Denounced is a rather strong term, no? Especially considering how generous the US was during and after the war. I'd also have to question if there was an official agreement as such or simply that due to early war conditions Britain found itself mostly concentrating on fighters and bombers and the US had both several aircraft such as the Douglas C-47 Skytrain and C-54 Skymaster And the free production capacity to build them in bulk. As for the Avro York it was a rubbish plane in comparison whose only main advantage was it being a conversion of a plane that was already in service, if the UK wants their own transport then better looking at restarting the Short S.32 programme which was rather DC-4 like albeit with tailwheel landing gear unfortunately. Ideally with the Douglas aircraft for comparison they would build it with tricycle landing gear, or at least go with tail landing gear to begin with to get the early marks out the door and switch over as soon as possible.
Again a somewhat dodgy design that had been spoiled due to political interference, I generally question the need for features like the Alaskan taxiway, there's a reason why the designers felt more than a little relieved when it was finally cancelled. There's also the problem that in the immediate post-war period the UK is effectively broke, the government has much better things it needs to be spending its resources on. A superior design in a more conducive timeframe is the 1952 Carrier with them being built from say 1954 or 1955 onwards.
Might as well keep the Tiger-class cruisers since they've been launched right at the end of the war, as in our timeline put them in the reserves until the 1950s and use the still active cruisers from the war for the intervening period though. If they are eventually commissioned then under no circumstances do the helicopter conversions. Same with HMS Vanguard, she was commissioned in early 1946 so you either have to put her in the ready reserve, which is not a massive saving, or scrap a brand new battleship which I just can't see being politically viable.
Makes sense, IIRC they spent almost twice as much as the estimated cost of completing it on the experimental radio controlled models.
The main problem I can see with that is essentially creating BAE, aka. Big And Expensive, several decades early and giving it a monopoly on domestic aircraft. The threat being that just as today governments would find themselves buying equipment with just as much an eye on domestic job protection and balance of trade figures as which is the best. Encouraging them to form two companies like Hawker Siddeley and British Aircraft Corporation which can both design for the full spectrum of Air Ministry specifications, use the advantages of consolidation, yet still provide competition to keep things honest.
No argument here, if you can batter Sydney Camm's ego into submission and get him to accept the data regarding swept wings you could potentially see it receiving a swept tail as well fairly quickly like the P.1081 'Australian' fighter. From there move to straight-through jet pipe as engine efficiency increases and reheat are possible future developments for a supersonic Hunter.
Easy enough to say with hindsight, it's also going to leave you with the problem of having to use B-29 bombers on loan from the US Air Force until it enters service as IIRC it didn't fly until after the UK's first air dropped nuclear test. Best solution to my mind is to build a few squadrons of Valiants to cover the gap and for operational experience then retire them when you introduce the Vulcan and an alternate Victor that's effectively a scaled down B-52 type aircraft.
That's likely to be controversial, at the very least I hope that would include the supersonic P.150 variant for the RAF where features like folding wings aren't required.
Would be interesting to see that happen. Not sure about how viable the navalised version is though, it would have to be redesigned and strengthened to such a degree that without that having been included from the start it could end up being practically a new aircraft. Then there's the single engine aspect. You may still need to buy the F-4, whether with Spey engines or not, for the Royal Navy.
Doubt it would 'kick the ass' of the Boeing 707 but it would potentially give it some decent competition, provided of course that the RAF or BOAC didn't fuck things up by making too many specialised demands for their own perceived needs as to make it unattractive to other potential customers - as happened in our timeline.
Looking at the average operational lifespans of our timeline's Royal Navy aircraft carriers if you run the WWII carriers for the rest of the 1940s and early- to mid-1950s then build three or four 1952 Carrier designs being commissioned in the late-1950s to early-1960s that would potentially see you through to the start of the 1980s. By that time I could see one of them having been parked in the reserves as the defence budgets get tight in the 1970s and plans announced in the defence reviews to decommission them in the 1980s but something like the Falklands Campaign could intervene if it still happened.
Didn't the Rolls-Royce Avon have some trouble with its compressor I think it was in the early days before it matured into the excellent engine it became? I seem to recall that it was fixed by getting Armstrong Siddeley to share the design of the compressor from the Sapphire to fix things. With no Sapphire you might unintentionally increase the time it takes the Avon to fully hit its stride.
The other major missed opportunity that I can think of has to be the Fairey Delta 2. Excellent performance and very similar in design to the French Mirage fighter, the Mirage was not copied from it before anyone makes that old accusation again, and as shown might have developed into a great aircraft. Considering its speed and range it could have been enough to replace the English Electric Lightning in the point defence role fairly quickly whilst still also being able to carry out other roles. Best scenario to my mind is that in a show of Franco-British unity the Delta and Mirage projects are combined under a special joint company to handle it whilst the parent companies stay separate, let the French have the production line in France but give the customers the choice of British or French engines and avionics. The profits from it might give Fairey a chance to develop some of their more interesting guided weapons proposals further.
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