RD, I also wonder what they would find if they looked into aircraft sales to Israel and others over in the middle east as well from other suppliers.
LJ - just remember that most of the delays/overruns or whatever title you want to hang on them is not allways the fault of the prime contractor (I do believe that the F3 radar issue was caused by a company that was not a BAES one at the time). When the customer keeps moving the goalposts/adding additional capabilities that they did not want when the original design request was quoted for, especially when they keep doing this during the development/testing phase, how is anyone supposed to cope with that.
Added to that they then expect all the additional bells and whistles to still be added/tested within the original timescales and cost (they would still waffle and delay into service dates because they could never afford the equipment in the first place), it's also odd that other major companies who also have the same difficulties with their customers do not appear to come in for half the criticism that BAES does.