Boeing 727. Why was it relatively unsuccessful in the UK?
B(E)A must have been very pessimistic about demand to downsize the roginal DH idea to the T 1 and 2 series because while the lieks of Swiss , SAS KLM served smaller markets and no doubt saw the DC9 as much better fit the bigger Euro legacy carriers used 727s mostly 200s extensively and i would have thought that BEA had many routes , probably more than LH and AF where a 727 200 would seem to have have been ideal , LHR to Paris FRA MAD ARN AMS BRU plus the shuttles .
On the subject of UK missing out on markets because of state airline meddling and politics I recently read a book* about the whole 707 family which includes soem comments from Boeing engineering execs who visited Uk in lead up to the Comet 4 707 and Dc8 . Their veiw was that they didnt need to rush on the 707 since although the Comet 4 and incipient VC10 were good products the manufacturing facilities in Uk were so small and outdated compared to what Douglas and Boeing had that the Brits couldnt meet any large scale demand anyway and were not that skilled at marketing compared to the customer focussed Americans . Looking back with the benefit of hindsight and the typical lack of investment in engineering and technology in UK left me wondering how valid those comments might be as opposed to 'just blame the nationalised industries and the politicians of the day .
*The book is Graham M Simons -Boeing 707 Group a history
On the subject of UK missing out on markets because of state airline meddling and politics I recently read a book* about the whole 707 family which includes soem comments from Boeing engineering execs who visited Uk in lead up to the Comet 4 707 and Dc8 . Their veiw was that they didnt need to rush on the 707 since although the Comet 4 and incipient VC10 were good products the manufacturing facilities in Uk were so small and outdated compared to what Douglas and Boeing had that the Brits couldnt meet any large scale demand anyway and were not that skilled at marketing compared to the customer focussed Americans . Looking back with the benefit of hindsight and the typical lack of investment in engineering and technology in UK left me wondering how valid those comments might be as opposed to 'just blame the nationalised industries and the politicians of the day .
*The book is Graham M Simons -Boeing 707 Group a history
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OC37 I can not and will not believe that Dan air operations and route planning would have dispatched an aircraft thousands of miles to do a job for which it was unsuitable.
Your azsertion thay Aussie twin aircraft could always land o a road and did'nt need etops is patently and laughably absurd
Your azsertion thay Aussie twin aircraft could always land o a road and did'nt need etops is patently and laughably absurd
When we were dispatched to Australia, with all the confusion of the period, do you think that we knew in advance the routes that we would be asked to operate, we just about knew where Australia was, we'd never heard of airports like Mt Isa, Coolangatta, where the hell is Newcastle and, ah yeah, we know Launceston, that's in Cornwall isn't it!
What next, are you going to suggest that it is absurd that airliners land/take-off at uncontrolled airfields with no ATC or fire cover and the pilots activate the airfield lighting themselves from their radio box?
Last edited by OC37; 22nd Aug 2020 at 14:41.
The meddling and redesigning caused by the national airlines caused untold damage to the UK civil aircraft industry.
Look at the VC10 as another example. Specifically designed to BOAC specifications for "hot and high" requirements in Kenya, and possibly other African routes? Result - we don't want it, Boeings are cheaper to operate.
DHfan,
IF BEA had done as you suggested they would have been left with an aircraft and no launch customer. For all of the 'comparing the US designs to UK designs' it is often forgotten that the US launched all of their commercial airliners on a customer airline requirement with designs entirely customised around those airline requirements. So may be it WAS the fact that the UK state airlines were rubbish at traffic and market forecasting?
Don't forget too that long after the launch of the Trident, when BEA were looking at the Trident 3 and 1-11 500, they had to be effectively bribed by the Govt into taking UK built aircraft in the shape of compensation and subsidy payments to get BEA to order Trident and 111, when what they wanted, and tried to order, were Boeing 727 and 737's. That fact was widely publicised at the time and can not have helped BAC and HSA in their marketing efforts.
As to the VC10, again we can lay some of the blame at BOAC, the folks who specified the hot and high for Commonwealth routes nonsense, which Vickers went with, and none of them had any notion at all that these airports would all be extended to take 707 and DC-8's, thus rendering the VC10 obsolete before it had even entered service.
IF BEA had done as you suggested they would have been left with an aircraft and no launch customer. For all of the 'comparing the US designs to UK designs' it is often forgotten that the US launched all of their commercial airliners on a customer airline requirement with designs entirely customised around those airline requirements. So may be it WAS the fact that the UK state airlines were rubbish at traffic and market forecasting?
