industry was very strong not only in the Commonwealth but the U.S. as well.

Good point about the BAC 1-11, I was going to mention it as to me it reflected part of the turn around to try for foreign markets.

I believe Airco consortium were interested in striking some sort of deal with Boeing that the Trident be given ‘free sales’ space if they would drop their 727, I can just imagine what they would have thought about that!
Boeing and DH really sum up for me the differences in approach to marketing and commercialism, and as futile as it may be I do admire the quaint DH way of things!
I guess the truth is as a single nation we couldn’t have entered the wide bodied era by ourselves.

Agree wholeheartedly with the Hunter, Canberra and Viscount being successful. Slightly later the BAC 1-11 was a close run thing and I wonder if the B.Ae 146/RJ series ever made any money for their builders. No doubt Alertken will be along shortly with the exact numbers.

I don’t think that it felt it had to JDK, that’s why I feel the two industries were very different from each other.
The aero industry of the mid ’40s to say early ’60s was geared to providing designs to specific British/Commonwealth military and civil requirments.
Often these requirements were pushed through (sometimes influenced by company heads) from government bodies and not a customer as such – not in the true commercial sense anyway.
The industry was happy to serve these needs without seemingly being that worried about having external customers, it was making the money from the products that it was selling within the UK sphere under the MoS, AM, Admiralty, and SBAC.
It wasn’t until home demands started shrinking, partly due to the realisation that good and more competitive products starting to be purchased from overseas (principly sound American types for BOAC), that the industry really seemed to think towards other territories customers.
There were some great exceptions to my generlisation of course. Canberra and Viscount to America was a major coup, as was Hunter and BAC 1-11exports later on, but by that stage even the British military were turning to American designs such as the outstanding Phantom and Hercules, both of these made their first flights at around the time that the Javelin and Beverley were reaching successful front-line service.

Motorbikes

Ozplane, is this really helping the thread?
The reality appears to be that the British motorcycle industry almost completely died out, but thankfully one firm managed to resurect itself in recent times and has become moderately successful.
Personally I think comparing the Bristish motor industry to the aviation industry isn’t a good idea anyway.

I think it’s a good comparison, we had to many bike manufacturers as we had to
many aircraft companys, how many of these were still making bikes in the sixtys,
a lot as I rode most of them:D
United KingdomAJW — (1928–1977)
Ambassador — (1946–1964)
AMC — (1938–1966)
Ariel — (1902–1970)
Armstrong — (1980–1987)
Beardmore Precision — (1921–1924)
Blackburne — (1913–1921)
Brough — (1908–1926)[13]
Brough Superior³ — (1919–1940)
BSA — (1905–1973)
Calthorpe —
Clarendon —
Clyno — (1908–1923)
Cotton —
Coventry-Eagle —
DOT —
Douglas — (1907–1957)
EMC — (1946–1977)
Excelsior (Coventry) — (1896–1965)
Greeves —
Haden —
Hesketh — (1982–1984)
Francis-Barnett — (1919–1966)
HRD² —
Ivy — (1907–1934)
James —
JAP —
Levis — (1911–1939)
Martinsyde — (1908–1923)
Matchless — (1899-
Ner-a Car — (1921–1927)
New Hudson —
New Imperial — (1901–1939)
Norman —
Norton (reformed in 2008) — (1902- )[14]
OK-Supreme — (1882–1940)
OEC — (1901–1954)
Palmelli —
Panther —
Quadrant — (1901–1928)
Quasar — (1977–1985)
Raleigh — (1899–1967)
Redrup Radial — (1919–1922)
Rickman — (1960–1975)
Royal Enfield — production continues in India
Rudge-Whitworth —
Scott —
Singer —
Sprite —
Spryt —
Stevens — (1934–1938)
Sun — (1911–1961)
Sunbeam —
Triumph Engineering Ltd (reformed in the 1980s and now still made) — (1902- )[6]
Velocette — (1904–1968)
Villiers —
Vincent HRD — (1928- )[15]
Vincent —[15]

The fact that producing what the customers want can resurrect a moribund sector sends lessons to the rest of industry.

It is certainly a noteworthy current achievement, and well worth mentioning (multiple times). The question therefore is could the British aero industry in (say, the fifties) “produce what the customer wanted” and profited enough to survive?

I think it might be in an oblique fashion. Post No 20 introduced the bike industry and I tend to get a bit fed up with uninformed comments about British industry. The fact that producing what the customers want can resurrect a moribund sector sends lessons to the rest of industry. Let’s just hope that we don’t let “graphene”, the new wonder material, escape our clutches and leave the rest of the world to exploit it.

Ozplane, is this really helping the thread?
The reality appears to be that the British motorcycle industry almost completely died out, but thankfully one firm managed to resurect itself in recent times and has become moderately successful.
Personally I think comparing the Bristish motor industry to the aviation industry isn’t a good idea anyway.

“Axe to grind”. Coming from you that’s the best joke I’ve heard this year.

I’d rather take the view of two hard nosed Australian bikers than a half baked quote from Wikipedia. I quoted the Antipodean aspect but they are doing very well here in the UK too so let’s just give credit where credit is due. I know that is hard for an Australian resident.

You’re missing the point, Wiki’s just pointing the to the fact that the British ‘bike industry went bust. As I said all credit to the modern Triumph makers, I’m sure they’re great bikes. John’s point was the British industry failed, which isn’t disputable.

And don’t waste time with cheap nationalist canards, I’ve no axe to grind even if you have.

Back on topic, isn’t most of this covered in James Hamilton Patterson’s book (in my ‘to read pile’. 😮 )

Regards,

I’m not into bikes, but wasn’t it a case of the British bike industry not raising its game to meet the quality of manufacturing of the Japanese when it really counted?

Re DH Comet and pressurisation, don’t forget that Avro wiped themselves out of the airline industry altogether by producing an airliner with handling problems and inferior build quality, but still managing to have less seats, be heavier, and more expensive, than the Constellation! At least two Tudor IV losses were put down to pressurization failure of the structure.
I’m not sure square windows in themselves were the issue with the Comets’ problems, the square cut outs for the ADF aperture was also a problem area, the Tudor IV had round windows, and other square windowed types (707) didn’t have the same problem. It just seemed that stressing and the need for skin reinforcement in localised areas wasn’t fully understood.

I’d rather take the view of two hard nosed Australian bikers than a half baked quote from Wikipedia. I quoted the Antipodean aspect but they are doing very well here in the UK too so let’s just give credit where credit is due. I know that is hard for an Australian resident.