An End to British Aircraft?

[MH]

Originally Posted by sidslotm

Yeah, thats right, Mountbatten was involved, along with Labour.

I worked in engineering all my life until I was 50, one of the big big problems engineering had was that people did not work hard enough. The multinational I worked for invested in new machine tools costing a million each, but the amount of time they were idle was unbelievable, combined with the incomes the people where earning. So I was not supprised to hear the machine tools were shipped to Czechoslovakia and now working out there.

I don't know much about British MI but as far as recall Britain gave up on military aviation development in favor of ballistic missiles during cold war around 60s.
The option of getting American armament contributed to this too.
The eurofighter project as ambitious as it is seems not very cost effective and possibly getting somewhat outdated.

[BossMark]

Bloody rotten lousy Tories are totally destroying our once great country, not much more I can say on the subject without getting a warning

[Wreford-Brown]

Originally Posted by MH

I don't know much about British MI but as far as recall Britain gave up on military aviation development in favor of ballistic missiles during cold war around 60s.
The option of getting American armament contributed to this too.
The eurofighter project as ambitious as it is seems not very cost effective and possibly getting somewhat outdated.

1965, when the TSR2 was cancelled. The TSR2 filled the criteria that were eventually met by the Tornado, but the Tornado didn't appear until 1979 so the UK used Buccaneers and Phantoms to fill the gap. A(nother) really bad day for British industry.

[Oberon]

I believe the original plan post-TSR2 was to get some F-111s but the F-111s overrun so much and the cost went up so much that the plan was abandoned.

sidslotm is right though, the will to work has gone out of the UK, I don't know why, some would probably blame it on the benefits system but this problem has been around longer than that. Perhaps it's an over-reliance on technology, I don't know...but we're certainly not the nation of grafters we once were.

Of course, I speak generally rather than specifically, naturally there are exceptions to the rule.

Bloody rotten lousy Tories are totally destroying our once great country

Do you really think either of the other parties would make much difference?

[JU_88]

Originally Posted by Tribesman

Do you really think either of the other parties would make much difference?

Nope.
As much I appreciate have a democracy, no matter which of the two (and a half) major parties are in power is pretty much accademic to me really, I have little faith in the system really.
IMO western democracy is good at giving the people the illusion that they are in control of their government.
Still its better than an outright dictatorship and I wont take for granted that people have fought and died to protect it too.
So.... mustn't grumble, could be much worse....

So.... mustn't grumble, could be much worse....

Look on the bright side.
It cuts down on foriegn office funding of errr...sweeteners, there is no need to screw the taxpayer with the bill when dodgy dictators are reluctant to pay for the arms shipments and you won't have the tax payer subsidised company giving America a huge payout for getting caught doing some "honestly it wasn't really bribery".

I think the main issue in England is simply a lack of believe. Wittle, Mitchell, wallace and countless others like this where believers, they believed in what they where doing and the reasons for doing.

When Rolls Royce collapased in the 70s, the accounts moved in and engineers from that day were moved out. Unlike many human endevours, engineering requires believe in what your doing and the profit margins are secondary. Pride of achievement is essential at at the workshop floor, this is where the believe is converted into exceptional world beating products which England was famed for, the workshop of the world.