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Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. —George SantayanaThe nascent Indian aviation industry is poised to be hit by the same hurricane as its British counterpart: with its cheap politics and JNU-educated bureaucrats (“African Studies” is a priority for India today? And yet that is Kanhaiyya Kumar’s Ph.D. dissertation, which you and I are paying for!)To understand how our bureaucracy strangulates all development, France's aircraft industry offers a striking example—of which others are to be found nearby in England—of the superior performance of free enterprise operations compared to those controlled by governments.Precisely why government operations are less efficient is a matter for debate—debate that easily becomes clouded with purely ideological rhetoric—but if the French example is typical, one important factor is the absence, in government-run enterprises, of decisive central leadership. The French complained that at Aerospatiale, once a program has been conceived, no matter how brilliantly, it is ultimately subject to the involvement of bureaucrats who are not specialists in aviation. French bureaucrats are trained to be bureaucrats in schools intended solely for that malign purpose; just like our Indian ones. They are different in that way from other countries’ bureaucrats, who may come from anywhere, often from the very industry whose regulation is entrusted to them.The French are thanking God that Aérospatiale is dead. The former assets of Aérospatiale are now part of Airbus.French aviation is looking up again.Oh, but the IAS does not want anyone from outside heir own cabal. They want everything for themselves. There are too many privileges attached, too much to lose.And the politicians, pathetic in their ignorance, are quite happy with the system.The demise of the British aircraft industry is due to the UK Government's truly awful policy decisions on aviation in the '60s and '70s.No one would seriously advance the thesis that Britain’s morale in the last sixty-odd years has been pegged to the peak and fall of its aircraft industry.Yet in 1945 it was the UK’s largest and most productive; and its decline has not been accidental but the result of economic forces and political decisions that have deeply affected all aspects of national life over the same time span.One could suggest that the story’s riches-to-rags trajectory has faithfully kept pace with a good deal else in Britain that has scarcely been a cause for national pride.By the late 1960s, the US dominated the production of airline aircraft globally. While the first two commercial jets to enter service both emanated from Europe, essentially, in the form of the British Comet, and the Tu-104 from the Soviet Union, the US had seized the market share lead by this time.There were several reasons for the US dominance in this field. A significant difficulty was that British airliner production, and to a lesser extent that of France, tended to cater to the needs of the flag carriers of each country. This produced designs that worked well for these carriers, but didn’t necessarily cater to global demand requirements. The US, with its many airlines, both domestic, and following the war, also for international service, was more market-oriented, which aided its airliner manufacturers, particularly Boeing, Douglas, Convair and Lockheed, to fare well in the global marketplace.Some British-built aircraft were acquired by US carriers, including the Vickers Viscount and BAC One-Eleven. On the other hand, the de Havilland Trident, the first tri-jet, and the Vickers VC-10 did not obtain any US customers. While the latter was well-liked by passengers, and had excellent hot and high performance due to the requirements of its primary customer BOAC, it was bested handily in terms of sales by the Boeing 707 and Douglas DC-8.Attacking the US commercial juggernaut required a careful strategy, so that the nascent enterprise would not be overwhelmed initially. Accordingly, the A300 was developed as the first widebody aircraft with only two engines, in a size/range category below that of the 747, DC-10 and L-1011. Initial sales were slow, but eventually even the bellwether US market was penetrated, via an order from Eastern Airlines, one of the historic US Big Four airlines.From this springboard sprang multiple offspring, including the A310 and the single-aisle A320 (and its subsequent A318, 319 and 321 family members), followed by the larger/longer-haul A330 and 340, and more recently the A380, the largest airliner in the world, giving Airbus, now a truly global competitor, a full product line. With the demise of Convair, Lockheed and Douglas, Airbus is now one component of what amounts to a duopoly in large commercial aircraft, with 8,749 aircraft delivered by the end of October 2014, and almost 6,000 aircraft in its order book.UK companies no longer have any direct