Don't forget too that long after the launch of the Trident, when BEA were looking at the Trident 3 and 1-11 500, they had to be effectively bribed by the Govt into taking UK built aircraft in the shape of compensation and subsidy payments to get BEA to order Trident and 111, when what they wanted, and tried to order, were Boeing 727 and 737's. That fact was widely publicised at the time and can not have helped BAC and HSA in their marketing efforts.
As to the VC10, again we can lay some of the blame at BOAC, the folks who specified the hot and high for Commonwealth routes nonsense, which Vickers went with, and none of them had any notion at all that these airports would all be extended to take 707 and DC-8's, thus rendering the VC10 obsolete before it had even entered service.
I'm not really sure what your response is saying.
My view is, the villains are the airlines for stating their particular requirements, the UK aviation industry doing their best to comply with them, and then the airlines saying they didn't want the aeroplanes designed to their specifications.
I don't know about some of the blame at BOAC with the VC10 and BEA with the Trident, as far as I'm concerned it's entirely because of their idiotic decisions.
Accepting, obviously, that the UK international market is a minnow compared to even the US internal market, I quite understand that the UK manufacturers tried to chase the domestic market. The trouble was it appears the big cheeses at at the national airlines hadn't got a brain cell between them. I know they're an easy target but I suspect what I once heard described as the "dead hands of accountants..."
My view is, the villains are the airlines for stating their particular requirements, the UK aviation industry doing their best to comply with them, and then the airlines saying they didn't want the aeroplanes designed to their specifications.
I don't know about some of the blame at BOAC with the VC10 and BEA with the Trident, as far as I'm concerned it's entirely because of their idiotic decisions.
Accepting, obviously, that the UK international market is a minnow compared to even the US internal market, I quite understand that the UK manufacturers tried to chase the domestic market. The trouble was it appears the big cheeses at at the national airlines hadn't got a brain cell between them. I know they're an easy target but I suspect what I once heard described as the "dead hands of accountants..."
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DHfan,
IF BEA had done as you suggested they would have been left with an aircraft and no launch customer. For all of the 'comparing the US designs to UK designs' it is often forgotten that the US launched all of their commercial airliners on a customer airline requirement with designs entirely customised around those airline requirements. So may be it WAS the fact that the UK state airlines were rubbish at traffic and market forecasting?
IF BEA had done as you suggested they would have been left with an aircraft and no launch customer. For all of the 'comparing the US designs to UK designs' it is often forgotten that the US launched all of their commercial airliners on a customer airline requirement with designs entirely customised around those airline requirements. So may be it WAS the fact that the UK state airlines were rubbish at traffic and market forecasting?
And if McD were designing and building to customer specs then just how many airlines did they discuss the MD80 series with!!!
But agreed that the British industry went down the pan due to lack of marketing and indeed a lack of interest once almalgamated in to the likes of HS, BA and BAe or whatever. What were the most recent British airliners, the 146 was De Havilland, the Jetstream was Handley Page then Scottish Aviation, the 748 was Avro, the 1-11 was BAC with the 2-11 & 3-11 projects scrapped due to lack of government interest, since the old independents became almagamated the industry has gone down the pan, BAe blamed 9/11 for scrappring the 146RJX development but rumour has it that it was scrapped because it wasn't working much alike the Nimrod MRA4 wasn't working either, besides stretching the 748 to make a 780, 146's and Jetstreams into larger variants whilst its perhaps best no to mention the ATP what have HS/BAe etc. done to continue any commercial airliner industry?
Long live the BN2 Islander!
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DHfan,
IF BEA had done as you suggested they would have been left with an aircraft and no launch customer. For all of the 'comparing the US designs to UK designs' it is often forgotten that the US launched all of their commercial airliners on a customer airline requirement with designs entirely customised around those airline requirements. So may be it WAS the fact that the UK state airlines were rubbish at traffic and market forecasting?
IF BEA had done as you suggested they would have been left with an aircraft and no launch customer. For all of the 'comparing the US designs to UK designs' it is often forgotten that the US launched all of their commercial airliners on a customer airline requirement with designs entirely customised around those airline requirements. So may be it WAS the fact that the UK state airlines were rubbish at traffic and market forecasting?
I think in the end it comes down to size and scale . As has been poijnted out the US domestic market was enormous compared to the rest of the world and given the existence of requirements for short runway longish range-La Guarida
Hot Texas , High Denver and Long haul (for the day ) Transcons if you address the US market you address the world market.
