Both Derek Woods’ ‘Project Cancelled’ and Richard Payne’s ‘Stuck on the Drawing Board’ describe how BEA’s insistence that the original spec for the DH121 be scaled down to what became the Trident cost it massive sales (and the sales figures do suggest that to be the case), but how many of those B727 sales could the DH121 have hoped to secure had it been built to the original spec.
Both authors mention visits by each company to the others facilities and Derek Woods says that de Havilland showed the Boeing people everything while Boeing not surprisingly showed the de Havilland people little or nothing.
Is there any evidence to suggest the visit to de Havilland helped Boeing?
By: alertken - 19th December 2007 at 17:49
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…
Did you like that?
By: JagRigger - 19th December 2007 at 12:23
Using proper Gyrons, not Juniors?
By: PMN1 - 19th December 2007 at 11:42
If the original spec DH121 had been proceeded with and the Medway used, where does that leave the Buccaneer and the UK Phantoms?
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December 10, 2007 at 8:55 pm