involvement in the commercial aircraft manufacturing business. Well, that is not strictly true — EADS's "Airbus UK" plants at Broughton and Filton (which have a combined workforce of 13,000 — many ex-BAE employees) say they rely on 400 suppliers in the UK.The UK has the second largest aerospace industry in the world after the United States including a large supply chain in Northern Ireland supporting Bombardier. This success is built on fully integrated, pan-European supply chains that currently operate with unfettered access to the single market.But the fact remains that, with the sale of BAE's Airbus stake to EADS in October 2006, those 13,000 Airbus UK employees now work for a Franco-German-Spanish group. And the nation that was the pioneer of jet transport (with the de Havilland Comet of 1949) and the producer of Europe's most successful pre-Airbus airliner (the Vickers Viscount) is now on the sidelines of the business.▲A brand-new Comet, by gad. When the Beatles arrived in New York in February 1964, they stepped off Pan Am's 707-320 Clipper Defiance, a first-generation pure-jet aircraft that was less than five years old. The classic 707—the longer-range, turbofan-powered 707-320B—was then quite new. A week before the Fab Four's US debut, Hawker Siddeley handed over a brand-new Comet 4 to Kuwait Airways.The only civil aircraft that remains in production in the UK is the tiny Britten-Norman Islander, which, although technically built in Romania, is the last bastion of a nation that has produced more than 6,000 civil aircraft.Between the end of the Second World War and the closure of the BAE Avro RJ line in 2003, the UK built 6,033 civil aircraft (including the BAe 125 business jet, which is still being fabricated in the UK). These range from the Handley Page Hermes and Vickers Viking that appeared as the war ended in 1945, to Concorde (half of the 20 built were assembled in the UK) and the BAe 146/Avro RJ, which, despite more than 20 years of production, failed to beat the 444 sales record set by the Viscount in the 1960s.Final landing: A history of the UK aircraft industry (or 'Why Britain botched building airliners')With the UK leaving the EU, the aerospace industry would be worse off because of a reduction in access to the single market. Bombardier's boss in Belfast, in Northern Ireland, told workers the firm would be better off in the EU.And now there are serious complications with the UK leaving the EU.Why is Brussels fighting Trump's America on Britain's behalf in Bombardier trade dispute?Bombardier exposes post-Brexit realitiesBombardier employs about 4,000 people in Northern Ireland (which is part of UK). Now the UK government is in danger of appearing unable to prevent US trade policy from throwing people in the province out of work.Does this show the folly of Brexit?As for the military aircraft tragedy, you just have to read the TSR-2 story.▲The consequences of the cancellation of the TSR2 are being felt in Britain even today.The BAC TSR2 was a revolutionary low-level strike aircraft, built to a demanding RAF requirement that called for an aircraft able to deliver a tactical nuclear weapon onto the battlefield or far into enemy territory, while flying at supersonic speed and low altitude to evade enemy radar and missile cover. The aircraft had to be able to hit a target up to 1,000 nautical miles from its base, or operate from rough strips with minimal support to provide near-real-time reconnaissance information in support of ground forces.For high-altitude reconnaissance tasks, the aircraft had to be capable of sustained flight at speeds beyond Mach 2.This was a requirement drawn up little more than a decade after the end of World War II, in a world that would soon be brought to the very brink of nuclear annihilation during the Cuban Missile Crisis.Work began on 1 January 1959. Just over six years later the first aircraft had completed the first phase of its flight test programme and a second was ready to fly when the project was dramatically cancelled, along with just about every other major new aircraft for the British armed forces.The TSR2, like Canada's Avro Arrow, has since attained near-mythical status as a wonder jet without equal, cruelly destroyed just months after its first flight by a newly elected government on purely political grounds, despite supposedly meeting every aspect of its requirement.Why? Why? Why?Want to add salt to the wounds? Read about the fate of the Miles M.52 — what should have been for Britain a supreme triumph in the annals of aviation: the breaking of the sound barrier to attain supersonic speed in a piloted aircraft, but it was not to be.The standard bearer for this venture was the Miles M.52 research aircraft, arising from an exceptionally brief specification issued in 1943 by the Ministry of Aircraft Production, and assigned, to the astonishment of many, to one of Britain’s smaller aircraft manufacturers, but one with a reputation for innovatory thinking. However, as a safeguard the project was to be monitored by the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough (RAE), which would also provide a test pilot with wide jet flying and transonic flight testing experience.