Then there is the sheer scale of orders for US airlines compared to Uk and Europe so very very hard for anyone from Europe to compete , essentially Britain and France and add in the fragmented state of UK manufacturers it is another case of size matters.
Of course when we did the right thing in Europe and got Airbus Industry going (sadly the Brits drag their feet again) it demonstrated that the US are not omnipotent . I recall one book on Concorde I read said that the real benefit of Concorde was not the plane itself but the lessons the Brit and French learned working with each other to provide the foundation of Airbus-such a shame we are turning our backs on such ideas and reverting to little England again
Hot Texas , High Denver and Long haul (for the day ) Transcons if you address the US market you address the world market.
Then there is the sheer scale of orders for US airlines compared to Uk and Europe so very very hard for anyone from Europe to compete , essentially Britain and France and add in the fragmented state of UK manufacturers it is another case of size matters.
Of course when we did the right thing in Europe and got Airbus Industry going (sadly the Brits drag their feet again) it demonstrated that the US are not omnipotent . I recall one book on Concorde I read said that the real benefit of Concorde was not the plane itself but the lessons the Brit and French learned working with each other to provide the foundation of Airbus-such a shame we are turning our backs on such ideas and reverting to little England again
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I think in the end it comes down to size and scale . As has been poijnted out the US domestic market was enormous compared to the rest of the world and given the existence of requirements for short runway longish range-La Guarida
Hot Texas , High Denver and Long haul (for the day ) Transcons if you address the US market you address the world market.
Then there is the sheer scale of orders for US airlines compared to Uk and Europe so very very hard for anyone from Europe to compete , essentially Britain and France and add in the fragmented state of UK manufacturers it is another case of size matters.
Of course when we did the right thing in Europe and got Airbus Industry going (sadly the Brits drag their feet again) it demonstrated that the US are not omnipotent . I recall one book on Concorde I read said that the real benefit of Concorde was not the plane itself but the lessons the Brit and French learned working with each other to provide the foundation of Airbus-such a shame we are turning our backs on such ideas and reverting to little England again
Hot Texas , High Denver and Long haul (for the day ) Transcons if you address the US market you address the world market.
Then there is the sheer scale of orders for US airlines compared to Uk and Europe so very very hard for anyone from Europe to compete , essentially Britain and France and add in the fragmented state of UK manufacturers it is another case of size matters.
Of course when we did the right thing in Europe and got Airbus Industry going (sadly the Brits drag their feet again) it demonstrated that the US are not omnipotent . I recall one book on Concorde I read said that the real benefit of Concorde was not the plane itself but the lessons the Brit and French learned working with each other to provide the foundation of Airbus-such a shame we are turning our backs on such ideas and reverting to little England again
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I appreciate that Boeing were making their B707's to customer specs., ie the 138 for Qantas, the 351 for Cathay and so on but the DC8 was being designed and built to take turbo-props and, not that I was aware of Douglas tailor designing to customer specs, had they been doing so then they could have at least built some with props, their change of plan was to compete with the B707 that Boeing were building at around the same time.
And if McD were designing and building to customer specs then just how many airlines did they discuss the MD80 series with!!!
But agreed that the British industry went down the pan due to lack of marketing and indeed a lack of interest once almalgamated in to the likes of HS, BA and BAe or whatever. What were the most recent British airliners, the 146 was De Havilland, the Jetstream was Handley Page then Scottish Aviation, the 748 was Avro, the 1-11 was BAC with the 2-11 & 3-11 projects scrapped due to lack of government interest, since the old independents became almagamated the industry has gone down the pan, BAe blamed 9/11 for scrappring the 146RJX development but rumour has it that it was scrapped because it wasn't working much alike the Nimrod MRA4 wasn't working either, besides stretching the 748 to make a 780, 146's and Jetstreams into larger variants whilst its perhaps best no to mention the ATP what have HS/BAe etc. done to continue any commercial airliner industry?
Long live the BN2 Islander!
And if McD were designing and building to customer specs then just how many airlines did they discuss the MD80 series with!!!
But agreed that the British industry went down the pan due to lack of marketing and indeed a lack of interest once almalgamated in to the likes of HS, BA and BAe or whatever. What were the most recent British airliners, the 146 was De Havilland, the Jetstream was Handley Page then Scottish Aviation, the 748 was Avro, the 1-11 was BAC with the 2-11 & 3-11 projects scrapped due to lack of government interest, since the old independents became almagamated the industry has gone down the pan, BAe blamed 9/11 for scrappring the 146RJX development but rumour has it that it was scrapped because it wasn't working much alike the Nimrod MRA4 wasn't working either, besides stretching the 748 to make a 780, 146's and Jetstreams into larger variants whilst its perhaps best no to mention the ATP what have HS/BAe etc. done to continue any commercial airliner industry?
