Paper airplanes versus the real thing

[uk 75]

I am aware of seeming to pour cold water on paper projects, especially British ones.
I cite in my defence four paper projects that attempted to become real ones:
P1154, AW681, TSR2 and last but definitely not least AEW Nimrod.
All looked and still look fabulous on paper. My younger self even created an RAF orbat for them hence my UK 75 nick.
My icon here is the craziest of them all the US FRG AVS.
But after years of threads here and some great books like Damien Burke's TSR2 I have learnt that getting planes from drawing board to service in the UK especially is a fraught process especially for the taxpayer.
I enjoy the alt history excursions into trying to bring paper projects to life but have learnt that usually real metal is better than paper.

 

[Rule of cool]

This is where my interest has migrated to over the years (is it embarrassing to say decades?).

It's easy to think up engine swaps for existing planes, or like the prototype that flew fast but trying to find a reason for X or Y plane to enter service is so much more challenging. Budgets, foreign exchange reserves, industry, political objectives, organisational inertia/agility, details within requirements all play a huge role in what enters service, I think far more than details like flyaway cost and broad brush performance figures. I enjoy the challenge.

 

[red admiral]

@uk 75 I think Nimrod AEW is out of place on your list. That one was very much a minister enforced jobs project. RAF wanted, and eventually got, the much better E-3. I'm not sure that Nimrod AEW was intended to be "better", just more British (with subsequent wider benefits)

The complexity of such programmes continues till today. Sometimes the decision making is as simple as the company being located in the relevant minister's constituency.

 

[uk 75]

For a long time Whatimodelers, Beyond the Sprues and Shipbucket have explored every permutation of projects. They are great places to get ideas for alternate history projects as well as nice photos and drawings.

 

[southwestforests]

(is it embarrassing to say decades?)

Is it embarrassing to say that this structure has a wide foundation?

 

[uk 75]

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/question-on-british-aew.22267/

Nimrod was expected to be a quicker, better and cheaper solution than E3.
Articles about it in the late 70s and early 80s had all the hubris of similar claims about TSR2.

 

[red admiral]

I'll have to re-read Chris' book as I didn't take that away the first time

 

[uk 75]

Read this Flight 1981 article and you will see what I mean. Earlier ones are even more optimistic.

AEW Nimrod technical description and cutaway :: Rochester Avionic Archives

rochesteravionicarchives.co.uk

I attach some key extracts in case the link breaks

 

[red admiral]

Thanks. I think that's a great example of optimism bias.

 

[kaiserd]

Chris Gibson’s Battle Flight book very good on the AEW Nimrod (and in general).

The AEW Nimrod is the classic example of the maxim that success has many fathers but failure is a an orphan.

In reality it was a project that the UK industry (companies and unions hand-in-hand, slightly bizarrely given the time period) that pushed it hard with the Government, was adopted by a soon out of office Labour Government and (at least initially) continued enthusiastically by a Conservative government also with industry in their ear, and then continued for a long drawn out period at the urging of industry.

It was promised to be both cheaper and better (including more tailored to RAF requirements, and what they thought be be required versus the Warsaw Pact in the central European front) than the Sentry, the RAF rather preferred the Sentry (preference for the quick adoption of a known quality) but (initially) happily enough went along with what the other parties wanted at the time, happy to (try to) pocket the promised unique capabilities versus the Sentry.

There was also the desire by all UK stakeholders to get the UK airborne radar industry back up to speed and an apparent belief that the AEW Nimrod could win export orders. The UK did eventually get back up to a competitive level with it’s airborne radars but it’s questionable how much the AEW Nimrod actually contributed to that (obscure dead-end technology on the hardware side, perhaps significant assistance on the software side, maybe?).

But it was very much not just the politicians folly, and any attempts to just direct the blame solely at the politicians is more illustrative of those making that attempt than of the actual politicians in question and their decision making at the time. This strain of argument comes up quite a lot on this forum and is almost always simplistic at best.

 

[uk 75]

Very good contribution though your final paragraph is a bit unfair. I think most of us realise there is plenty of blame to go round and several parties to get it in the neck.

 

[Rule of cool]

What constitutes a paper plane, in the sense that its a good idea for a military to buy it?

I'd say that until a prototype flies a programme is an iffy proposition, so the P.1121, SR.177 and P.1154 were paper planes despite the mock-ups and prototypes being under construction. In contrast the TSR2 was far more real, the developers knew this and flew the aircraft to put pressure on the government to keep it alive.

Further, I'd say once a prototype flies fly it's only a viable proposition in it's home country, it's a bad idea for an export customer to try to bring a foreign prototype into service as the lead customer. In effect this make the Grumman Super Tiger and Vought Super Crusader paper planes despite their flying prototypes, as they were not adopted by the US.