COMBAT AND COMPETITION.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

COMBAT AND COMPETITION
what finally sold the system to Vickers and BOAC. And these owed
nothing to Bendix.
The relationship between Elliotts and Bendix, increasingly uneasy
as Elliotts had grown more powerful, reached a new low with the
advent of the VC10 system. As seen by Bendix- Elliotts had used their
hardware, know-how and experience to clamber onto the civil ladder
- and had then gone about it their own way to minimise the Bendix
share of the project. The situation was not helped by the fact that
Wally Monk was now running Bendix UK Ltd, where he had gone
after losing his fight with Jack.
My first export assignment, which involved Ron as well, was most
bizarre. The Soviet Embassy had made an approach to Elliotts on
behalf of a small trade mission, which wished to talk ILS coupling 8 for
civil airliners. There was an implied possibility of export sales, which
seemed most unlikely, but we were curious about their intentions and
security clearance was eventually obtained.
The meeting was held at Borehamwood well away from our
military activities. The visitors listened, with ill concealed impatience,
as we talked openly about the subject which had been cleared for
discussion. As soon as there was an opportunity for questions, they
ignored everything that had been said, and turned to something totally
different. Radio altimeter cum barometric height locks. It was
abundantly clear that they had come, well prepared, to learn as much
as possible about the Buccaneer automatic flight control system.
Ron caught my eye and we became absolutely confused! Not only
could we not understand their questions, but we suggested that they
too had become confused by our description of ILS coupling.
Therefore we had better run over it all again. Or perhaps they would
like to re-phrase their questions? Which they did, from every possible
angle, and we became even more confused! And confusion bred
confusion. Until we broke up in complete and polite disorder - with
profuse apologies for our lack of understanding. It was all good clean
fun.
Soon afterwards Ron and I became the first Assistant General
Managers of Elliott Flight Automation.
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