Originally Posted by
unmanned_droid
Perhaps things like this will provide a positive driving force in UK industry thinking - maybe we'll get back to providing for ourselves. Although I know we'll likely just buy american.
If forced to bet, I would put my money on the UK buying US. From an economic base point of view does the Apache remanufacture being done in the US seems to signal the end of licenced production in the UK?
Depending if one counts the Wildcat as a Lynx development (95% new components) or a new design I think one has to go back to the era of the Belvedere and Wasp/Scout to find a solely UK indigenous military helicopter design that went into production.
If political pressure was the reason for the RoKN dropping more Wildcats in favour of the Seahawk, I suspect it is going to become increasingly hard for a European manufacture to compete with the US for export sales and generate capital for new developments. In which case the benefits of alignment may outweigh those of competition within Europe. HMG seems to be trying to back both horses at present but it will have to commit itself one way or the other balancing matching defence requirements against political and manufacturing base considerations. Grnted it could of course go different ways for different segments.