dhfan,

It’s not a case of “various other companies aerosopace industries” it’s more a case of the industry being a series of partnerships, very few aircraft are made by one nation these days and absolutely none by one company.

Even a so called ‘national product’ such as the Boeing 777 has nearly all of its fuselage and wings made in either Italy or Japan with a dozen other countries contributing systems, components or sub-assemblies.

What I think you mean is final assembly. This we do less of than we used to, but it only makes up around 10% of the value of a product, is very low tech, does not employ many people and has no real value add in terms of design or innovative technology.

It is often said that the UK is out of the civil airliner business as we do not currently do final assembly on any airliners. Yet the industry in the UK, through it’s design, engineering and manufacturing for the entire Airbus range earns more money, has more cutting edge technology and employs more people than in the heyday of the VC10 and Trident. The only thing it does not do is the final bolting together of fully equipped sub assemblies and systems which adds precious little in terms of employment, technology or earnings.

However, we do still assemble the Islander, Hawk, Merlin, Lynx, AW149, Typhoon, Nimrod, Raytheon Hawker complete airframes, Europa, numerous micro and ultra lights, UAVs and balloons.

SBAC Survey as at June 2007;

“The aerospace industry is a UK success story says the Society of British Aerospace Companies (SBAC).

Its 2007 Annual Aerospace Survey published today (11 June), shows that the industry supports 276,000 UK jobs, has a turnover of £20 billion and exports 63 per cent of all it produces. Highlights from the 2007 survey include:

New orders increased by 6 per cent to £26.2 billion.
Turnover increased by 5.5 per cent to £20 billion.
Productivity increased by 5.5 per cent.
Civil aerospace sales were £10.3 billion, up 8 per cent.
Defence aerospace sales were £9.6 billion, up 3 per cent.
Abroad – UK aerospace companies employ 48,785 people and generate £7.9 billion of turnover outside the UK.
Commenting on the 2007 survey, Chris Geoghegan, SBAC President said, “The aerospace industry continues to benefit from the global growth in demand for air transport. It has had a phenomenal year with substantial increases in turnover, new orders and productivity. The sector has demonstrated remarkable resilience, but we are not complacent and recognise that we must respond to global competition.”

Aerospace investment in early stage research and technology increased to £260 million, up 20 per cent.
Aerospace invested £2.5 billion in research & development.
Maintenance, repair and overhaul turnover increased by 8 per cent to £6.1 billion.
Aerospace made a positive net contribution of £1.54 billion to the UK balance of trade.
Dr Sally Howes, SBAC Director General said, ‘‘Aerospace is a UK success story. The industry is at the forefront of technological development delivering high value manufacturing jobs and success in tough global markets. The aerospace industry invests more than £2.5 billion in research and development each year and is second only to the pharmaceutical sector in terms of R&D intensity.”

Recent SBAC research demonstrates that the broader economic returns of R&D investment in the aerospace industry are around 70 per cent. This means every £100 million investment in R&D raises UK GDP by £70 million per annum.”

Hundreds of companies involved, not just BAE Systems.

I beleive that the Chadderton offices are staying as part of BAE Customer Support and Solutions Group?

Alertken,

Good points well made about historic factory locations, Brooklands was a ridiculous place to assemble something like the VC10!

Yuppies? In Hendon?

I think some of you need a little London geography lesson! You have obviously never visited the estate built on the old aerodrome!

Radpoe,

Sorry, just don’t agree.

If you had asked 100 people on the streets in 1947 you would still have got a very small percentage who would have had a clue what you were talking about, same goes for 1957, 1967, 1977, 1987 and 1997. Why on earth should 2007 be any different.

You can’t celebrate or commemorate every significant event in wartime, there are far too many of them. Life goes on.

It has only ever been of any real interest to those involved and enthusiasts.

The fact remains that 15th September remains the OFFICIAL Battle of Britain Day, BoB balls are held in messes on military establishments.

It’s the same as it has always been.

If you feel the need to make a fuss then that’s up to you. Just don’t try and force other people to do the same.

Move on.

I doubt that there is any money in the equipment programme to allow the procurement and fitting of the GAU-12. As Tony William alluded it is not simply a case of buying and fitting, you have to integrate the system with the existing fire control and weapon aiming software and that would be quite a task involving a brand new CA clearance.

Phil Foster,

“They’ll need to lose a carrier from air attack before the government moves on that one.”

What is the likely hood of THAT happening! Come on, the GR9 is a strike asset and is intended to support expeditionary warfare. There is not even an air threat to our ground forces in Iraq or Afghanistan let alone Naval forces. Get real!

RobAnt,

You must have been hiding yourself away in 1973/4 at Finningley then! The Varsity squadron was the largest on the station with 14 aircraft allotted and my recollection is that the damm things were everywhere!

A225HVY,

There were 14 left on their last day of service which was April 2nd 1976, they were flown away over the next few months with just 2 or 3 remaining plus one on the fire dump and another wingless as a ground instructional airframe.

You must be mixing up your dates or airfields over Hastings flights, they all left Lindholme in 1972 for Scampton. Nothing but gliders flew out of Lindholme until it was briefly reopened as an RLG for METS in the late 70’s. (also had helicopters there during Royal Review in 77)

Russ Snadden,

I can assure you that the Varsity most certainly WAS called the pig! Especially by groundcrew or anyone else who had to touch those engines and their cowlings!

Lovely aircraft, should be at least one flying, just because one UK preserved machine crashes in most unfortunate circumstances the poor thing is somehow condemmed.

EN830

For goodness sake will you stop dripping on with all this negativity!

The UK Aerospace industry is the SECOND largest on the planet, only the USA has a larger industry than we do.

It is simplistic nonsense to focus purely on final assembly. There is no value add, no technology and precious little employment in simply bolting bits of aeroplanes together built by other people. The REAL high tech is in things like wing design, manufacture and assembly, fuel systems, avionics, powerplants and the whole host of other systems on an aircraft or weapon system.

The industry today is truly global and there are very few totally indigenous aircraft any more. Just how much of a Boeing 777 do you think Boeing actually make?