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[SteveR750]

the record spot:SteveR750:I totally agree that there IS another way to short termism, which sadly we Brits are so very keen to do - if you want an intersting insight to this from an "outsider" read Brian Trubshaw's account of the development of concorde (he was one of the test pilots). It's interesting to note that 30 years or so later, the French partner has now what is the biggest plane manufacturer in the world, whereas we, the other partner has an assortment of subsidiary component parts manufacturing businesses.

I perhaps wouldn't be quite so quick to refer - albeit indirectly - to Rolls-Royce as a "subsidiary parts manufacturing business" given that without many of their products rather a lot of Airbus and Boeing product would be relegated to large expensive gliders...!

I was referring to what is left of the Anglo French team that developed concorde -The outcome of which today is Airbus and BAe Systems (from BAC)

RR was "only" the engine supplier, not the main development partner, although somewhere in the murky past RR had some financial interest in BAC before it went bankrupt in 1971.

 

[chebby]

All Airbus wings are made in Broughton, Wales. (And design integration for landing gear and fuel systems) About 140,000 UK jobs are maintained by Airbus wing construction.

Wings and Engines are not 'subsidiary'. (There are also thousands of other Airbus components, assemblies, avionics made in this country.)

 

[SteveR750]

Yes I knew that, but making wings and engines isn't quite the same as being the producer of the finished article, which will include the design and validation of the design of the complete aircraft. Making "to print" is a very different business model, and most of the profits are generated at the point of sale of the finished plane, at least it is in the auto industry which is what I work in and is organised in a similar way to aviation.

My original point was that had we British taxpayers thorugh our political system had the stomcah to pay for the investment in the long term Airbus might have been a British company, along with Rover, Morris etc etc.

Anyways this is now completely off topic and in the wrong forum completely!

 

[chebby]

During the time you describe (early 1970s onwards I assume) people were sick of hearing about Government bailing out industries left right and centre. Steel, mining, car industry, Rolls Royce Aero engines (over the RB-211), and many others. We were in the midst of an oil crisis (when Ahmed 'Sheikh' Yamani and King Faisal quadrupled the price of oil to the west through their new toy. OPEC.) We also experienced a coal strike (successful unlike the 1984 re-run) in which Joe Gormley manged to unseat yet another of the 'revolving door' governments we had in those years. In the midst of all this we had to go cap-in-hand to the IMF to 'bail out' Britain PLC as it was officially bankrupt.

Bennite union leaders living under a perpetual pink dawn - but simultaneously seduced by the soft carpeting and polished mahogany of the corridors of power they found themselves reluctantly invited to. (Never mind the beer and sandwiches, their eyes were fixed on the big chair and the whiff of the house of lords beckoning.)

Summers and winters of discontent (even the drought of 76 was the Government's fault!) and rumblings of catastrophic social breakdown due to artificially created shortages and 3 day weeks and power cuts and inflation high enough to merit book covers having multiple (increasing) prices printed on their covers each dated 3 months apart. (Inflation and wage demand percentages sometimes hit the high 20s.)

Taxation was already through the roof especially for wealth creators and professionals who would be taxed over 90 percent of their higher earnings forcing them to run away to other countries.

It would have been impossible to try and sell the idea of pouring billions into yet another Aerospace 'White Elephant', especially after the initial RB-211 fiasco (only salvaged by Sir Stanley Hooker being dragged out of retirement to rescue the whole project with a bit of 'old skool' engineering!). And remember Concorde was only an engineering success up to that point. Economically it was still a disaster. It would only start to pay back for itself years in the future when the transatlantic routes were finally approved by the FAA. (And most of that money went to BA and not the UK taxpayer.)

The RB-211 went on to be an immense success for RR but it cost the public big time.

Maybe the French government were better able to see the future and take a long term view but things in the UK were dire in the 1970s and only one government since 1945 have ever bothered to think of the future rather than their own sorry ar***!

Still, what we have going with Airbus is better than it could have been. The yanks were all over us when Boeing whined about state aid to Airbus. They could not do anything about the French (who can?) so the attack was concentrated on us because we are never able to tell them where to stick it. (Evidence the extradition procedings against Gary McKinnon being the latest nonsense our goverment greased themselves up to accept without question from the USA.)

 

[Alec]

"Ah. I seem to have wandered into the PPE with Sociology mictuaration contest by mistake."

Or:

"Sorry. Wrong room".