▲The 6.1 to 1.0 steel model of the M.52, with an adjustable all-moving tail. This underwent an extensive series of tests in the 11ft wind tunnel at RAE Farnborough.The project was classified TOP SECRET, and although the majority of the very senior figures in British aviation and politics showed strong support for the project, there was a hard core who had genuine concerns about the high risks associated with it.However, a new factor cast its shadow over the project – the intrusive interest of the Americans, with the full support of the British Government. The American interest was understandable, because the M.52 had some very innovatory features – a bi-convex wing, an all-moving tailplane (flying tail), a pilot escape capsule and a revolutionary jet engine designed by Frank Whittle. From this point the M.52 story began to assume the nature of a conspiracy, and indeed one that today remains unsolved.The denouement was the tragic cancellation of the M.52. This drastic action was totally unheralded, caught everyone absolutely by surprise, particularly as the aircraft was over 90 % completed to flight status.For a proud Britain it meant betrayal of their leading position in high-speed flight technology.The aircraft industry itself, though, was all too aware of the harsh realities that were steadily turning it into a dire mess.Yet those of us who went to air shows like Farnborough in the fifties contrived to keep our ignorance blessedly intact by means of a schoolboy patriotism.No matter how shaky the economic foundations may have been beneath the shows of glittering machinery, it was undeniably all ours.Every last rivet, every instrument, the brains behind the vision, the design, the manufacturing skills, the occasional gruesome mishap, the spate of world records — all were British to the core. In the next decade the English Electric Lightning scribbling its contrails across the sky within ninety seconds from brakes-off became an expression of British technology at its apogee.We could never have guessed how swift was to be the fall from that summit, nor to what degree the plunge would coincide with a diminishing of the nation’s expectations, of confidence in its polity, of its technical abilities, even of its own self-esteem.Empire of the Clouds: When Britain's Aircraft Ruled the WorldBy James Hamilton-PatersonI will leave you with some heartbreaking pictures of that cancelled British TSR2.Make sure your next generation does not have to bemoan, “Cry, My Beloved Country!”▲You can wait till the cows come home, but until the government decides to invest in its own people for aircraft development and purchase, the sun will never shine on India’s aerospace industry. It will mean deep disappointment, total frustration, burning anger, and heartfelt sympathy for members of teams of fellow Indians working on these projects. For our proud nation it will mean betrayal in our quest to master flight technology.It’s a sad story, and a warning to us in India.

Engine choice add more cost for the manufacturer to adapt into it. There are many “adaptors” to be considered. It is not all about hardwares and technicals, but also on the software and design too.For instance, GE engines (including CFM) uses N1 (low pressure / primary fan spool maximum RPM %) as its primary indicator.While Pratt & Whitney, Rolls Royce, and its joint ventures like IAE uses EPR (Engine Pressure Ratio), a ratio of air pressure at the inlet and the outlet of the jet engine.Apparently, maybe because Rolls uses 3rd spool to balance the N1 and N2 RPM, while Pratt uses gearbox.Then, we have to talk about the additional weight of that entire 3rd spool too. In Boeing 767, the Rolls Royce engine (RB211–524G) cracked its mounting pylons due to additional weight over the other engine choices (GE CF6 or P&W PW4000).The 767’s entry into British Airways didn’t occur without any problems. Following the decision to equip the aircraft with RB211s instead of the General Electric CF6 or the Pratt & Whitney JT9D engines that were already in use by United Airlines and Delta Air Lines, the fleet (seven at the time) had been temporarily grounded after the discovery of cracks up to 33cm long in the engine pylons caused by the added weight of the Rolls Royce engines which were 2,205 lbs heavier than the previously mentioned powerplants.Source: British Airways Puts Boeing 767 Fleet into RetirementA redesign of the whole wing, mounting pylons, joints, would also make the plane heavier. It would make the plane more expensive, and if the modification is done as a standard, the performance penalty would then be unnecessarily applied to other lighter engines as well, which might slightly