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#4001476 - 08/27/14 08:55 AM Empire Of The Clouds  
Joined: Sep 2013
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Pielstick Offline
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Pielstick  Offline
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The Engine Room
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Empire-Clouds-Br...e+of+the+clouds

I read this one a few years ago, it may have slipped under the radar of a few people here, particularly our friends on the other side of the pond.

"When Britain's Aircraft Ruled The World"

The book is an overview of how the British aviation industry went from world leader in 1945 to "also ran" two decades later. The author grew up in post war Britain when the aviation industry was the jewel in the industrial crown of Britain and many great things were expected of it. This was a period when new aircraft types were taking to the air on a regular basis, aviation was front page news and the test pilots were celebrities.

The author embarks on nostalgic childhood anecdotes perhaps just a little too much for my liking. He also spends an awful lot of time telling the story of his childhood hero - Canadian test pilot Bill Waterton - at Gloster. The author also admits himself that his book focuses on military aircraft and rather neglects the equally interesting story of the civil aviation industry in post war Britain.

Having said all that, the book itself is still a good read. It's written for the aviation layman so is very light on technical aspects, but does a good job of conveying the tragic story of how the British aviation industry was laid low. The author pulls no punches in apportioning blame, and everybody gets a healthy serving.... short sighted politicians, autocratic and out of touch management at the manufacturers, a bloated and inefficient industry with too much duplication of effort and totally lacking in modern efficient practices, designers and engineers who saw the test pilots as there merely to rubber stamp the new aircraft, cut throat competition from the US....

It's not a great work of aviation literature, but it is one of the very few books that deals with an overview of the British aviation industry post war and how it all went wrong. It's an easy read, quite enjoyable and you come away with a better understanding of the topic and if you're British, a very real sense of frustration and sadness at what genius and brilliance was squandered.

Inline advert (2nd and 3rd post)

#4001479 - 08/27/14 09:08 AM Re: Empire Of The Clouds [Re: Pielstick]  
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komemiute Offline
Hell Drummer
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The story of the BAC TSR-2 will always sadden me.


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#4001483 - 08/27/14 09:44 AM Re: Empire Of The Clouds [Re: Pielstick]  
Joined: Sep 2013
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Pielstick Offline
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Pielstick  Offline
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The Engine Room
TSR2 is indeed a mighty big "what might have been".

Whenever you read about it though there are a couple of things that they usually fail to mention:

i) It was only at the very beginning of flight testing but was already way over budget.

ii) The avionics planned for it were hugely ambitious and still under development when it was cancelled. The potential was there for the avionics to have turned into a very big and very expensive headache that could have killed TSR2 further down the road.


A sadder and more frustrating story was the Lightning. IMHO it should have been the Lightning and not the Starfighter that became the standard NATO interceptor/fighter bomber.


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