Originally Posted by
pax britanica
Sadly as all British aircraft not built for a global market and probably could not have been produced in large quantities anyway.
There was one exception, the Viscount, which was produced in large quantities and sold well on both sides of the Atlantic - a success story which was not to be repeated.
The jets could have been produced in large quantities, but several factors militated against this. The Comet 1 crashed and by the time the Comet 4 came along the market was already dominated by the Boeing 707. The VC10 was designed for 'hot and high' aeroports and was uneconomic on fuel on runs which didn't have this requirement, which were mostly low-volume, former-Empire destinations. But the real killer was BOAC, the Boeing Only Aircraft Corporation, which had a lot of design input into British aircraft but then went and bought Boeing anyway. On the other side of the Atlantic Boeing and Pan Am were arm in arm, but BOAC always had a stand-off relationship with British manufacturers.