Cold War at 30,000 Feet: The Anglo-American Fight for Aviation SupremacyBy Jeffrey A. Engel
The author's thesis is that Britain needed to export airplanes and engines after the end of World War 2 in order to justify their development expense for the home market; that the best export market for its products was in countries that flew airliners into the USSR and PRC; that the USA prohibited such sales through COCOM, the Coordinating Committee, out of stubborn anti-Communism and to protect the US market dominance in aviation; and that therefore the British industry lost permanently its technical lead in jet engines and airliners.
What Engel does not address is that politics aside, British engines and airliners did not prevail in the non-Communist market against more efficient and more productive American competitor products. When British products were competitive, they found a home in America, e.g. the Rolls-Royce Tay was built under license by Pratt & Whitney, the Armstrong-Siddeley Sapphire by Wright Aeronautical, the RR Spey and Adour by Allison (which was later bought by RR,) the Canberra bomber. Viscounts went into service with Capitol Airlines.
It is true that the size of the internal US military and civil aviation market was such that American firms inevitably developed competitive product to serve it, and achieved economies of scale and productivity not open to the smaller British firms. The reason for the subsequent dominance of the American airliners was that they were more attractive to airline customers around the world in terms of productivity.
When Airbus Industrie was created later to design truly competitive airliners, and to make, sell, and service them on a scale comparable to that of the American firms, it became an economic success and a major competitive factor in the market. In other words, it is not impossible to make a better product and win market share. It just ain't easy.
What Engel does not address is that politics aside, British engines and airliners did not prevail in the non-Communist market against more efficient and more productive American competitor products. When British products were competitive, they found a home in America, e.g. the Rolls-Royce Tay was built under license by Pratt & Whitney, the Armstrong-Siddeley Sapphire by Wright Aeronautical, the RR Spey and Adour by Allison (which was later bought by RR,) the Canberra bomber. Viscounts went into service with Capitol Airlines.
It is true that the size of the internal US military and civil aviation market was such that American firms inevitably developed competitive product to serve it, and achieved economies of scale and productivity not open to the smaller British firms. The reason for the subsequent dominance of the American airliners was that they were more attractive to airline customers around the world in terms of productivity.
When Airbus Industrie was created later to design truly competitive airliners, and to make, sell, and service them on a scale comparable to that of the American firms, it became an economic success and a major competitive factor in the market. In other words, it is not impossible to make a better product and win market share. It just ain't easy.
* Publisher: Harvard University Press | 384 pages | 2007-03-31 | ISBN-10 / 13: 0674024613 / 9780674024618
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