PROJECT CANCELLED

Since the end of the Second World War the British Aircraft industry has been plagued by a succession of questionable political and commercial decisions which, all too frequently, have resulted in Britain losing not only vital technological leads over other countries but also substantial home and export orders. This gradual starvation of a potentially lucrative and prestigious industry has had far-reaching consequences: the number of British aircraft in service today with the airlines and air forces of other nations is a dismal fraction of what it might have been had personal prejudice and political mismanagement not prevailed. It is also sobering to reflect that the most modern aircraft in service in Britain both civil and military - are foreign-built, or at best collaborative ventures.

In Project Cancelled Derek Wood has examined in detail those aviation projects the abandonment of which has lead to the irretrievable decline of Britain's aerospace industry. Beginning with the immediate post-war period and the cancellation of the revolutionary Miles M.52, the aircraft that would have ensured Britain's lead in the supersonic race, the book goes on to tell the story of the development and eventual demise of many famous aircraft as well as those less well- known, such as the Avro 730 supersonic bomber and the brilliant Camm-designed Hawker P.1121.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

Derek Wood has been an aviation and defence writer for twenty-five years. He has been London Editor of the Interavia international group of publications since 1953 and became Air Correspondent for the Sunday Telegraph in 1961. He was the originator and co-author of The Narrow Margin, the story of the Battle of Britain, upon which the film was based. Derek Wood is married with two children and lives at Cuckfield in Sussex. One of his spare time interests is the Royal Observer Corps in which he has served for twenty-seven years.