Originally Posted by
BBadanov
Again, showing the cottage industry that British aircraft manufacture became.
You've touched a raw nerve there!
My Father-in-Law was an inspector and closely involved with the first Swiss airframes. The management wanted to keep the customer at bay, but he took their rep through all his inspection records, drawings and components and got everything Swiss-stamped - he was in trouble for that!
Part of the problem at Brough was successive run-downs and build-ups. Lots of people left in the Buccaneer days when SA batch 2 was cancelled and various other HSA projects (Hawk/Harrier/Trident/146/SkyShadow pod etc.) came and went, with Phantom as a constant. But "workmanship" can be pointed at any organisation in my experience, as I've heard horror stories from all other places I have been involved with.
In addition to Pr00nes comment, Kingston had already passed all Hawk DA, production and testing to Brough well before they closed (I spent the winter of 86 going back and forth with a copy of the stressing calcs!). They were just managing all the Harrier workload. Similarly, Dunsfold had problems with staffing levels, although the regular guys I met were good blokes.