negating their simpler lighter weight-derived performance bonus over having the 3rd spool, N1-N2 RPM balancing, fuel-saving trade off.Up until that, engine choices are seen as a nice thing to have for every plane. It is a feature, a selling point to attract customers like “hey, here is our solution to keep your MRO business tidy: pick your preferred supplier!” The Brits and the commonwealths keep on choosing Rolls Royce, while others tried to get the best deal out of General Electric or Pratt & Whitney package.During this time, only narrowbodies have exclusive engine supplier. Namely the 737, which is CFM exclusive, or MD-80 which only appoints Pratt & Whitney (later IAE) for the sole engine supplier.Then, Boeing started to trim down the cost when it built the 777–300ER.Why 777-300ER has GE engines?But 200 and 300 have RR?We know how sometimes non-economic influence decisions like choosing the “right” engine for your airplane. The Brits famously chose the underpowered Rolls Royce Spey for their Phantom fighters, making it slower and thirstier. Likewise, allegedly, GE “paid” or invested in Boeing's 777 range extension project to be the sole engine supplier, much to the chagrin of its competitors, who have already developed a much powerful engine to match Boeing's specification.Answer to your question: Boeing got told off by its customers, and they listenedInitially, the 787’s project is about to be GE-exclusive. But then, customers protested, so Boeing relented. The first 787 prototype flew with Rolls Royce Trent 1000 engines. But that wasn't the end of the story.We all know how much problematical the Trent 1000 is.Yes, very bad. Not only it has reliability problems, it doesn't really meet its performance goals either. Those who bough 787 with GEn-1A engines won the jackpot with almost 2% advantage. But somehow, I feel like it is a bit overblown in the media. Because, another engine is similarly problematical:New FAA directive targets PW1100G compressor problemsYep, the PW1000 GTF engine. While 787 can swap from RR to GE engine in just 24 hours (at least, according to Boeing), the Pratt & Whitney's latest engine is exclusive for the likes of Airbus A220 (Bombardier C-series), Embraer E-jets E2, and Mitsubishi SpaceJet. In A320NEO or Irkut MC-21, it is an optional engine, but I don't know whether it is interchangeable with the CFM LEAP engines or not.So, having an option is good, if somehow one of the supplier turned out a bust product.The A330 for example, converges mostly on Rolls Royce Trent 700 engine as the engine of choice for most of its customers. But Airbus is still willing to welcome competitions, although this might sound a bit one-sided.Airbus wanted more, and GE declinedWhen the XWB project is commenced, Airbus asked GE to submit a proposal, they come up with 787 GEn-X derived engines, probably just an uprated one. But Airbus wanted more than that. After all, this is the aircraft that Airbus wanted to defeat the 787. GE simply declined, and thus Rolls Royce become the only sole supplier with its Trent 1700.Yes, it is the same old Trent, but much better. It is almost like GE90-94 Vs GE90-115B, only similar in name.So, when the 777-X project is launched, Boeing refused to entertain the demand for engine options, citing cost and efficiency.Well, this is how it turns out:Engine Problems Are Holding Back Boeing’s 777XIt seems Boeing is willing to trade off options for potential “single point of failure” product scenario in the name of efficiency. Yes, the plane could be designed to optimise the characteristic of an engine, which will make it even more efficient than if the plane has to accomodate for other engine options. Yes, the other option turned out to be quite disappointing for the 787, despite ⅓ of the customers opted to take the risk and performance dip for a engine supplier good deal package.Airbus meanwhile, were initially open for options, but were simply rebuked by one of the suppliers, who were obviously in bed with the competitor. Maybe, it is quite unrealistic to demand something more out of them. In a way, you can't say to a businessman to simply “make me a better product, much better that it could kill my competitor, which is your other primary source of income.”I meanwhile believe in options. Let the buyers decide. It would be good if there were a GEn-1C A350. It would even be better if there were a Trent 8104 engined 777–300ER. Maybe, the 777-X could have already flown by now with a Trent-X engine.The last single engine choice widebody that was a success is, well, the 777–300ER and A350. Before that, there were the Lockheed Tristar, a commercial disaster that Airbus and Boeing seemed to forgot: Rolls Royce, its sole engine supplier went bankrupt and massively delayed the project, taking Lockheed out of commercial jet business. Then, there was the 4-engined A340, which commercial performance is sad compared to the A380, which have engine options.

