The Comet failure

The final nail in the coffin of our aircraft industry was the cancellation of every aircraft programme by the 1960s

Alec Collins is upset by the "general lack of knowledge of some of the contributors", and then makes a sweeping statement on Comet which sounds like a New Labour soundbite. "…an engineering disaster which demonstrated the inability of its engineers to design a simple pressure vessel which could sustain a few psi pressure differential and thereby put the nail in the coffin of the British aircraft manufacturing industry". 

The issue was hardly simple, and the pressure vessel could readily sustain the required pressure differential and considerably more. Failure in the test tank during the investigations was achieved only by a combination of wing flexing and pressure cycling; a low-cycle fatigue issue far more complex than Alec suggests. On top of this, low cycle fatigue and high strength aluminium alloys were, along with pressurised fuselages, fairly new areas, and this was a pioneering aircraft. The real issue seems more likely to be that insufficient testing was done on this radical aircraft in the race to be first, but whether that argument can be applied as blame retrospectively, I'm not so sure. It was a very popular aircraft, and all the people I know who flew in it recall it very fondly; after the problems were cured, of course. 

Alec should read as a minimum "The Comet Failure" in our own institution's excellent book "Engineering Progress Through Trouble". As with many other examples, the first in the field paves the way for others, but often falls by the wayside as he hits all the problems first.

It is true that the Comet failure did put back our aircraft industry, although Government interference and lack of support, coupled with the periodic national bankruptcies caused by the Labour party probably carry more weight. For many more years, the UK aircraft industry punched above its weight in a technical sense. The final nail in the coffin of our aircraft industry was the cancellation of virtually every purely indigenous aircraft programme by the 1960's Wilson Government alongside the TSR2 cancellation. 

There is insufficient space here to properly debate the rights and wrongs of the TSR2 cancellation - it may have been right to cancel. However, the lies that went on to get to that point can never be forgiven, and since that date, Britain has not produced a major new indigenous military aircraft.

Mike West, Hilperton, Wilts

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