The British Aerospace Industry

Abstract

The British aerospace industry is one of the few in the world with a total capability, that is a capability for the design and construction of engines, aircraft, missiles and space and communications systems. Only in the United States, Russia and France can other such capacities be found, and we are arguably number three. It is an enormous source of export revenue, £3.2 billion in 1982, with over 60 per cent of its output going on exports. It is profitable though not excessively so. British Aerospace alone is the top engineering exporting company in the UK after BP and ICI. We have a total capability for the design, supply and support of all likely aircraft and weapons to be found in the British services. These include long-range reconnaissance, airborne early warning, transport aircraft, strike, ground attack and fighter aircraft, surface to surface, air to surface, surface to air and air to air weapons and there also resides in the industry as a matter of course a capability for air to underwater and surface to underwater, mines and increasingly important electronic warfare capacities across the entire spectrum. With the adoption of the marine gas turbine as a main driver of surface ships we now supply the engines as well. Equally important we have developed a total capability for the design and supply of satellites of all sorts, for communications, reconnaissance, meteorology and so forth.