How the hell did this country get into this state ?, in the early years we had led the world in aviation research, development and production with sales of our kit all over the world, though not in great numbers but we were surviving and in general we had what we wanted apart from the airlines with their quirks and politicians with no idea what they were on about, who basically sold out this industry.
Why are we now resigned to be a nation of fast food workers, domestic servants and care workers in the service industry.
When i joined the Royal Air Force in the seventies there were so many British a/c in service that were excellent assets with last one that entered service the Hawk a world beater, so good even the US bought it, then came the 'collaberation projects' where basically to join we had to shut down all of our factories, smash all the jigs and equipment and sell the actual companies to any joker with a wad in their pockets.
We then end up with buying items from outside the UK that when we get them we can't use, such as the tranche of Chinooks that sat in the hangar as they were not up to our spec or the initial fleet of C 17 that we obtained from Boeing, who dictated how many hours we were 'allowed' to fly and the latest with the aquisition of Airbus and voyager through PFI initiative, where things seem to be hotting up in the east with Ukraine and what happens then a fifth of the transport/refueler fleet is off to Thomas Cook Airlines to fly holiday makers all over the world, or the F35 that we bought with no arming codes, basically allowing the US government to decide if we could mount an operation such as the Falkland campaign outside of NATO control, how does that happen ?
Now the government say we need to do more engineering and be exporting said projects, what said items !!, carrier bags, supermarket trolleys etc.
Surely rather than spending billions of paying benefits to the engineering workers to sit on their backsides as the jobs have been ripped from under them and other people who could train, why not invest in not only the aviation industry but shipbuilding and other defence companies to restart the prodution of our own equipment and use that highly experienced core of workers that are twiddling their thumbs at this time .
Possibly i'm being a bit symplistic, but there may be an initial outlay costs, but if we could produce the world class kit we have always done on our own for not only our own needs but export as well, i think we are too late to get back into comercial aviation, but who knows if the defence side goes well for these companies they may develop into other areas.
The only thing is though, these companies have to be left alone, without politicians changing their minds after the initial requirement is given by an expert group who have come up with the final requirement prior to ordering and keeping out the greedy fat cats who want a piece of the action for themselves adding to the costs.
In time, these industries would grow into productive companies again and not only contribute to the coffers by being a british tax paying company rather than a foreign company evading taxes etc, but the more support they are given the greater the rewards will be and this would not only reduce the benefits bill out but and reduce unemployment but bring in money into the uk economy via sales abroad where some of that revenue could be reinvested to stop the present self perpetuating circle of losses - redundancies - unemployment - benefits and so on.
as i say, just a symplistic view from a normal simple man, how hard could it be ?, heres to the future, rosey tinted glasses off heres hoping.