One of the earliest that comes to mind is the IFF of military aircraft that became the transponder in civilian application.Later, two technologies developed for the defence sector have transformed civil aviation.One is the Inertial Navigation System.The first nuclear submarine, the USS Nautilus, was a tremendous advancement.Her crewmen gave a new name to their electromechanical pilot.Officially, this transistor-brained robot was called the N6A all-inertial navigator.Submarine design has improved so much since 1954, when Nautilus was launched, that today's subs are as far ahead of the Nautilus as she was from the WW II fleet boats. Extended periods submerged and longer range deployments also meant that improved inertial navigation was needed. The Ship's Inertial Navigation System, or SINS, has progressed rapidly to become a reliable, accurate navigation method.▲The USS Trident. To accomplish its mission, a fleet ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) must employ long-range missiles, resulting in a patrol area large enough to hide in, and close enough to home port to minimize transit time. The ship must have a highly accurate navigation system, since the targeting of the missiles depends on the firing platform's knowledge of where it is. The INS does this.IT WAS AN UNEASY time in America in 1958.A series of Sputnik satellites had just made an all-too palpable demonstration of Soviet astronautics.Visions of space-based ICBMs haunted an unprepared nation.And even though America's rudimentary Vanguard satellite had given them a tenuous toehold in low-Earth orbit, President Eisenhower needed a means of demonstrating America's technological prowess.Indeed, technology was emerging as the high ground of the '50s, prime real estate on the intellectual battlefield of the Cold War.But President Eisenhower had a very significant card up his sleeve—a means of exhibiting American knowhow tinged with the kind of military overtone that would make the world, and particularly the Soviet Union, stand up and take notice.Ike had Nautilus, the world's first nuclear-powered submarine, the work of that irascible genius Hyman Rickover.Nautilus's leading-edge inertial navigation system, designed by North American Rockwell for an early guided missile, meant the boat could navigate precisely while submerged for extended periods.And he had William Robert Anderson, a country gentleman from Waverly, Tennessee, one of the most experienced skippers in America’s “silent service.”This cool-tempered professional would command this remarkable machine on a voyage beneath the North Pole—electrifying the world by sailing where no ship had ever sailed before.Three failed attempts later, Nautilus sailed on—reaching the pole on August 3, 1958, after a two-and-a-half day sail.Two days later Nautilus exited the pack ice in the North Atlantic and sailed into the history books.The sub’s amiable young skipper, Cmdr. William R. Anderson, shook his head in wonder at the N6A’s performance after Nautilus had nosed under the North Pole.“It’s fantastic,” he said.When Nautilus had swum into open water and sunlight once more, on the European side of the icecap, Cmdr. Anderson was flown to Washington to tell the world about his ship’s unique journey.There he paid another tribute to the N6A’s navigational accuracy. “I don’t mean we passed close to the pole,” he said. “I mean that we actually pierced it.”Strangely sure of itself, the N6A inertial navigator could tell precisely where it was without consulting sun, moon, stars, landmarks, radio waves, radar impulses or any outside guide whatever.It was oblivious to weather, immune to radio interference and unaffected by the earth’s magnetism.This accomplishment, suitable for spaceships as well as submarines, revolutionized navigation.The N6A was developed originally for the US Air Force.Nautilus completed a journey that to this day affects the disposition of America’s nuclear-submarine forces.INS was released for civilian use by the mid-1960s and appeared for the first time in Pan Am Boeing 707s and the first widebody transports: the Boeing 747, the DC-10, and the Lockheed Tristar.The Delco Carousel IV was the inertial navigation system (INS) that told a 747 pilot where he was and how to get to where he wished to go. The INS provided this and much more navigational data instantly and with far more accuracy than any gear previously used by the airlines.▲COMPONENTS of the Carousel IV inertial navigation system. Lower unit at left is the mode selector; above it is the display unit. Heart of the system is in the large box, which contains the inertial platform with its accelerometers and gyros, as well as a digital computer. The unit at the right is a battery—a back-up power supply. Coupled to an autopilot, the system can fly a big jet between any two points on Earth. It can also tell pilot where he is at any given moment.This is the first time civilian pilots had to get used to a data-entry keypad on an airplane.▲The Control-Display Unit, or CDU, of the Carousel IV INS on the 747.Smaller aircraft subsequently adopted it as the AHRS (Attitude and Heading Reference System).The second big defence-originated technology was the GPS; it did not have as much of an influence on the transport category aircraft as it had on lightplanes and private aircraft.▲What a lightplane cockpit panel looks like today.In particular, lightplane pilots are forgetting old FAA-required navigation techniques after installing GPS systems on their aircraft!