Sad but true Tiger_mate
Skipness One Echo
They'd have gone bust, let's be honest they weren't great at making any money from it. Really.
BAe never designed an aircraft from scratch, the closest they got was the Jetsream 41 and er the ATP, both derivatives from HP and Avro. From nationalisation in 1977 the sum new aircraft was the HS146.
Embraer beat the Jetstream 41 to market by a decade with the Brasilia, the Fokker 50 wiped the floor with the ATP and the 146 had niche written all over it. We can build great aircraft but they tend not to be built for the mass market.
VC10, Trident and Concorde, indeed the only mass market success I think would be the Vscount, HS748 and possibly the BAC111.
A few sweeping statements in there Skipness One Echo. The a/c you highlight were certainly developed if not substantially designed by BAe, albeit the companies that came to form it. The 146 went through a number developments to became the RJX which was shelved. BAe's problem, along with projects of its predecessors, was staying the course and timely development. Aerospatiale with the ATR are a great example - now at the -600. It's quite likely BAe could now sell the RJX's if it were in production - and they should have forged ahead with a twin engined variant before that (regardless of adverse pressure from Airbus). The potentail of the 1-11's was never fully released either. Tay re-engining at the last was considered, and even flown with De-Howard, but conflict concerns put paid to that also. And before that - because of commercial and political woes - it never benefitted from being offered with the JT-8D. Something American operators were clamouring for. (
read DC-9, MD80 to see where that could have gone
)...and we won't get on to the 3-11 saga..
Even smaller size a/c programs were squandered - the 125 to Hawkers (Raytheon), with more long-term vision and investment read Hawkers to see where that could have gone....there's more but it won't change where we at
I even think the Jetstream program was not fully exploited..
We have to persuade, encourage, cajole, whatever to make a Government (of what ever colour) decide on a high tech manufacturing sector - and invest! regardless of EU or whatever rules - the French and the Germans have invested successfully without breaking the so called "golden rules" by building or providing incentives (by the tax or other) to get the infrastructure down or keep it in place..
Maybe this can help.....you can but hope...
Britain must encourage, support & adequately fund its own High-Tec industries like for aerospace & biotech research and manufacturing - e-petitions
Otherwise I fear Churchills Ghost maybe right
I'm sure some will disagree - so tin hat going on