Long live the BN2 Islander!
I believe the 707-351B was Northwest Boeing design which Cathay happened to purchase on the used market? Did Cathay ever prurchase new 707's directly from Boeing?
Last edited by Spooky 2; 24th Aug 2020 at 17:13. Reason: spelling
In the UK we simply did not have the jet engines - We had the Spey & the Conway - was that it at that time?
The Trident ran out of steam and eventually needed 4 engines and 1-11 500 (was a nice plane) but the Spey could do no more for it...
And the very pretty but thirsty and noisy VC-10 was quite doomed by then
Thus the 727 737 and DC-9 swept along in...
The Yanks had the PW JT3D JT8D and pretty soon the JT9D - as did GE had the CF6 by 1971
We were watching RR lurch from almost failing to financial crisis' trying to get the RB-211 fixed and going which once we did OK by 1972 it was on the Tristar - but touch and go at the time
The Trident ran out of steam and eventually needed 4 engines and 1-11 500 (was a nice plane) but the Spey could do no more for it...
And the very pretty but thirsty and noisy VC-10 was quite doomed by then
Thus the 727 737 and DC-9 swept along in...
The Yanks had the PW JT3D JT8D and pretty soon the JT9D - as did GE had the CF6 by 1971
We were watching RR lurch from almost failing to financial crisis' trying to get the RB-211 fixed and going which once we did OK by 1972 it was on the Tristar - but touch and go at the time
CX 707?
NW's 707 351B's some with SCD and 351C's were very early builds.
In the UK we simply did not have the jet engines - We had the Spey & the Conway - was that it at that time?
The Trident ran out of steam and eventually needed 4 engines and 1-11 500 (was a nice plane) but the Spey could do no more for it...
And the very pretty but thirsty and noisy VC-10 was quite doomed by then
The Trident ran out of steam and eventually needed 4 engines and 1-11 500 (was a nice plane) but the Spey could do no more for it...
And the very pretty but thirsty and noisy VC-10 was quite doomed by then
BTW, referring to an earlier comment regarding the BAC 1-11, I think that was originally a Hunting Aviation design.
The aviation industry -industrie nowadays I suppose was not alone in failing to adapt toa new world post WW2, not immediately after but in the 50s and 60s. I ean back in the dayw e had
Shipbuilding and a big Merchant Navy but obsolete and non expandable yards often on waters too small for modern ships and hemmed in by houses
Huge railway system and manufacture- but making coal fired locos when the world had gone electric or diesel. Govt again pushing for use of ineficient coal just because we had alot of it
Car industry large but very fragmented, how many companies before rationalization, then literally inventing the prototype modern FWD car with he mini 1100 /1300 dominates all designs today miss the opportunity to build on that success and see Japan Germany and France rule the automotice world (US being isilationsit in this respect). We still make some quality vehicles but all the companies are foreign owned.
Aviation , well we gave up on final assembly years ago but surely the Airbus (also now foreign owned) wing factoroes and relatd development are genuinely gutting edge and massively succesful . Rools royce too but they seem to be facing diffcult times.
So overall perhaps the aircraft industry ahas survived Uks industrial demise beter than other sectors as it leaned to globalise and cooperate rather thang on to amn Imperial past
Shipbuilding and a big Merchant Navy but obsolete and non expandable yards often on waters too small for modern ships and hemmed in by houses
Huge railway system and manufacture- but making coal fired locos when the world had gone electric or diesel. Govt again pushing for use of ineficient coal just because we had alot of it
Car industry large but very fragmented, how many companies before rationalization, then literally inventing the prototype modern FWD car with he mini 1100 /1300 dominates all designs today miss the opportunity to build on that success and see Japan Germany and France rule the automotice world (US being isilationsit in this respect). We still make some quality vehicles but all the companies are foreign owned.
Aviation , well we gave up on final assembly years ago but surely the Airbus (also now foreign owned) wing factoroes and relatd development are genuinely gutting edge and massively succesful . Rools royce too but they seem to be facing diffcult times.
So overall perhaps the aircraft industry ahas survived Uks industrial demise beter than other sectors as it leaned to globalise and cooperate rather thang on to amn Imperial past