The BAC Three-Eleven: The British Airbus That Should Have Been

The British govt. decided in December 1970 not to provide launch aid for BAC Three-Eleven, a 245-seat wide-body twinjet airliner, shortly after they had also withdrawn from European Airbus at a time when we had the same 37.5% share in the programme as France. (We rejoined to a 20% share in 1979.) This book puts forward the theory that this cancellation was the turning point for the subsequent decline and marginalisation of Britain’s civil aircraft industry. The book supports this with a variety of evidence, reflecting on the effects the decision has to this day, at the same time giving a history of the aircraft and putting the events into a historical context. It discloses for the first time the Ministry of Technology and Aviation Supply’s thinking on the subject using HMG records at Kew from 1969/70 and uses a variety of statistics on launch aid markets, market share of main airline producers at the time of the cancellation, and provides reflections for Aerospace leaders planning the future.