WH904,
Yes, and what a great success the F111 was...
There is anecdotal evidence to support some of joy ride's argument. Boeing allegedly played very dirty with HS (Hawker Siddley) over the Trident/727 (and BEA did the rest). Boeing and the US govt fought dirtily with the marketing of the 707, which - notwithstanding the excellence of its basic configuration - was a bit of a dog initially. Instead of ordering the V.1000, BOAC insisted that Vickers produce a long-haul airliner for hot/high/short-runways, and then proceeded to buy the 707 in large numbers, once the same engine (albeit less powerful) had been fitted to it.
At risk of repeating myself, the VC10 is the loveliest jet airliner to look at, and in most respects to fly. Despite its heavy tail and consequent deep wing-root and payload limitations, the 54th and last 'Ten to be built was a vastly superior a/c to the 54th B707. It would have needed a new turbofan engine to try and bring the fuel flows down closer to the later, JT3D-powered, 707s and DC8s. No such engine was available. The later fuel crisis of 1972 left BCAL's VC10s, for example, dead in the water. It's doubtful that later developments could ever have offered the 39-tonne freight payload of the B707-320C or DC8-50s, but it was a superb passenger carrier.
In most respects the 'Ten is far superior to its US rivals in terms of safety systems and redundancy, and was much more robust. But the pairing of the Conway engines did mean that we had seriously to consider the possibility of a double engine-failure on take-off, and practise it in the sim. This was just about do-able at even high weights at sea-level, but not at RTOW out of Nairobi. I wonder if the regulators might have insisted on later versions being treated as twins for the purposes of take-off performance. If so, it might have been expedient to use an RB211 engine (as once installed on a VC10 test-bed) and make it just that. Unfortunately, the RB211-524 came too late...
Last edited by Chris Scott; 30th Aug 2013 at 11:13.