Britain Surrenders - The Vickers VC7 and V-1000 Story

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In 1950, Britain was by far the most innovative nation in the aviation industry when it came to commercial airliners, the De Havilland Comet and the Vickers Viscount setting new bars in technology that the rest of the world would spend the remainder of the decade working to match.

Following the glowing success of the Viscount, and the exceptional performance of the Comet on long-distance flights, the UK was set to continue this commanding trend by way of the Vickers VC7, and its military counterpart the V-1000, aircraft of such excellent structural and mechanical design that its American rivals Boeing and Douglas were forced to rework their own concepts, the 707 and DC-8, in order to keep up with Britain's trailblazing airliner.

Then, in November 1956, priorities changed and both airliners were cancelled as the first prototype neared completion and was only months away from its maiden flight, the short-term political imperatives of the mid-1950s, giving rise to major long-term problems for the remainder of the century, with the disposal of the VC7 and V-1000 essentially being the UK handing all future leadership of commercial aviation to the United States, and setting the tone for Britain's downward spiral in civil aircraft endeavours.

Chapters:

0:00 - Preamble
1:18 - Britain Leads the World
3:34 - Meeting a New Challenge
6:03 - Setting out Specifications
9:06 - The Prototype Takes Shape
12:32 - A Scare in the States
14:38 - Holes Begin to Appear
16:42 - An Undignified End
19:34 - Immediate Regret
23:32 - The Downward Spiral
27:08 - Conclusion

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References:
- Royal Aeronautical Society (and their respective references)
- Key Aero (and their respective references)
- Wikipedia (and its respective references)