The length of the various stages of design and development of standard R.A.F. types in peacetime as seen in retrospect in the Directorate of Technical Development in M.A.P. was as follows:

The various abridgements of the prototype stage, sometimes incorrectly described as orders 'off the drawing-board', were introduced in a number of designs including the Halifax, the Manchester and the Stirling. In the end, however, the Air Ministry adopted the more drastic policy of cutting out the prototype stage altogether and ordering 'off the drawing-board' in the narrower sense of the term. Instead of delaying production orders until a prototype had been tested, the Air Ministry now placed orders for quantity production at the same time as the prototypes. If, as a result of the tests of the prototypes, modifications appeared necessary, they were incorporated into the production series. The best examples of orders 'off the drawing-board', pure and simple, were the Bristol Beaufighter, designed late in 1938 and ordered in quantity in April 1939, the de Havilland Mosquito, designed in December 1939 and ordered in quantity in January 1940 and several Fleet Air Arm types.

The other stage to be abridge and eventually to be cut out was the competitive tender. For many reasons competitive designs came to be regarded as a luxury which the country could not afford under the stringent conditions of rearmament and war. Competition could be cut in two ways: either by allowing full play to private initiative in the initial stages (so-called 'private venture') or by the policy of special orders to earmarked firms. By accepting 'private ventures' the Air Ministry were able to save from six months to a year which would otherwise have gone on the preparations for competitive designs. 'Private ventures' were frequently combined with the system of 'special orders'. Under this system the Air Ministry of M.A.P. entrusted the design and production of a new type to a firm which, in the Ministry's view, was at the moment best able to create a new type of the necessary kind. What with the desire to save the time hitherto spent on organising competition, and with the imperative necessity to spare the efforts of the drawing offices, 'special orders' gradually became the prevailing system at M.A.P.