CAB148-30-Defence and Oversea Policy Committee Meetings Relating to 1967 Disturbances-1967 — Page 215

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course would maintain our combat aircraft design and development capability

and it should be possible to fit the higher costs into a defence budget of

the size now contemplated. The second course of seeking partners other than

France in a collaborative venture could be pursued; to be worth while from

our point of view we must either find other European partners or make an

arrangement with the United States which was satisfactory to our aircraft industry interests, although this would not be easy; this alternative could not be expected to show results quickly. The third course of purchasing

more of some existing American or British aircraft type or some combination of

these, would be the least expensive for the defence budget. It would

however mean abandoning our ability to develop combat aircraft and perhaps

accepting an additional burden on the balance of payments, although we

might be able to avoid this by offset arrangements on the lines of those

made for the F 111. More time was needed in order to assess fully the

implications of the French decision and to explore the alternative courses

open to us.

The military requirement for the kind of strike aircraft that had

hitherto been in mind for the period after 1975 required re-examination in

the light of our revised defence policy which envisaged a much reduced role

for our forces outside Europe. Recent events in the Middle East had amply demonstrated the value of strike/reconnaissance aircraft; what was not yet

clear however was the extent of the capability in this area that we required. Hitherto the plan had been that we should purchase 115 Anglo-French V/G

aircraft to replace the V force and supplement our F 111 aircraft; but this

plan must now be re-examined to determine the right balance of aircraft

numbers and performance for our needs. From the military point of view it would be preferable for decisions on these matters to be deferred for several years until requirements became clearer but, if this were done, the

option of having either a British aircraft to meet them, or one in whose development we played a part, would disappear. In these circumstances

there was a strong case for keeping the BAC design team at Warton in being

by embarking on a six months programme of work at a cost of £800000 on a

national project and in the meantime carrying out a thorough review of the

military requirement for the aircraft, investigating the possibility of

collaboration with other countries and examining the industrial consequences

that would follow from not proceeding with a new project.

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