What would they be doing now?

[deathjester]

During the 50's / 60's, certain firms seemed to be coming up with designs a good 20-30 years ahead of their time (Avro, Hawker Siddeley, Ryan spring to mind).
  The quesion is; if they were still going concerns, and their respective masterpieces weren't cancelled, what would they be making NOW!!!?

[pyro-manic]

Not sure about American firms, but most of the British industry was consolidated into BAe, so most of the expertise will have been retained I should think. I suspect that there are many more recent projects that are equally impressive, but of course we won't know about them for years. BSP1 has a list of projects and studies, which stops in the 1980s, and many of which are still classified, so I have no doubt that there is some very cool stuff hidden away at Warton, and work still going on (for FOAS for example). Of course, none of it will ever get produced.

[Mossie]

A lot of their expertise went to America too, many of the British engineers went over the pond because there were jobs there & none here.  So the US picked up a few bonuses when the industry collapsed here, as well as contracts they gained a little extra knowledge in fields such as hypersonics & vairable geometery.  A few went elsewhere such as France & Germany, but I would say most went to the USA.  Some of the expertise carries on here of course, & one of the most high profile projects is Skylon, shame nobody's really interested in it.

If the question is what would they be working on now if the British aircraft industry hadn't collapsed, then that's very hard to answer.  I don't think you'd be seeing high profile projects like a Concorde replacement or Mach 5 spy planes, the economy just wouldn't cope.  I've always said the best us Brits could have hoped for is an aircraft industry on the lines of the French model.  So something more independent, possibly indigenous fighters & airliners (or a controlling share in Airbus).

Systems & electronics are something we still have quite a hand in that could maybe be a larger area.  Space exploration likewise, we don't build the delivery platforms but we have quite a hand in satelites & support.  Maybe this would have been expanded on?

[deathjester]

Well, I should say we had better hurry up and get back into the space race, because we are in danger of being overtaken by the Indians, and the Chinese!
  I hear what you are saying about the budgetry constraints, so going along the same lines as the French makes good sense-after all, thats roughly what we were doing just after WW2.
As to the main thrust of the question, I was wondering, based on their highly advanced earlier designs, what  would their 2008 designs look like, in your professional opinions, as we always seem to concentrate on what could have been, and not so much on what might be-so let your imaginations run riot!!!