Uploaded November 2024 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
First broadcast in 2020 this was an RAF Museum event organised in collaboration with Lancaster University's Centre for War and Diplomacy.
In this virtual lecture Professor David Edgerton surveyed British policy for British aviation after 1945 arguing that many really did believe that the UK’s future lay in leadership in aeronautics.
It took a long time for the British government to believe that was not the case, and even longer, to act on it.
The lecture looked at the history of many big projects from the forties, such as the Brabazon and the Princess Flying Boat, down to the heaviest aircraft ever built in the UK, the Concorde itself, reflecting on the wider political, industrial and economic context, not least the fabled ‘White Heat’ of the supposed ‘scientific revolution’ the country was living through during this period.
First broadcast in 2020 this was an RAF Museum event organised in collaboration with Lancaster University's Centre for War and Diplomacy.
In this virtual lecture Professor David Edgerton surveyed British policy for British aviation after 1945 arguing that many really did believe that the UK’s future lay in leadership in aeronautics.
It took a long time for the British government to believe that was not the case, and even longer, to act on it.
The lecture looked at the history of many big projects from the forties, such as the Brabazon and the Princess Flying Boat, down to the heaviest aircraft ever built in the UK, the Concorde itself, reflecting on the wider political, industrial and economic context, not least the fabled ‘White Heat’ of the supposed ‘scientific revolution’ the country was living through during this period.
