LO,
I'll try to sharpen up with my choice of words and restrict myself to using the ones you like. Didn't realise I was getting my English homework marked against LO's Rules of Usage of the English Language.
I'm sure the folks at Boulton Paul worked hard. I made the point about the hard work and dedication of LM employees that I saw because many folks on here, including you, like to portray LM as the Evil Empire that is only interested in spinning lies, deceiving Joe Public and conning everyone. An alternative viewpoint is that the pedigree of U-2, SR-71, F-16, F-117, F-22 (amongst others) suggests LM aren't exactly in the business of building kippers and spinning lies to cover up their failings. They're confident in their sales pitch because they're very good at building cutting edge airplanes and can prove it to the people that count.
They don't have to impress you (or anyone else on this forum) - unless you own a bucket load of their stock, pay their bills or fly their airplanes? If they didn't give you a nice pen to take home after your factory tour and you're all bitter about it, I'm very sorry for you. I didn't get one either. But they do impress the people that matter, using data that stands up to extremely close scrutiny from experts in their field. Some of those experts may well be wrong, but in many cases they stake their reputation and career on the calls they make so they put a bit of thought into them. If I had to invest a few £bn into a program and potentially put my pink body on the line in a combat zone, I'm afraid I put my trust in those folks rather than the relatively uninformed musings of Kopp, Sweetman and many a PPruNer who have no skin in the game.
I've seen LM's press releases, and I've had a pretty good look under their kimono; I've seen Eurofighter's and had a long look under their bath robe too. In my opinion, the stuff LM push out about capability is a country mile closer to the truth than the Eurofighter stuff that you appear to have swallowed hook, line and sinker. If you disagree, no hard feelings, we'll just have to agree to.
Not quite sure what the repeated relevance of Concorde is to any of this. Derek Wood's 'Project Cancelled' is a thoroughly depressing read about what can happen to your aerospace industry if you walk away from airplanes late in their development cycle. How about TSR-2, CF-105 Arrow, MRA-4 - are you happy the plug was pulled on those when it was, amongst others? Was there no value in Concorde over and above whether or not BA could make a profit flying it after the FAA brought in regulations that limited its commercial success? Did the UK not get any prestige, no technology base growth, no Anglo-French political partnership, nothing else out of it? Is your argument that Concorde wasn't as financially successful as the 747 so we should pull the plug on F-35 because you don't like it? Then what do we do, buy some Harriers to put on our QE carriers? Even if the F-35 were as bad as you seem to want to believe, have you ever looked at the staggering value of the program to UK industry?
There are a lot of folks on here who have picked up on the leaked report, taken it completely out of the context in which it was written, made enormous leaps to conclusions and then leapt on the Outrage Bus. Ding ding. Here we go. Yet again. I think this is the bit where I say 'it gets to you after a while'.
Respectfully,
Single Seat, Single Engine, The Only Way To Fly