Requiem for an Aircraft Industry
By OLIVER STEWART Athe Farnborough Air Show next week, the public will get its first glimpse of the curious package which Mr. Duncan Sandys has handed to Mr. Petir. Thorneycroft, his successor at the Ministry of Aviation. The package will be seen to contain a synthetic aircraft industry which is intended to replace the now defunct naturally grown article. Mr. Sandys took nine months to glue his industry together and it demands immediate and critical scrutiny.
Where there used to be a score of competing firms, there are now four dominant groups. They are the Hawker Siddeley Group, the British Aircraft Corporation, Westland Aircraft Ltd., and, on the engine side, Rolls-Royce Ltd. Short Brothers and Harland are 70 per cent. govern- ment-owned. For a long time Handley Page held out against `rationalisation'—which Sir Frederick said that Mr. Sandys was spelling with an 'n'—but since the cut back in Victor orders the rumour has been that the company is preparing to capitulate.
Internally the new industry's ramifications are intricate and obscure, but the firms have this in common, that they were brought into existence at the instigation of the Government and that they look to the Government for support. They expect help, for instance, in bearing the cost of design, development and early production; and they hope that there will be closer collabora- tion between the Corporations and the manu- facturers and larger orders at home for aircraft for the Services.
These were the inducements that helped to bring about the mergers. It was disconcerting for those who had fallen over themselves to merge or be merged in order to please Mr. Sandys to find the Prime Minister had whisked him away to another post and that his successor was an apostle of reduced government spending. The Ministry of Aviation had been welcomed as a central policy-making organisation; but it was now seen to be also a policy-changing organisa- tion. Financial aid promised by one Minister could be withheld or whittled down by another.
There is, however, a more serious matter than the probability that the industry will be dis- appointed in its expectation of government sup- port. It is the degree of control the Government has acquired by its expressed and implied promises of aid. Today the Ministry of Aviation has absolute power over all things aeronautical. From specification to operation—including certification, licensing and accident investigation —it is the sole authority. Yet it is not, to any extent, a user of aircraft.
Without experience of operating them the Ministry decides what are good aeroplanes and what are bad; which should be built and which should not; how much they should cost and how and where those that are built should be oper- ated. Under the guise of giving independent air- lines greater freedom, the Civil Aviation Licens- ing Act has put them in bondage to the Ministry. There is no chance of any new airline, new air- craft, new engine or new aeronautical 'idea or invention emerging in Great Britain unless it has the approval of the Ministry. Britain's aero- nautical future rests with the technical staff of the Ministry of Aviation.
I have known the old aircraft industry for many years. 1 have used its products and I have confidence in its designers and engineers; but I have no confidence in the Government's tech- nical officers. They have repeatedly shown that they are incapable of assessing correctly the potentialities of new designs. The technically daring Wallis polymorph—a variable sweep, supersonic airliner project—might have given us in aeroplanes the kind of lead Whittle gave us in power units. But although there was a show of official activity after the matter had been raised in Parliament, nothing effective was done.
No action has been taken to prepare a British machine for the rapidly growing executive air- craft market. In 1957 at Farnborough the Miles Student appeared in the flying programme and showed itself to be the almost perfect turbine- powered executive machine; it should have been seized upon and developed at top speed. But nothing was done. Three years were frittered away. And, as I write, arguments are still going on about the Beagle, which is the Peter Mase- field executive aircraft project. So, while the new European market blossoms and causes great excitement among American aircraft makers, Britain has nothing to offer.
The Folland Gnat, first of the light fighters, could have been firmly planted in markets over- seas—probably including NATO—if the Gov- ernment had ordered it at once. But the Folland company had not been given its ministerial brain- washing and was commanded by the brilliant but highly individual W. E. W. Petter. So time was again frittered away. There was a similar story with the SR177. Now that Petter has left and the Folland company has joined Hawker Siddeley thirty Gnat trainers have been ordered. These economic sanctions may be good politics; but they are bad aviation.
Mr. Sandys's synthetic industry will not last. It is too artificial. The tensions between the powerful personalities within it will become too great. It is unlikely to maintain the rate of in- crease in exports set by the old industry and now running at over £150 million a year. But the old industry can never be resuscitated.
Already there are signs. The Vickers Vanguard is still called the Vickers Vanguard, whereas if I understand the new groupings correctly it should be the 'British Aircraft Corporation's Vickers-Armstrong (Aircraft) Vanguard.' The new Avro 748 is called just that and not the 'Hawker Siddeley Aviation A. V. Roe 748.' That the old names are sticking suggests that there is still some remaining power of manoeuvre. But it would be vain to hope for the full expression of this country's undoubted aeronautical genius while the Ministry of Aviation maintains its stranglehold. That is the chief trouble. Somehow the ministerial grip must be prized open. Unless that is done the British aircraft industry, how- ever constituted, will face the danger of a rapid and disastrous decline.
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