Originally Posted by
pr00ne
DHfan,
IF BEA had done as you suggested they would have been left with an aircraft and no launch customer. For all of the 'comparing the US designs to UK designs' it is often forgotten that the US launched all of their commercial airliners on a customer airline requirement with designs entirely customised around those airline requirements. So may be it WAS the fact that the UK state airlines were rubbish at traffic and market forecasting?
IIRC, the standard account is that the Convair 880 was rather closely tied to customer requirements; but as the customer was Howard Hughes, that didn't work out too well. It is evidently a very complicated business, especially if the manufacturer is offering something genuinely revolutionary.