In the mid '90's whilst at STEAMY BESS at one of the annual MD's presentations the management made the point that they would have made more money if they were Marks and Spencer's or putting their money in the Halifax Building Society ( it was the 90's). To even mention that shows just how bad things had got.
It's not unimaginable for anyone to start up an aircraft manufacturing facility from scratch. To produce a ATR challenger or Chinook rival would be maybe too ambitious.
Richard Nobel of Thrust 2/SSC fame had a crack with an entry level project in the ARV-2 but didn't have sufficient financial momentum to sustain the slog into gaining sufficient sales.The Sherrif and the SAH-1 were other competent products that just couldn't get going either.
Perhaps someone else will have a go at something smaller to start with.
I saw this a while ago:
BBC News - Flying hovercraft takes to the skies. I thought I would really like one of those and with some manufacturing nouse and a bit of styling I could see it making a practical sports vehicle, patrol craft or even a commuter machine (I live near the Solent which would have been an ideal for commuting from the Isle of Wight to the 21st Century
. I put the idea into the suggestion scheme at work and my boss said it was ludicrous (or a not so polite equivalent) as we didn't do that sort of thing and it wasn't our market even though another branch makes some advanced aerial targets/drones and certainly would have been up to the challenge technically.
Being an engineer of sorts I would not feel confident about such a venture as I know many of the potential problems and pitfalls involved in the regulation, elf and safety etc., but who knows, there may be someone out there who is oblivious to this or has the coujons to have a go anyway.