Ding dong the witch is dead

[ChristoT]

In the UK, the most noteworthy thing we do (apart from that paper lion, BAE) is building wings for Airbus. Not designing - BUILDING. The greatest aero companies are now assembling wings for a French commercial company.

Erm agree with pretty much everything else you said but my buddy who designed the fuel system for the A380 and spent 10 years getting it right would probably argue that we do a little more in the UK than just build wings. He's now working on the landing gear for the next one at Airbus. Works in Bristol and has done for the last 15 years or so and headed up huge design teams there working on both projects, plus there's all the suppliers, majority UK based who have their own design teams and engineers as well.

We think choosing tyres for bikes n cars is tricky - try choosing for a bloody huge plane! :-)

I was perhaps a bit hasty in that last comment. But the fact remains that Airbus is French, not English. We are now effectively subcontractors, when our Vickers, Avro and even Blackburn aircraft used to rule the skies. Likewise, I think that Rolls Royce are owned by the Germans now. As for BAE systems, they just about get by with a lot of government funding... Plus, ever since I got screwed around by the RAF when trying to join the Uni Air Arm, I have a profound mistrust of government controlled companies in the defence sector. In that respect, I'm all for privatisation!

No, the reason I want to work in the US (or wherever) is not through any treacherous desires, but because the US have a greater number of firms, a greater budget, and also individuals who are setting up small companies in the field I'm interested in.