I suspect we are 'forgetting' the situation in N.Ireland at the time. Maggie's lot actually poured quite a bit of money into the province (other than security spend) as it was thought that if the majority of people were gainfully employed they would have less inclination to march and shoot and bomb each other.

But as in all Gover'mint acts it just did not work out - hence the Delorean fiasco and these poor irregularly shaped aircraft. And the Skyvan derivatives and a lot of very forgettable ships......

I think the govt of the day was a bunch of hopeless people who got taken for a ride by DeLorean and a few other crooks. If you pour money into something, with few or no strings attached, you will drag out all kinds of worms out of the woodwork. I remember the DL stuff and how he set up a marketing company in the USA which had sole marketing rights, etc. Such an obvious stitch-up of the financiers.

Nothing at-all to do with maintaining the Ulster Unionists' votes to prop up a tiny parliamentary majority then?

G

Purely incidental although technically perhaps a win, win, win?

For just about everybody but the RAF?

G

Possibly it is a shame for the RAF. But remember that we never buy what the armed services think they need (because they are always preparing for the last war - Eurofighter anyone?).

And we can never have anything that looks like what we might need - because all military procurement has to take at least 10 years and all equipment has to be so specialised that it is completely unique (and dissimilar from whatever it was modified from).

So on that basis the only real benefit is in where the procurement puts the jobs - regardless of whether those jobs produce useable or reliable equipment.

And then there is the idea that you can split the procurement across companies and even countries to ensure the jam can go almost anywhere......

Any wonder we have the present situation?

gasax

I think your post is nice and succinct - and obviously reflects my own thinking.

I am pretty sure we could design and build our own good aeroplanes - if we were allowed, and shock horror, we could always just buy some stuff 'off the shelf' if it did what we needed it to do (fast and flexible). Mind you that would do away with a mountain of people in various Government departments and QUANGOs who are all allowed to have a tinker with requirements for something they will never use, never have to use and are usually unqualified to comment on anyway................. and therefore raises the cost and turns a 'standard item' into a 'non standard' one. All this assumes we have an engineering and manufacturing capability - oh hang on a minute.............

I am always reminded of that cartoon 'What the customer wanted...........' whenever I think about this stuff...................

Arc

Indeed, the Norman NDN-1 Firecracker was a British design in the running for this.

Genghis, do you have any experience of the Norman?

Only fairly indirectly. As I understand it, the Firecracker was a small underfunded project which didn't compare well to either the PC9 or the Tucano.

The prototype is still flying as a training aircraft at the National Test Pilot School in Mojave. That in itself is probably no recommendation - a good TPS aeroplane is usually one with a lot of 'interesting' characteristics.

G

Whilst a stude at RNEFTS in 1978/9 the Firecracker was being evaluated by CFS staff at Leeming.
Recall Bob Cole pitching up in it at Topcliffe one day and organising a "draw" to select a stude to fly with him back to Leeming in it. Wasn't me.

It was a sleek looking machine - painted in camouflage - I think.

More info in this forum....
Is the NDN Firecracker historic yet?? - Key Publishing Ltd Aviation Forums

The Firecracker contending for the RAF trainer was a much modified turboprop version. A nice idea, but it didn't meet the specifications.

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/att...4&d=1116195261

Some of my clips of a Tucano flight on You Tube if anyone's interested.

YouTube - Tucano Formation.wmv

YouTube - Tucano Tailchase.wmv

YouTube - Tucano Low Level

The afore mentioned XF200 is the aircraft the composer James Horner lost his life in.

The Firecracker turbo was demonstrated to the RAAF at Fairoaks in about '86 and easily operated off its 813m runway; wonder if the Tucano could do that.
Des Norman came up the tower and I chatted to him (very nice guy) and he told me the Shorts Tucano had to be re-engined from the original Embraer version (which necessitated something of a re-design) as it otherwise could not meet the RAF requirement of 250 kt ias at low level.
I owned a Monnet Moni at the time which, as with the Firecracker, had a ventral airbrake and we discovered the nose up pitch change on extending the airbrake was common to both types!