Why did BAe stop making civil aircraft?

Since Raytheon sold it off it’s become Hawker Beechcraft (late last year I think). I have heard rumours that there is now little commonality between the 125 and the 800/1000 airframes, though looking at them I don’t believe it. Still looks the same to me except thet as far as I can recall the 1000 has an extra windoe each side.

The Hawker 800XP airframes are the same as built by BAe since 1983. There are few detailed changes (uprated engines, avionics etc.) The 1000 has the PW305 engine as opposed to the TFE731 and is slightly longer. It has the same wing as the 800XP (slightly different to the BAe built 125-800). Not a great success the 1000, only 52 built. I don’t know about the Hawker 750XP or 900XP if they are still being built at Chester. Incidentally the 125-1000 was originally the 125-900 (they have 259xxx) cns.

The Comet was the world’s first Jet airliner and it is far mor likely that the B-47 and B-52 ideas came from the 707 rather than the other way around.

Indeed the Comet was the first jet airliner but the B-47 first flew in 1947, the B-52 in 1952 and the Dash80 prototype not until 1954 so many of ideas and concepts must have been designed into the bombers first.

Now, I had always thought the twin 146 was a twin engined high wing, but when I was shown some of the original scheme work at Woodford the last proposal was actually a rear twin engined, low wing, and very nice it looked too.

The 146 NRA was twin engined high-wing, as was the original RJX. The rear engine concept was looked at as was the twin under-wing engine design. I have artist impressions somewhere. Looked a lot like the EMB190. I’m not sure we ever got close to metal cutting. I was involved with design studies but I don’t know how far the project actually got as it never officially launched.

AP

Now, I had always thought the twin 146 was a twin engined high wing, but when I was shown some of the original scheme work at Woodford there last proposal was actually a rear twin engined, low wing, and very nice it looked too.

This sounds as if the 146 almost came full circle in the end. In the beginning was the de Havilland 126, which begat the Hawker Siddeley HS136 in the late 60s. This was a low-wing rear engined plane a little like a smaller F28 powered with the RB203 Trent engine.
The RB203 was put on ice as RR switched resources to the RB211, and any chance of restarting the project was lost with RR’s collapse in 1971. Otherwise, I gather, the HS136 would certainly have gone ahead.
The spec was redefined yet again to emerge as the 146.

First was the cancellation of the VC-7 only for BOAC to order the comparable 707 with the same engines just a year later. .:(

According to G Edward’s book “From Bouncing Bombs to Concorde” (ISBN0-7509-4389-0), VC7 (V1000) was to be RR Avon powered, and being a bit larger than Comet, it was too inefficient to make it across the pond in one leg. In order to fix this problem repeated requests were made for access to the RR Conway but HMG turned all of these down. Hence BOAC lost interest and this significantly contributed to the project cancellation. Just 11 months after V1000 (& in effect VC7) cancellation, BOAC purchased the Boeing 707 complete with Conway power…..and all approved by HMG! Also at about this time, HMG made a serious request to restart V1000 but Edwards had already scraped all the 1st A/c & jigs…….. I my opinion this fiasco, combined with the Comet fiasco, was the rot setting in for Civil in the UK.

The twin engine BAe146 made it through to advanced detail design phase but was halted just prior to metal cutting, when BAe decided that the money was better directed to other investments like Arlington and Rover. Now, I had always thought the twin 146 was a twin engined high wing, but when I was shown some of the original scheme work at Woodford the last proposal was actually a rear twin engined, low wing, and very nice it looked too. Also BAe was offered a chance to final assemble A320 but that opportunity was also lost and the money spent else where on mainly non core business projects. I remember BAe attitude at the time was that there was no money in assembling Aircraft.

On hearing the news that BAe was pulling out of the civil aircraft business, I will always remember the view expressed to me by a senior manager at the military division ” Oh about time too, you know the Civil A/c division has lost us every penny that we in the military division ever made”. So how come the Canadians, with a similar cost base to ourselves, can make it pay and we could not? Answer – The UK just lost the resolve to do it

Technically the 125 is still in production in the UK – the fuselage and wings are still built at Broughton near Chester, and then transported to Raytheon (or ‘Beechcraft Hawker’ now I think) in Wichita for final assembly, where they are badged as Hawker 800 and Hawker 1000. 45 years in production as still the same basic airframe! You could argue either way as to whether or not it is still a British aircraft though.

Andy

Since Raytheon sold it off it’s become Hawker Beechcraft (late last year I think). I have heard rumours that there is now little commonality between the 125 and the 800/1000 airframes, though looking at them I don’t believe it. Still looks the same to me except thet as far as I can recall the 1000 has an extra windoe each side.
In reply to Arthur Pewty. The Comet was the world’s first Jet airliner and it is far mor likely that the B-47 and B-52 ideas came from the 707 rather than the other way around.
In respect of the VC-10. As far as I can remember the design specs were laid down by BOAC who then ordered the 707 as well. The VC-10 had a short service life with BOAC as they soon sold them off and replaced them with 707s.
Although no longer in use as a civil airliner the VC-10 is still the world’s fastest airliner now that Concorde has gone

Maybe BAES sold the civil aircraft side so they could buy their own air force – the RAF? :dev2:

No the MR was the Coastguarder version of the Avro 748 (not far off an ATP).

