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THE MINISTER OF STATE, MINISTRY OF TECHNOLOGY, said that, if there
was a military requirement for a strike aircraft for service beyond 1975,
the least attractive way of providing this would be by purchasing a foreign
aircraft, which would involve foreign exchange costs and a loss of our
capability to design and develop advanced military aircraft. Our failure
to achieve a joint project with the French illustrated the difficulties of
collaborative ventures with European countries in this field and other
possible partners might also lack the necessary resources; nevertheless,
several of them would require new aircraft of this general type in the
mid-1970s and the possibility should therefore be explored, although in any
such venture we should need to retain leadership in both airframe and engine
design. If we were once to lose the capability to design advanced military
aircraft, this would be difficult and costly to recreate, if indeed this
was possible.
THE MINISTER OF TECHNOLOGY said that, while he agreed with the proposal that the BAC aircraft design team at Warton should be financed for a period of six months, it was important that, during this period, there should be a careful examination both of the military requirement that called for a
variable geometry aircraft and of alternative ways of sustaining our
aero-engine and airframe equipment industries if we did not replace the
Anglo-French project with a national venture. We now had what might be a
unique opportunity to reconsider the importance to us of having a
capability to design and develop advanced military aircraft, at the need for
the aircraft industry to be dependent on military development projects and
at the relationship between this industry and industry generally. It
might be for example that, instead of a full development programme for a
military aircraft, it would be better to embark on an experimental aircraft.
In discussion there was general agreement that, before a final decision
could be taken on the way in which our requirement for combat aircraft for
the mid-1970s and beyond should be met, a full examination was required of
the military need for such aircraft, of the arguments for and against
allowing the aircraft industry to rely as heavily as hitherto on military
aircraft projects and of the size and shape of the aircraft industry that
we should plan to have in relation to our aircraft requirements and to
industry generally. The prospects of securing worth while collaboration
with European partners in a new military aircraft project did not appear good
and it would be contrary to our declared policy to embark on another major
unilateral military aircraft project. The aircraft industry made heavy
demands on skilled manpower and, although it had a good export record, it
was not clear that this justified the heavy subsidy that it received. It
might be that our best course would be to seek collaboration with the
United States rather than with European countries in this field, particularly
as Rolls Royce were already having some success in such collaboration on
aero-engines.
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