Model Forum / General / Models / April 2004

Bloch was a French Jew hidden by a Catholic family at mortal risk to their
lives.

After the war Bloch changed his name to that of the family who saved him,
slightly changing it to Dassault.

Tom

That's an easy one - it was the same as Britain's car industry. Correct me
if I'm wrong, you Brits, but IIRC, the govenment in power at the time - mid
50s/early 60s? - (probably Labour - they seem to be the bas****s of the
piece!) saw that the industry was ailing and instead of doing the smart
thing and encouraging each maker to compete with the others, as well as
overseas manufacturers, took the political decision to merge all the makers
into one - BAe in the case of the aero industry (it wasn't called that
originally, I think, but it is now!) and British Leyland for cars.  The
result - complete loss of anything resembling pride, achievment or product
development - with a very few notable exceptions.  It's probably a little
more complicated than that, but you get the gist.

RobG

Beg, borrow, steal or get from your lending library a copy of "Project
Cancelled" by Derek Wood.  Appendix 1 is exactly what you want to see,
(well, starting from 1946) and Appendix 2 is the equivalent for engine
manufacturers.

To summarise, missing out some details: AV Roe, Hawker, Airspeed, De
Havilland, General Aircraft, Blackbur and Folland became Hawker Siddley
in 1959-60.  Gloster merged with Armstrong-Whitworth who were
assimilated by HS.

Bristol, English Electric, Percival and Vickers Armstrong became BAC in
1960.

HS, BAC and Scottish Aviation became BAe in 1977.

Westland, Cierva, Saunders-Roe, Bristol (helo bits) and Fairey became
Westlands in 1959-60.

Auster became Beagle in 1962 and closed in 1970
Miles shut down in 1947
Handley Page was liquidated in 1970
Bolton Paul stopped aircraft design in the '50's and became part of
Dowty in 1961.

I think that was from not being able to develop the P-40 farther (though it
did indirectly lead to the P-51) and problems with the Helldiver and
Curtiss-built P-47s.

Try doing it this way (I did it myself a few years ago). Go to your local
library and look up the "Jane's" series of aircraft books. In addition to
having a wealth of data on some really obscure modeling subjects, they always
had a brief write-up on the (then) current status of the different
manufacturers.

Tell me about it. C-W and Consolidated were both located in Buffalo; C-W's
factory (one of threee or so that I know of) by the Buffalo Airport was sold to
Westinghouse and torn down last year. Consolidated's was to to a tin can
manufacturer and somebody else has it now.

-- John
The history of things that didn't happen has never been written.
.          -                                   -                              
     - Henry Kissinger