FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1973
1973 - 0021.PDF
FLIGHT International, 4 January 1973 Leading the collaborative way Two BRITISH AEROSPACE INDUSTRIALISTS with long first hand experience of European co-operation have been talking to Flight about life in the Common Market. Basil Blackwell, managing director of Westland Helicopters, is responsible for managing the British side of the Anglo- French helicopter programme comprising Puma, Lynx and Gazelle. He was formerly managing director of Rolls-Royce Small Engine Division, having before that been with Bristol Siddeley. Allen Greenwood, deputy chairman of British Aircraft Corporation, is one of the founder mem bers of the Anglo-German-Italian Panavia MRCA con sortium, with responsibilities also for Concorde and Jaguar policy and for the Europlane airliner consortium compris ing Spanish, Swedish and German companies as well as BAG Blackwell: Two of Hhe Aerospatiale Helicopter Division's greatest contributions to the Anglo-French helicopter effort are its export track record and the commercial attitude which it has, perhaps through its export success, developed. They never relax in the sunlight of government contracts. The Aerospatiale position from the start of collaboration was that every effort should be devoted to exporting. The Aerospatiale approach is to start from* a price—the price the market will bear—and to work back to the cost, a refreshingly commercial approach. We have agreed that if Westland or Aerospatiale can find a way to make a part at a more competitive price then this is the way it must be done, even if either of us loses the work. This commercial approach gets better results from equipment suppliers, who, in export markets, account for a very significant proportion of the content of our final price. You cannot expect your equipment supplier to be efficient, however, if he is merely on the optional list. He must be in full partnership, be kept fully informed of your marketing plans and take risks with you in advanced provisioning ahead of orders. Quite a number of suppliers are beginning to like this more auto motive industry approach. They can plan ahead. This collaboration has taught us all a thing or two. It gets designers cutting ^p out of the aircraft with as much enthusiasm as they cut out 12lb. The challenge now is to marry our technical ability with this new commercial attitude. I believe all companies are finding this now. The suggestions that the British aerospace industry is just a junior partner to Continental companies may in some cases be true, but perhaps it is because British industry has not been vigorous or robust enough. Some people think that our partners are breaking the agreement by doing the SA.360, a possible rival for the Lynx. My attitude is "good luck to them." They have sold 2,500 Alouette lis and Ills. Turbomeca has developed the Astazou to 1,400 s.h.p. and Aerospatiale has taken the Fenestron and glass-fibre technology from the Gazelle, put it together in the "skunkworks," rolled it out, and flown it. I call that vigorous. I would rather be a partner with a company like that than sit in an office sulking about the bloody French. As you know, my background is Bristol engines. Bristol engines were being made in Europe in the 1930s and when I joined in 1949 we were working with Snecma on the Hercules for the Noratlas. No doubt because of this long history of co-operation, I was greatly shocked by the attitude of my friends in Derby to collaboration—with anyone, I may say, and certainly with Europeans. This attitude and the subsequent collapse of the company has done more harm to Anglo-European collaboration than anything else. I hope this first-class engineering team has now recovered from its Europhobia, and that Europe is in a forgiving mood. We are cheaper—20 per cent less for example on labour costs. This is the greater efficiency that Westland brings to the partnership. This is what we give them. And I believe they have great respect for us technically since Mr. Allen Greenwood Mr. basil Mackwell the Lynx, which is a first-class aircraft. They acknowledge our very great naval helicopter experience. The elegant mathematical model of the helicopter ground-resonance phenomena developed by Westland has contributed to the solution of a difficult problem on an Aerospatiale design. I think we also contribute greatly with our knowledge— industrially and nationally—of financial matters. The first criterion of a partnership is that it should bring a market. After all, it is called the Common Market. As for new projects, my personal enthusiasm is for a really cheap three-seat helicopter. We have the soldiery in Europe who might buy 20,000 of these "motor-cycle com binations," the aerial counterpart of the FN rifle. If we wait for an OR, think of a price and then double it, we shall be out of the market. I think our consortium can do it. I am a Europhile. I believe in Europe. Greenwood: There are now about 400,000 people in Europe's aerospace industry. At the moment they get about 25 per cent of the available world aerospace market of $11,000 million; that is to say we Europeans produce and sell just under $3,000 million a year. If by 1980 we retain 25 per cent of the market we should have a turnover of just under $4,000 million. If we can increase our share to, say, 33 per cent, our turnover will be just under $5,000 million. This workload will require an increase in manning from 400,000 to more than 500,000, so we can easily be an expanding industry. These figures are esti mates made independently by a British merchant bank. They accord pretty closely with our own BAC estimates and those of Boeing. One of the main problems is the number of design teams in Europe. We have been bringing together our design teams in consortia to do some specific projects— and this is a trend which should continue. But there are many other problems involved in the full integration of European companies—the lack of a common European law, defence policies, shareholdings, for example. My view of the philosophy of company integration across national borders is that it is probably right in the long run —very long run. When you share the same financial fortunes, the same cash box, then a combined partnership thinking is directed toward commercial unity. But I don't believe that any companies in Europe would want to get into any arrangement Which they couldn't rearrange to suit the developing market; and the consortium or project- company formula currently is a good one. One project may lead to another." For example, Panavia is thinking very seriously about a light combat aircraft with a single MRCA RB.199 engine. The multi-project consortia or joint com panies seem to me to show the way ahead. The airframe firms probably have the most influence on the shape of these European partnerships, but the engine position is at the moment much more critical. The Rolls- Royce affair shook our European partners' confidence greatly. But they appreciate that Rolls-Royce technology is ahead of that of European engine companies. A lot of Frenchmen say to me that if we don't have a European aero-engine capability the Americans can hold us to ransom, because we cannot just build gliders in Europe. Maybe there is room for only one European company. But
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
