Originally Posted by
medod
I’m just wondering about the “largely gone” bit. As Aljonat points out, Ferranti’s radar design office in Edinburgh is still with us. It’s now part of Leonardo, currently developing a new AESA radar for the Eurofighter.
Of the 3 groups I mentioned, RSRE/RRE was the largest. Long gone, which is what lay behind my comment. Ferranti next, and gradually overtook MoD as R&D was decimated - as you say, it survives, but in a much smaller form. Lastly, a good percentage of project managers in the 70s and 80s were ex-RSRE/RRE. My first boss in MoD(PE) designed the front end of Searchwater (Nimrod) when a young scientist in the 50s. The company (Thorn) would still invite him to private venture design reviews, long after he moved onwards and upwards. He and I were at one the day Maggie resigned.
Blue Fox was ARI 5982. (Airborne Radio Installation). At the time, 4 digits beginning with 5 meant Intellectual Property Rights resided mostly with MoD. Malvern and Farnborough would often do the initial R&D, develop and prove concepts, and prepare the specification. Industry would take these and apply (and often improve) the science for a specific requirement, e.g. a radar for Sea Harrier. As our R&D was run down, this applied more to designs funded by MoD, but wholly carried out by industry. MoD had very few UK-sourced radars whose IPR sat with industry.
This manifests itself in ‘Commercial Exploitation Rates’, whereby the Treasury (not MoD) gets a percentage of any non-MoD sales. As the Design Authority develops modifications or enhancements under private funding, the CER is updated (reduced). So, the Treasury probably got a wedge when Blue Fox was sold to India.
The demise of RRE/RSRE/DRA/DERA and creation of QinetiQ was probably the single biggest stealth defence budget cut ever. But that's another subject.