Really, really dumb decisions

[MartG]

There's a whole book full of Britain's blunders ('Project Cancelled' by Derek Wood).

Plane Speaking by Bill Gunston is also a good account of how the British government has done its level best to cripple our aerospace industry right from the start, even before WW1.

[upnorth]

I'm surprized the Comanche steath helicopter hasn't come up in the discussion yet. Mind you, its difficult to decide which was dumber; scrapping it after so much development or starting it at all.

There is also allowing France to have a near monopoly in control over the Airbus consortium.

The Mitsubishi F-2, nuff said.

[Archibald]

There is also allowing France to have a near monopoly in control over the Airbus consortium.

I don't understand what you say... EADS has now full control of Airbus (since Bae systems sold its 20%) but EADS is 1/3 German, 1/3 French, 1/3 Spanish...

[upnorth]

There is also allowing France to have a near monopoly in control over the Airbus consortium.

I don't understand what you say... EADS has now full control of Airbus (since Bae systems sold its 20%) but EADS is 1/3 German, 1/3 French, 1/3 Spanish...

From things I've heard, the appearance is that of a fair and equal partnership but the reality is that the French part of the Airbus consortium can be very aggressive about getting Airbus aircraft to meet French needs and intrests before the intrests of the other countries involved. It seems if one of the other member countries proposes including something into a design, it can be very difficult or impossible for the proposal to be accepted if there is not a clear connection to French intrests apparent.

[nev]

I'm surprized the Comanche steath helicopter hasn't come up in the discussion yet. Mind you, its difficult to decide which was dumber; scrapping it after so much development or starting it at all.

There is also allowing France to have a near monopoly in control over the Airbus consortium.

The Mitsubishi F-2, nuff said.

The Comanche was an amazing machine, with outstanding capability. I've seen video footage of it flying and it did things I've seen no other helicopter do.  Combine that speed and agility with its stealth, avionics & armament and you have a kick-donkey attack helicopter.  Only problem was, it wasn't supposed to be an attack helicopter....


As for Airbus being "French" I actually see this as a POSITIVE thing, and I am far from being a francophile.  History tells us that international aircraft consortiums are very fractious things - just look at the mess we got into over Eurofighter.  Other collabatorive projects from Concorde to Jaguar to Tornado have been beset by bickering, in-fighting, and comprimises forced by political rather than design decisions.

Airbus is different.  The politicians trumpet it as a shining example of Europeanism - this is what the EU can do for us!  They shout.  Truth of the matter is, Airbus is French.  The design work is done in France, the testing is done in France, the sales & marketing work is done in France, the final construction is done in France.  The international language of aviation is English, but the language of Airbus is French.

France are the undistputed masters of Airbus.  Britain, Germany, Spain and the rest get the scraps that Airbus throw off their table, in the name of Internation Partnership.  And thats why it works.  Most of the problems in international aircraft consortiums stem from arguments that at their core, boil down to "who is the  most importnant partner?".  Where there is a clear leader (say, America with anybody else) then they clearly have the right to have the final say.  Where there is dispute over who is the superioir partner (say Germany with Britain over Eurofighter) then without a clear leader, its harder to resolve issues.

So whilst the rest of Europe proclaims Airbus a "European collaboration", in reality, the French are in charge and they know it.  Gallic pride is assuaged, EU propaganda is furnished, and Airbus gets a clear leader which cuts down on damaging disputes.

The fact that the A400M is actually being run by Airbus along the same lines as its airliner business is the ONLY thing that gives me hope of seeing a plane remotely on time and on-budget (I still say we don't take the chance and stock up on C-17s    )

[B777LR]

The fact that the A400M is actually being run by Airbus along the same lines as its airliner business

It isnt being run by airbus along the same lines as the airliners at all. It is run by other manufacturers that are members of EADS, and it isnt produced at airbus factories.  

[Alvis 3.1]

What I find amazing is my lack of input on this thread!!!


Alvis 3.1, full of opinions!

[jcf]

The Comanche was an amazing machine, with outstanding capability. I've seen video footage of it flying and it did things I've seen no other helicopter do.  Combine that speed and agility with its stealth, avionics & armament and you have a kick-donkey attack helicopter.  Only problem was, it wasn't supposed to be an attack helicopter....

Actually the Commanche was a horribly overweight pig because of all the crap they kept adding to the airframe...the videos of the prototypes are meaningless for determining actual performance. They slightly uprated the engine performance at the cost of shortening its life...but this was a marginal improvement and there was no way to gain further increases.

Cheers, Jon

[Joe C-P]

Lockheed L-133

[Archibald]

I'm surprized the Comanche steath helicopter hasn't come up in the discussion yet. Mind you, its difficult to decide which was dumber; scrapping it after so much development or starting it at all.

There is also allowing France to have a near monopoly in control over the Airbus consortium.

The Mitsubishi F-2, nuff said.

The Comanche was an amazing machine, with outstanding capability. I've seen video footage of it flying and it did things I've seen no other helicopter do.  Combine that speed and agility with its stealth, avionics & armament and you have a kick-donkey attack helicopter.  Only problem was, it wasn't supposed to be an attack helicopter....


