Britian going down the pan?

Similar to what has happened to the US aircraft industry - it got swallowed up by international (if not indigenous) consortiums - Concorde, Harrier, Tornado, T-45, Eurofighter, JSF are only some of the examples I can think of...but hey, you're still in the game...just like us.

But I'll also lament - what happened to the industry that gave us the X-15, the "Century Series", F-86, P-51, P-38, P-40, P-61, PBY-5A, B-17, B-29, B-24, etc.?..

Or even the Cessna 172, Piper Cub, or Beech Staggerwing, for that matter?..

"Rufus" wrote

It went away along with the need to produce 300,000 military aircraft in five years.

KL

when the military budgets are so huge...yet then they always talk about cutbacks...then the talk about keeping B-52s flying till they are nearly 100 years old...sometimes it makes you wonder where the money is going don't get me wrong...I'm no Vess LOL I like the B-52 but I'd like to see british and american industry stay on top...

sadly, the technology and death of the cold war have lead to incredibly expensive development and many fewer bucks for tougher competetion. when was there a real garage plane built? even the one off's like that round the world non stopper are amazingly expensive.

the only constant is change....nothing lasts forever....ya gotta roll with the punches... (smacked across the face with the cold, wet, dead fish of a cliche!)

Don't forget Concord was a joint French-British collaboration a fact = which all the news programs and newspapers seemed to forget when it = retired. It was also little more than a status symbol at the end of it's = career, being uneconomic to run and cramped inside. It was there just so = rich people could boast about the fact that they had flown in it! All = aircraft life spans come to an end.=20

Now the TSR2...that was a disgraceful cancellation.

I'm afraid with the price of combat aircraft nowadays = collaborations/multinationals are the way forward. Also with the = collapse of the cold war we simply don't need so many aircraft anymore.

Andy

I bet this discussion was just about the same when the people with pointy sticks saw the longbow men!

Richard.

But you'd think that basic research and/or interest in civil avaition amongst the public would (or should) be flourishing...

it would be if we didn't live in an overly litiginous society. companies take years to bring out civil aircraft because of liability issues. and try to keep an older private plane, (and pilot!) flying. it's sick.

and center? Hey Richard what was the maximum effective range that the long bow could effect questionable status into pointy stick people? Mike IPMS

And can you imagine the squawking when they started to look at the cost of armor???

Bill Shuey

Yup...you nailed it. Damn lawyers...

the armorers were smart. they made it a vanity item so that the bestest and brightest cost mostest. don't forget that armor was a status symbol in the 1700's. now the armor guys, (selling airplanes and tanks and whatever) go for the fastest, and shiniest. less bucks but more chrome.

i cheated, i read up on it.

...yeah...more chrome...

Fired into a crowd of attackers, effective range was something like

350-400 meters. Aimed at a single target, perhaps 80-100 meters. Composite bows might do a bit better. I'm not up on the details of Agincourt, but my impression was that arrows were fired at relatively long range, more as volleys than aimed shots, at least until the bowmen and the targets were closer to each other.

Mark Schynert

how did i know?

Yet another reconstruction of a battle showed that the tips of the arrows just bent over with the arrow bouncing off the French armour. Looking at old line drawings and seasonal accounts being taken up with how water flowed into the area it was surmised that it might have been the weight of the armour and horses pummeling the land, brought the water to the upper levels of the soil and turned it into a quagmire, trapping the French on the spot and once you fall down wearing that lot, you're stuffed.

Ho Hum! If it's true then the Henry Vth film won't seem the same.

Richard.

didn't crecy have a lot of mud, too?