....govts buying planes they don't even want or need to prop up industry. Surely this is a far worse, more inappropriate industry subsidy than any loan?
Exactly. Nail on the head JFZ90.
The USA has always propped-up its industry in this manner. Governors or Senators who hail from the State in which the US company production plant happens to be located have had huge influence over military orders.
Alternatively governments spend millions of dollars researching new technology via NASA or similar-such government-funded organisations, and said technology is handed over to US civil industry for their commercial benefit.
There are many ways of supporting your own industry, directly or indirectly.
This continual bleating by the USA about 'the subsidised Airbus' is total hypocrisy, and part of the game.