Alternative single fighter for UK in 1960s

Zen9

Banned
Would it make more sense to develop a Carrier Fighter then remove the Carrier specific equipment for the RAF?
DH110 originally for both RAF and FAA.
Though there was a developed Meteor offering slightly earlier....
And several offerings of what became the Scimitar.
 
This is the Cost of Cancelled projects table from Post 71 of the Cold War Facts and Figures thread put into date order.

Cost of Cancelled Projects 1967B.png

The table above does not include the £1.5 million that Wood said was spent on Vickers variable geometry projects or the £20.5 million that he said was spend on the Bristol 188 supersonic aircraft.
 
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This is the Cost of Cancelled projects table from Post 71 of the Cold War Facts and Figures thread put into date order.

Ouch.

Which do you think would have been worth carrying to completion and which aborted even earlier? Or inception prevented by an ASB or SI?

TBF, how many similar projects were started and cancelled by the US? Which could of course afford the wastage far better than the UK.
 
TBF, how many similar projects were started and cancelled by the US? Which could of course afford the wastage far better than the UK.
I wouldn't be surprised if a project like the B-70 Valkyrie cost as much as the total cost of the cancelled British projects.

There's a Rowan & Martin sketch about the cost of cancelled American military projects. It's many years since I saw it, but as I recall it was very interesting, but stupid.
 
Which do you think would have been worth carrying to completion and which aborted even earlier? Or inception prevented by an ASB or SI?
It's not straight forward. The money spent on a cancelled project may not be a completely wasted as the work done might have helped with projects that followed.
 
Having written that some of the ones that I think should not have been started in the first place were the Brabazon, Princess, the rocket powered fighters and the Avro 730.

IMHO the money spent on the Brabazon aught to have been spent on an aircraft like the Britannia. The head start of 2-3 years would be useful.

The effort Saunders Roe put into the Princess, SR.53 and SR.177 and the associated effort by Armstrong-Siddeley on the rocket engines aught to have been put into helicopters and ballistic missiles IMHO. I'm probably being over optimistic, but it would have been nice to have a Saro helicopter like the OTL Scout/Wasp class in service in the second half of the 1950s. I'm probably being over optimistic on this one too, but I also think we could have had Black Knight and Black Arrow a several years earlier than OTL.

The resources put into Avros 720 and 730 would have been better used making an earlier start on Blue Steel Mk I IMHO. If the Mk I was further advanced at the end of 1959 perhaps the Mk II version might not have been cancelled and further development paid for with the money the UK spent on Skybolt IOTL.
 
It's not straight forward. The money spent on a cancelled project may not be a completely wasted as the work done might have helped with projects that followed.
Fair point.

Any that you think would have been worth scrapping X others?

As I've said, influenced by Bill Gunston, the SR-177 ( or its larger successor) is the one I think had the best chance of meeting the OP request.

But not being an engineer I'm open to persuasion that other projects were better.
 
Fair point.

Any that you think would have been worth scrapping X others?

As I've said, influenced by Bill Gunston, the SR-177 ( or its larger successor) is the one I think had the best chance of meeting the OP request.

But not being an engineer I'm open to persuasion that other projects were better.
My personal opinion is that the rocket-plus-jet fighters shouldn't have got as far as the operational requirement stage.

Saunders Roe should have been building a small ballistic missile instead of the SR.53 and SR.177. I think we could have had an equivalent to Black Knight flying in 1954 with an outside chance of a Black Arrow small satellite launcher developed in time for the IGY.
 
Going a bit further down the list...

The P.1083 development of the Hawker Hunter aught to have been continued. I think we could have had a Mach 2 version entering service in 1960 instead of the Hunter FGA9 and FR10, but I'm also fond of developing the Fariey Delta 2 into an aircraft to rival Mirage III and its derivatives.

The Swift in all it's forms should not have been ordered in the first place. Have Supermarine build Hunters under subcontract instead.

Keep the Vickers V.1000.
 
TBF, how many similar projects were started and cancelled by the US? Which could of course afford the wastage far better than the UK.

The difference between the British and US and even France is that their cancelled projects didn't cripple their capability, they always had something to fall back on. The French F2/3 failed but they had the F1 to keep them competitive and Dassault in business, the G's failed but the Mirage 2000 was ready to enter service at about the same time (with the F1 still being new and a good fighter) and the 4000 could have gone into production if needed.

With the US (Navy in this case) the concurrent failure of the F111B and VFAX in the later 60s was handled because Grumman who was navalising the F111B could take these lessons and build their project 303, taking on the Fleet interceptor task as well as the 'VF' portion of the VFAX. In the meantime the 'VA' portion of the VFAX was undertaken by the evolved A7E which was enough of an improvement on the A7A to allow the VFAX to be dropped.

When Britain cancelled something it often meant she had to drop the capability, for example the crunch of the mid 60s meant Britain was no longer a world power or even any different for a minor NATO land power, because there was no good plan B.
 
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