WI the British were the worlds best project managers?

The F-111 navigation/attack 'systems' were not in the same league as the TSR2. For example, the F-111 had a ground proximity warning indicator to tell the pilot he was flying towards a hill; the TSR2 was designed to have flown around the hill on its autopilot.

Despite being an inferior aircraft (or utilizing achievable technology of the time!!), the F-111 took 7 years to enter service with the USAF, and a further 6 years for the RAAF; cost 5 times the initial estimates and never achieved the full TFX performance specification.

Apologies if I'm getting into a tedious TSR2 debate. At the end of the day, the F-111 entered service; the TSR2 is a museum piece! You're correct in that much of the TSR2 technology found its way into the Harrier GR3 and Jaguar inertial nav/attack systems, so it wasn't all thrown away!

One interesting aside, the MOD liked the 'total systems' approach of Vickers TSR2 proposal which was probably it's downfall. EE's proposal was to decouple the aircraft from systems and upgrade systems as they became available. And final point, the TSR2 was actually cancelled by BAC because the government wanted BAC to bear all the R&D risk and deliver the aircraft for a fixed price!
 
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IIRC a major problem with the Nimrod was electronics failures, due to lack of cooling, due to lack of space. A VC10 would probably have solved that problem.

Daniel, the TSR2 was cancelled in favour of the 'inferior' F111 which entered service late and way over budget. With F111 money and time I'm sure the RAF could have gotten the TSR2 into service.
 
The Nimrod AEW failed because the radar didn't work as well as the Shackleton's. And it was a truly ugly airplane. Anyway, myself and others like to pick on British failures but strangely, I admire the successes as well as those that failed for lack of political will or, seemingly, caprice. I think any focus on "project managers" is somewhat misguided. Back in the days when projects could be accomplished without breaking the company, many projects were privately funded and achieved greatness without a governmental mandate. ie:Mossie, Whittle turbojet. However, times change. The P1154 and TSR2 required support. American technological boondoggles through several decades have been numerous including vertical take-off aircraft that don't take off, simple trainers that close company doors, and naval stealth aircraft that don't get past mock-up stage without costing billions of bucks. Senate pork-barrelling has probably saved numerous projects which Britain would have cancelled. ie: the vaunted TFX/F111. I'm personally curious about the outcome of the F-35 project, which has hurdles to cross and yet on which so much depends. Anyway, keep on making fun of British stuff too, but keep it in perspective.
 
Again, as its been pointed out, changing the politics could put the TSR.2 and CVA-01 in active service. The Nimrod AEW, well there is a reason why most AWACS aircraft are built on airliners, not Maritime Patrol aircraft.

The Concorde was built, it's just that it had terrible fuel mileage - a major problem in the days after the oil crisis. What the Concorde needed (just like the Boeing 2707 too, FYI) was engines that didn't require afterburners, and the better Concorde B model, which had greater range. Boeing's 2707 woulda been the better option because it carried many more passengers with roughly the same fuel consumption.

I don't know enough about the APT to say yes or no on that one.
 
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