ABSTRACT
The other major US airliner manufacturer, Boeing, was preparing to exit the civil sector altogether and, while the significance of Europe's Airbus A300 widebody twin had at first been underestimated, Boeing was about to launch two twinjets of its own, the widebody 767 and the narrowbody 757. The 757's only real innovation was the Flight Management Computer System (FMCS) it shared with the 767. The fact that Boeing was prepared to compromise the 757 in order to get British Airways onboard the program shows how important Britain was to Boeing's 'divide and rule' strategy for the European aerospace industry. A key Japanese objective was to gain tacit knowledge and technology transfer but Boeing kept the more challenging manufacturing procedures to itself and left Civil Transport Development Corporation (CTDC) with the fuselage barrel, the wing-to-fuselage fairings and the main landing gear doors. The 767 program was salvaged in the late 1980s by the Extended-range Twin Engine Operations (ETOPS) revolution.
