TSR2 what if
Beags - I think your been a bit unkind to JF! - what ever your views on TPs sometimes they do have a valid point ! - TSR-2 in my opinion would have been great about 1980 - just when GR1 entered service. I met and had Lunch with RPB at his house in 1988 and he was still most enthusiastic about TSR-2 I also knew Jimmy Dell pretty well. What I have learnt with hindsight is just how close they came to disaster on a good few of the flights. I think they only flew 19-20 sorties RPB about 6-7 Jimmy Dell about 11 and Don Knight 2 - all from memory . The engines were powerful but very limited. When you look at a lot of the kit that went into TSR2 and then look at what ended up in Jaguar and F4 it really would be wrong to say TSR-2 was brilliant! The FGR2 INAS was never great and the early Jaguar Navwass probably cost a few pilots their lives. I've never found out if the GMR in TSR was any good - GR1 ended up with the Texas Instruments GMR and TFR I'm guessing because it was cheaper than Ferranti and perhaps an offset in costs from the F111 programme. Having almost finished (plug) my book on Tornado what we ended up with is probably better than we could have hoped for . Tornado a fruit of the 1970s with its trendy swing wing is arguably the best CAS combat aircraft in service today- due to a reliable airframe and smart weapons . The F3 ( and before some FAA persons starts ranting- be quiet) also became a capable aircraft - not an SU27 beater or F22 slayer but excellent as a long range interceptor. So in brief TSR2 would have been good but my guess it would have seen service in Gulf War one just as it retired and we would all be saying how brilliant it was !!!