Wild idea: What would it take for Lockheed Martin to start making passenger jets? Is that remotely possible?
Do you have any examples of that happening to a company as big as Lockheed Martin, which has a market capitalization of over 100 billion?
As far as examples of 100 billion dollar companies going bankrupt? 5 of those.
So LM and MD basically competed. MD having a more established costumer base, lower prices and being first to market won against the more fancy LM jet. So really its more accurate to say that MD killed LM.
But really it fucked both companies over, widebody tri-jets just weren't a big enough category. LM engineering was mostly on point. They should have just build a twin-jet instead.
The problem is, a single project is so expensive it might take the company down. LM made a bet, lost and it almost destroyed the company. So they didn't want to bet again.
Building ~ 160 F-35's a year, with special alloys and coatings is a lot different than building 200 commercial aircraft, made out of aluminum and rivets.
Like Haskell vs. Cobol.