How did Britain loose the lead in aviation ?
I am just intrigued as to why Britain could make decent aircraft and then it loose the lead in aviation, take for example the successfull BAC-111.
Other great aircraft like the VC-10 (scrapped because of economics yet passengers enjoyed flying on this aircraft).
Comet 4 was a great aircraft, yet not many sold even though all of the problems were ironed out by this stage.
From my understanding (if I am wrong please correct me), Britian were in the lead with aviation with the comet 1. Then the comet disasters happened and this gave the chance for boeing to catch up.
Four years later the comet 4 is for sale but not many companies want to buy the comet 4.
So was the lead in aviation lost after the comet 1 disasters ?
Since Boeing and De-havilland were pushing the boundaries of technology at the time how comes Boeing never ran into the same problems ?
I wonder how much info (testing / design) was passed back to Boeing freely (or not), Since Boeing seem to have an unblemished record with pressurization.