The other factor that killed the 146 and RJX programme was the fact that after 9/11 and the financial troubles in the year or so before and after two major 146 operators went bankrupt (Sebena and Swissair) their fleets went up for sale at a fraction of the cost of a new build equivilant making new production uneconomical.

So did the BN Islander, Westland Lynx and BAe Hawk go out of production within the last few weeks..??? :rolleyes:

But, agreed, it’s still a small fraction of what was once developed and produced in the UK. I doubt if there is any other country on this planet which has so systematically and thoroughly wound up a once succesful industry. But maybe they were inspired by the British motorcycle and car industry…?

B.ugger forgot about the Lynx ,Hawk and the Nimrod 😮 Are they still making Islander on the IOW then? But yeah You see what I mean we was once country that built nearly everthing to nothing.You say the ATP was not very good but isnt A Very good Freighter aircraft now?

BTW was there a maritime patrol aircraft verison off the ATP?

James

I have always had a great deal of sympathy for Vickers in the ‘death of the British Aviation Industry’ saga. They got screwed by BOAC not once, not twice, but three times in quick succession. First was the cancellation of the VC-7 only for BOAC to order the comparable 707 with the same engines just a year later. Then came the VC-10 requirement which BOAC decided was too inefficient even though the reason for the inefficiency was becouse of the flawed requirement BOAC issued in the first place. Finally when Vickers tried to correct BOAC’s mistake with the Super VC-10 they were told that it was too big and had to scale it back.:(

A bizzarely attractive bird.:cool:

Indeed.

I recall putting together an Airfix kit of one of these. I had motorised it and added lighting and was trying to work out how I could make the tip-jets scream like the real thing.

I think it was a remarkable concept which should have been developed further IMHO.

I know Peter Twiss did some of the early test flying on the Rotodyne – quite a difference from the FD2 eh!:D

http://1000aircraftphotos.com/Contributions/Visschedijk/3299L-1.jpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9633v6U0wo

Hope that’s the right one :rolleyes:

Martin

A bizzarely attractive bird.:cool:

So, we stopped designing new ones because we were not selling what we had. HSAL did take a punt by committing to long-lead materials for 10 civil Argosy 200…took a bath and didn’t do such a thing again.

So, why didn’t we sell well? I for many a moon blamed Product (Un)Support – there’s a Geo Edwards quote, fed up with Viscounts grounded for “salt across (electric) terminals”. Boeing had neglected their Stratocruiser customers (55 sales) cos they were stroking their KC-97 customer (888 sales), but PanAm sorted them out as a condition of splitting the order, DC-8 + 707. That gave BOAC a whole new experience on 707-400 and formed their Seattle-centric view of the world. They didn’t care that VC-10 was in engineering terms better – they wanted spare parts delivered NOW! So in that sense our types were worse.

Flight’s obit on Herald speaks of pilots’ glow if they could taxi in a straight line. Is there any horned hand here with time at ChanEx on F-27 and Herald, to tell us more? 1952-ish both designs, essentially same Spec. Both firms had lost civil exposure by 1940; Fokker then designed odd trainers and built Meteors while HP designed Victor and built big Hastings transport. Racing certainty HP would take the Dakota replacement market. Why didn’t they?

I know its a bit off topic but does anyone have any images of the proposed Tyne powered Rotodyne?

http://1000aircraftphotos.com/Contributions/Visschedijk/3299L-1.jpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9633v6U0wo

Hope that’s the right one :rolleyes:

Martin

Not sure I understand all of alertken’s post but I think I agree with it.

Another factor which badly affected British airliner construction was that, by and large, the designs churned out by the manufacturers were based on official government requirements – usually for the national airlines or the Board of Trade.

The idea of polling world airlines to find out what they actually might want was something which the UK manufacturers rarely did. As a result, their projects were always at the whim of the British government or the viscitudes of the UK airlines. It was only AFTER a project had got the go ahead that some marketing work might be carried out to see whether other airlines might be interested in the design.

In that respect, airliner manufacturing in Britain was not a lot different to military aircraft building i.e government based specifications and government based orders.

The 146 suffered because Hawker Siddeley would not go ahead with the project in 1973 without government backing. It wasn’t unril BAe was formed in 1977 that the project got the go-ahead. I wonder how much more successful the 146 would have been if it had entered service in 1976/77 rather than 1981/82?

Thats pretty much what we are all saying. It was that attitude that resulted in the cancellation of the VC-7 when the prototype was 95% complete, that resulted in the scaling down of the Trident and the original hot an high short field requirements for the VC-10.

At the time there were white elephants such as the Princess, the Brabazon, the Rotodyne and dare I say it Concorde as well that were absorbing funds that they did not deserve.

