Originally Posted by
India Four Two
Reading the current thread about the Hermes, where the Hastings was mentioned, reminded me of a question I've been meaning to ask.
Post WWII, which aircraft did the Government require the RAF to buy, to support British industry? I wondered about the Hastings but I see that was built to an Air Staff specification.
Here is my list of potential candidates:
Pioneer
Twin Pioneer
Belvedere
Basset
Andover
Argosy
Jetstream
Bulldog
There is surely a difference between the RAF being made to accept an aircraft (regardless of which govt dept actually paid) to support industry, and the RAF being made to accept a particular aircraft in preference to any other (usually to support British industry, but sometimes due to UK politics). So the first category includes the Basset, but others are definitely in the second category such as Bulldog, Andover and even the Jetstream - the RAF did need transports, a primary trainer and a multi-engine trainer. The Argosy was in fact not forced upon the RAF but was derived from the civil version in response to the Air Ministry.
The other important point is that the existence of a Specification does not necessarily mean that it wasn't forced on them - Specifications were often written after the design was proposed, in order to make the Specification into a contractual document.
Another post above mentions Tucano - this was a political choice (in preference to the Pilatus/BAe offering) but both proposals were presented in response to an Operational Requirement which became an Air Staff Requirement (ASR412 in this case, IIRC). The Brittania was also ordered to fulfil a need (replacement of Hastings etc) rather than being forced upon them.
I would suggest that the forcing was done in the 1940s and 50s, and involved the state airlines as well - Avro Tudor was a major example for instance, and the Brittania and VC10 were forced upon BOAC - they were quite disgraceful in some of their actions and showed continued antipathy for the British types even when they were in service and proving themselves. Then the govt forced Trident 3 on BEA who wanted the 727 - however, it was BEA who had insisted on downsizing the originally proposed Trident which was why they subsequently wanted the larger 727!