The problem you have is Continuity, the likes of English Electric, Hawker etc built up over many years design teams who built upon their past experiences in fighter design to produce some stunning fighters and bombers. The merging of these great companies often forced upon them by Governmental decisions was a nail in that coffin, one was the merger of English Electric and Vickers on the TSR2 project and handing the lead on design to Vickers who had not the experience EE had in supersonic aircraft and had never built one.. That alone probaly resulted in some of the cost over runs.
Excellent read
https://www.raf.mod.uk/rafcms/mediaf...4682EDACAB.pdf
You then get a cutting edge project cancelled and design teams scattered to the wind, your lead and continuity is gone, facilities are closed and we move on to more mergers.
The Rot has set in, Farnborough that bastian of British Aerospace excellence starts to let foreign aircraft in to show their wares
In 1962 the British-only rule was slightly relaxed by allowing the participation of foreign aircraft with British engines. 1962 was also the last of the annual shows, the next being held in 1964 and thenceforth biennially; in 1968 European manufacturers were invited. In 1974 the show accepted international participation and from 1978 it became known as the
Farnborough International. Since 1964 the Farnborough has alternated with the
Paris Air Show.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societ...pace_Companies
Government interferes again and more mergers are forced upon companies, facilities are rationalised between the merged companies and close, with the closure also goes the skilled work forces and design teams.
Uk Plc looks abroad and buys the likes of the F4, a whole generation of aircraft design is skipped over as the British aircraft industry has no design input or requirement to build, so more facilities sitting idle go, we then start to buy more and more foreign types, to the detriment of our own industry that closes facilities and loses the ability we once had.
So we get to the likes of the Chinook and F-35 which we do not have access to the computer software I believe, so cannot alter it ourselves, we are now dependant on others and haven't the facilities anymore to reverse that trend.. could we build and design another home grown fighter, possibly, but the question is could we, and if we could, where?
Its ok relying on foreign built aircraft, but that then makes you subservient to those countries and their whims, and if a home grown war ever did come again, your ability to ramp up aircraft production has gone.
Its all a bit like the RAF, close this base we save X, close that one we save XX..... its all great from a UK Plc finance side, but one big bomb on Brize's runway and the whole of the RAF's transport fleet is out of the equation, similar with the F-35 fleet and projecting our global presence on our super duper new carriers... one torpedo and they are gone, it's all ready been shown what a bunch of rag heads with a boat can do to something like the USS Cole.
I often think that we are overthinking ourselves, a £1,000,000 truck verses a $1000 RPG .. a $78,000 missile against a taliban and his $500 AK 47
.