I have always felt that Britain still had a chance after the Comet 1 but that the fate was sealed fairly soon afterwards.:(

The other factor was the plethora of different companies involved. Had the British Aviation industry been consolidated (two companys just for a bit of competition) much earlier it might have stood more of a chance.

I know its a bit off topic but does anyone have any images of the proposed Tyne powered Rotodyne?

Not sure I understand all of alertken’s post but I think I agree with it.

Another factor which badly affected British airliner construction was that, by and large, the designs churned out by the manufacturers were based on official government requirements – usually for the national airlines or the Board of Trade.

The idea of polling world airlines to find out what they actually might want was something which the UK manufacturers rarely did. As a result, their projects were always at the whim of the British government or the viscitudes of the UK airlines. It was only AFTER a project had got the go ahead that some marketing work might be carried out to see whether other airlines might be interested in the design.

In that respect, airliner manufacturing in Britain was not a lot different to military aircraft building i.e government based specifications and government based orders.

The 146 suffered because Hawker Siddeley would not go ahead with the project in 1973 without government backing. It wasn’t unril BAe was formed in 1977 that the project got the go-ahead. I wonder how much more successful the 146 would have been if it had entered service in 1976/77 rather than 1981/82?

Agree with AP & SLL. Money. It’s not that Brit types had foibles: all aircraft do – “never buy the A model”, but rather that the Boards of (outfits that ended up as BAE Systems) preferred other sectors. Few transports – in UK only Vickers Vanguard – have been wholly risk-financed. In the current WTO Distortion of Trade Case Airbus’ direct Launch Aid (National Govts’. Loan Guarantees) tussles v. Boeing’s indirect (local inducements, overheads/R&D on military account), but the impact is the same: the State takes the hit if sales are low.

As BAE exited civil Prime Contractorship, Embraer and Bombardier entered (now too, China, Russia, Ukraine), because their Govts. still tax today’s employees to buy higher-value-added tomorrows. BAE followed (Convair)GD, Northrop in making chunks for others – such as bits of Boeing wings. Convair made profit on DC10 fuselage barrels and 747 Lower 41 nose sections, stupendous loss on CV880/990. When LMAC tried to buy NG, 9% of their business was civil structure on contract. UK’s GKN now owns (some of ex-Boeing/McDoug) St.Louis, reaming well as Supplier, where at Yeovil as design Prime they had toiled. The Sporty Game, bet-the-Company, we were a basket case are all quotes from books on Boeing Commercial Airplane, whose losses (and employee health/pension liabilities) exposed the parent to being stalked by Warren Buffett, the “creative investor”. Only mugs want to be Civil Prime: the mind-set is “solutions”, “integration”= good, “touch-labour”= bad (unless you are Japanese making 15-25% of all Boeing civil structure).

146 landing at London City is an experience!

As is Scatsa in the Shetlands !!!:D 😀

My own humble opinion on this is that the damage was done decades ago. A series of poor decisions and design requirements in the 60s in particular.

I agree. I think it started even before that with the aftermath of the Comet 1 disaster and useless aircraft wasting resources like the Princess and the Brabazon. At the same time the US was building the B-47 and B-52 which ultimately lead to 707. By the time the Comet 4 appeared it was too late. Wing-root buried engines are not nearly so structural efficient as underslung engines and are less amenable to engine upgrades and developments (see Nimrod MRA4!)

The Trident and VC-10 were excellent technically and again they weren’t developed properly or the manufacturer allowed one customer to dictate aircraft size and weight. Net result was alienation of all the other potential customers.

What about the BAC 3-11 development of the successful (all these term as are relative) 1-11 (I guess 244 is successful for the UK). Again no investment – no willingness to takes risks .

Again the 146 could have been developed properly but a midlife engine update and updated avionics was all it got until the RJX appeared. Decent thrust at high altitude at long last. We’ll never know how good it would have been. It would still struggle with the 4 engine stigma. Some airlines liked that, especially this flying out of mountainous airfields.

Enough ranting for now!

AP

I’ve always liked the looks of the 146, but have never had the chance to fly in one.

Nice enough to fly in, used to fly in them regularly going between Aberdeen and Amsterdam or Stanstead with Air UK (eeek! that dates it!!!)

My overriding memory was cursing when I got a seat under the wing area, as the overhead lockers were smaller (to allow for the spars I’d imagine), and if you weren’t the first on in that area, you’d have to put your bag or briefcase under the seat in front of you…..:(

My own humble opinion on this is that the damage was done decades ago. A series of poor decisions and design requirements in the 60s in particular. The scaling down of the original Trident design, the decision not to complete the VC-7, the initial requirements for the VC-10. All conspired to destine the british commercial aerospace industry to a slow and agonising death.

I would dearly have loved the ATP to have been a roaring success but it was nailed by the lack of investment in it at the beginning.Richard

An mentioned before, it sounds a like the late, lamented British sports car industry…trying to sell cars long past their “sell by” date (the rubber bumpered MGBs) or pawning off a half-baked successor to a fabled line
(TR-7).