jindabyne
Once they cancelled the TSR2, P1154, AW681 and the Rotodyne IMHO the UK matured into somewhere that did satisfactory aeroplanes and thanks to both company and Boscombe people assessed them professionally. No exceptions in my view. Sure you can debate whether the specs of some were quite as appropriate as they might have been but that did not mean they were not fit for purpose – just that they could have been better.
The Lightning really could do a point defence job against the opposition of the day while the Canberra and V-Force fleets were certainly world class. The Canberra still so in its current role. The Nimrod equally could do its job as well as the Jaguar and Tornado (although the early F3s were pushing the concept a tad) Initially the Harrier GR1 was also not really up to snuff from an operational point of view because it went into service minus its FE541 nav attack system, however it proved to be a good tool to learn the VSTOL trade - which was what the RAF actually needed at that time. When the GR3 and SHAR came along actual operations showed they were well up to the job, while the Hawk’s track record at home and overseas speaks for itself.
So it took from 1952 (say) to 1970 (say) for Hawkers to go from your beloved Hunter to the first RAF aeroplane to offer a HUD as well as an inertial nav system and a moving map – plus it offered a level of operating site flexibility that was hard to believe 30 years ago.
JF