As for Airbus being "French" I actually see this as a POSITIVE thing, and I am far from being a francophile.  History tells us that international aircraft consortiums are very fractious things - just look at the mess we got into over Eurofighter.  Other collabatorive projects from Concorde to Jaguar to Tornado have been beset by bickering, in-fighting, and comprimises forced by political rather than design decisions.

Airbus is different.  The politicians trumpet it as a shining example of Europeanism - this is what the EU can do for us!  They shout.  Truth of the matter is, Airbus is French.  The design work is done in France, the testing is done in France, the sales & marketing work is done in France, the final construction is done in France.  The international language of aviation is English, but the language of Airbus is French.

France are the undistputed masters of Airbus.  Britain, Germany, Spain and the rest get the scraps that Airbus throw off their table, in the name of Internation Partnership.  And thats why it works.  Most of the problems in international aircraft consortiums stem from arguments that at their core, boil down to "who is the  most importnant partner?".  Where there is a clear leader (say, America with anybody else) then they clearly have the right to have the final say.  Where there is dispute over who is the superioir partner (say Germany with Britain over Eurofighter) then without a clear leader, its harder to resolve issues.

So whilst the rest of Europe proclaims Airbus a "European collaboration", in reality, the French are in charge and they know it.  Gallic pride is assuaged, EU propaganda is furnished, and Airbus gets a clear leader which cuts down on damaging disputes.

The fact that the A400M is actually being run by Airbus along the same lines as its airliner business is the ONLY thing that gives me hope of seeing a plane remotely on time and on-budget (I still say we don't take the chance and stock up on C-17s    )

The hell! I didn't know that. Airbus was "organized" like this... aparently its the same organisation for the Ariane rocket, the French CNES led the program...  

[Runway ? ...]

Not sure where it fits in as to size of mistake but the first of the big (UK) post war mistakes has to involve the Miles M.52 and the speed of sound.

[Eddie M.]

IMHO, cancelling the F-4 Wild Weasel and accepting the F/A-18A with design flaws( having to add strakes and no fuel capacity)
   Eddie

[waynos]

One of the biggest Blunders in the UK, away from the already mentioned M.52, P.1121, TSR 2 et al, was the cancellation of the Vickers VC-7.

This aircraft bigger, longer ranged and had a higher passenger capacity than the Boeing 707, it was powered by the Rolls Royce Conway and so (at the time) had more power and the first prototype was 80% built when BOAC announced that it had no faith in the Conway engine and no requirement for a long range big jet transport as the Comet and Britannia met all its needs going forward into the 60's. In those days, for a British airliner, if BOAC or BEA weren't interested that was the end of it. The VC-7 was cancelled despite TCA (Air Canada today) pleading with the British Govt to continue with it. The big jet market was handed to Boeing on a silver plate.

The utter stupidity of this decision was revealed less than 12 months later when BOAC requested that it be allowed to order a Conway powered 707 as a matter of urgency!

Surely nobody could be that dumb, it had to be a stitch up didn't it?

As a point of interest the VC-10, universally acclaimed as an excellent aeroplane, though over specialised, re-used many of the features of the VC-7, the same basic fuselage, the same main wings with kuchemann tips, the same Conway engines, and was roughly the same size.
The VC-10 failed to sell in a market saturated with 707's and long runways, the VC-7 would have been in service 5 years earlier and was not hampered by the VC-10's short field requirements. Things could have been so different.

Here is a picture of a model of the RAF version, the V.1000, alongside the Valiant B.1

[The Rat]

The history of Canadian aerospace screwing is proof that you can't just complain about Liberal governments being no good for the Armed Forces, the Conservatives have been just as bad. And to add to the Arrow fiasco, we bought Bomarc missiles as a partial replacement measure, then dithered over nuclear wraheads for them. Since they would not fly properly without some kind of weight in the nose we placed sandbags in them! Man, would that ever put the fear into the politburo, if one of those bags had burst it might have sandblasted the shine right off their bombers!

Toad left out another point about the scrapping of HMCS Bonaventure - it had just undergone a major and costly refit.

And howzabout that Mulroney, eh? He splurges on a load of A-300s to fly himself around in, and gets around to ordering spiffy new helicopters just as he was about to be booted out of office. He knew the Conservative party was about to be gutted, and knew that any incoming government would cancel any last minute deal he had made. I'm sure he only did it so that Chretien would start off on the wrong foot

And don't get me started on the Liberal's destruction of the Avro Jetliner, that hurts me more than anything else.    

[nev]

The fact that the A400M is actually being run by Airbus along the same lines as its airliner business

It isnt being run by airbus along the same lines as the airliners at all. It is run by other manufacturers that are members of EADS, and it isnt produced at airbus factories.

From the Airbus Military website

The A400M programme will follow a similar process of design, development, certification and production to Airbus civil aircraft programmes

and

Airbus Millitary is using the same methods as with Airbus commercial projects in managing the A400M programme, the risk and the supply chain - a commercial approach to defence procurement