Nationalisation - The Old Names Disappear

Make sure your volume is on: "...none of the airframe companies as such have survived..."

Show transcript

‘Today what's called Rolls-Royce was in fact the Bristol Engines Division of the Bristol Aeroplane Company and it was set up as such, and the telephone systems were interconnected, so that you could ring the Airframe Division from the Engine Division. And that continued to operate as far as I know into the 1990s.’
‘But all of the aero engine companies and all the aircraft companies in the mid ‘60s ran into trouble, the industry just started to shrink. Bristols and Rolls-Royce weren't the only one that survived, but there's none of the airframe companies as such have survived. British Aerospace in fact is a composite company and the names don't mean anything to people like de Havillands, Handley Page, Vickers and that, which built aircraft, their names have disappeared into British Aerospace which in some cases has become Airbus.’

Credit: Filton Community History
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