Between 1945 and 2003, the UK has produced more than 6,000 examples of 29 distinct types of civil aircraft. The most significant early airliners were the Vickers Viscount and the de Havilland Comet, the former heralding the turbine airliner era when it entered service in 1950, and the latter the aircraft that began the world's first jet passenger services in 1952.
The Viscount achieved major export success and secured some key orders from US airlines. The Comet promised much success too, but suffered an untimely demise because of the metal fatigue problems experienced by the original version, leading to its grounding in 1954.
Despite the early success of the pioneering airliner builders, the UK then squandered this lead by spending a lot of time and money building airliners that no-one wanted: the Hawker Siddeley Trident, which promised so much, but had a compromised design centred on the requirements of national carrier BEA and was soundly beaten by its US counterpart, the Boeing 727 and the BAC VC10, which was too late to capture the market it was designed for (long-range routes from Europe to hot and high and/or underdeveloped African airports) and too thirsty (even by 1960s standards) to compete with its US rivals, the Boeing 707 and Douglas DC-8.
Probably the one UK airliner that could have been a world-beater was the BAC One-Eleven. First to market ahead of its US rivals, the 737 and DC-9, this Rolls-Royce Spey-powered 80- to 100-seater was the spiritual successor to the Viscount, achieving significant export success from the start, including major sales in the USA. But a lack of long-term development - hindered by the absence of a suitable engine for growth - meant the One-Eleven is remembered more for the noise it generated than a huge production run.
The BAC twinjet was also a victim of politics. When the newly created BAe opened for business in 1977 (following the merger of BAC with HSA), the government was looking for a flagship civil programme to herald the new era. Rather than warm up the One-Eleven, which was still in production at Hurn near Bournemouth, it was decided to resurrect an all-new regional airliner design that had been launched in the early 1970s, but had been cancelled due to lack of demand. The aircraft was the HS146 (redesignated the BAe 146), and thus was created that paradox of modern civil aviation - a regional jet with four engines.
The 146 sold reasonably well throughout the 1980s, with more than 200 being delivered before production switched to the revamped version, the Avro RJ. When it first emerged, the RJ was seen as a stopgap aircraft as BAe talked of plans for a twin-engined version, the "NRA" (new regional aircraft). But these plans came to nothing and the RJ soldiered on until 2003, with the last delivery taking place in November that year.
Source: Flight International
