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i never thought i would live to see the day that Jaguar and Land Rover wouldnt be British companies. We as a nation have lost most of our manufacturing and engineering history, that was once the best in the world. those aircraft manufacturers helped us win WW11, is nothing sacred.:mad:
You can put the blame for the collapse of the British military aviation industry firmly at the feet of one Harold Wilson who cancelled the TSR2 project (amount others) in a cost cutting exercise, the replacement for which (the EF111) ended up costing us more than our home grown world beater, not only that but the EF111 was a flop!
We seem to be so good at making the wrong decisions which ultimately end up costing us more than if we'd carried on and finished off what we originally intended to do.
This is because we usually fund and organise things "by committee" a situation in which you try to please everyone and end up pleasing nobody.
We've done this for decades, the jet engine was originally devised in 1931 by Frank whittle but the crusty old colonials who he had to sell it to resented the fact that a lowly sergeant in the RAF knew more about propulsion than he did as an officer and basically told whittle his machine has no shaft horsepower which is indeed correct but didn't think out of the box and measure the thrust.
Same goes for self sealing fuel tanks, never had them in the second world war until well into 1943, yet germans had them before the war same old committee getting it wrong again.
Looks at the Nimrod fiasco, the design brief for the latest Nimrod kept getting revised and revised and revised and because of this fell behind schedule to such a degree that everybody starting moaning about the cost and eventually as with everything designed by committee at about 75% complete and after spending millions and millions didn't we opt for Boeing AWAC instead?
Although I was only a lad at the time, I recall Harold telling our friend wedgie benn to scrap the TSR2?
Same mistakes over and over and over again Madness!
Gazza57:zx11:
And yesterday we hear that BAE’s Leicester factory will probably close as a £4 BILLION, (yes FOUR BILLION OF TAX PAYERS POUNDS) procurement for armoured fighting vehicles is going to General Dynamics, WHAT ******* PLANET IS THIS GOVERNMENT ON? SUPPORT THE HOME TEAM!
Freemarket economics. Mrs T. should be so proud that they're following in her footsteps...Quote:
Originally Posted by Crasher
Lights bluetouch paper & retreats...
It's true though. They were the chespest bidder & that's all that counted. That's the crappy system that we operate.
The USA is acknowledged as the leader of free market economics on the globe so if we put in the lowest quote for a $4 billion dollar contract and were bidding against General Dynamics we'd get the job would we?........
I think not.
The US looks after it's own, as it should and so should we, in a dispute with anyone would still hold control of it's defences, we buy from the cheapest bidder and then can be deprived of spares, support in any dispute with our trading neighbours apart from depriving our own of work and prosperity.
There is a saying:
The shortlived happiness of saving a few pounds on a cheap job is much outweighed by the lasting folly of a poor job.
Gazza57:zx11:
Such as buying a fleet of Boeing Chinooks and someone made a mistake over software and now we have the things just sting there, madness.
Do not want to antagonise the situation, as I believe not supporting our countries residents is wrong!
BUT, what BAE suffers from is complaicency, as does Westlands and all the home grown "been supported" by the "cold war" companies that are intrinsically interwoven into Government Contracts!
Who are the investors of these companies??
Today we are in a free market and you must be competative, when I look at what is happening with British airways then I come to the conclusion that people are still living in the 80´s!!?!!
DO YOU SHOP AT LIDL and ALDI? If yes why?
Dunk
I see your point Bratty,
But what we're actually talking about here is the defence of our country and cannot being compared to making a decision about buying groceries at Lidl or Aldi.
Crasher made the point admirably, we have a fleet of chinooks rotting on an apron which cannot be flown and are therefore a complete waste of money because someone somewhere has decided we aren't going to get updated software.
Can you imagine the US tolerating such a situation? You bet your behind they wouldn't.
The contract would have been given to a company over which the US could bring considerable pressure and influence, ie an American company , they would have no such problems because they keep their contracts for key equipment in the US, plain and simple.
Conversely we buy at the bargain basement, have done so for years, our latest Air Traffic computer is a model which the US had tried and had severe difficulties with and we went off and bought it cheap and inherited a 7 year delay in commissioning as a result which made it almost twice as expensive as the newest system at JFK.
We buy the cheapest crap we can at the lowest price under the "competitive price" banner except that it costs us far more in the end and is therefore a false economy.
Gazza57
No I bl**dy don't, Waitrose (via Ocado) or Sainsbury’s.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bratty