TSR-2 (Merged a few times)

[Jhieminga]

I guess most of you will already know this, but there are two TSR2s still with us:
The second airframe is complete and preserved at Cosford, while Duxford has the fourth (or fifth, I'm not sure) airframe which is unfortunately not complete. It lacks engines and a lot of internal stuff, but it still looks the part though!

In addition to these two airframes the Brooklands Museum has a TSR2 cockpit section that was used for pressurization testing.

[Tonkenna]

TSR-2

The TSR-2 at Cosford is in good nik. It never flew because it was damage while it was being transported. By the time it was fixed it was to late. I used to work on the Cosford one when I worked at the museum before I joined the RAF. Iwas lucky enough to chat to "Bee" when he visited the museum. We were stood next to the beast and I was in awe.

Another good book worth a read is "TSR-2 Phoenix or Folly?" by Frank Barnett-Jones ISBN 1 870384 27 X

Tonks

[CamelPilot]

Mountbatten...........

A few posts ago BEAgle commented on 'Mountbottom'. A very apt title for the man in my view.

The Daily Mail last week came up with the 100 WORST Britons.

There was one 'nominated' by Simon Heffer:

Earl Mountbatten of Burma....Charlatan, poseur, incompetent, disastrous Viceroy of India, mediocre service chief, complete phoney.

That just about sums up my opinion of him too. I also suspect that 'Bee' Beamont is sitting on cloud somewhere, grinning from ear to ear.

[BEagle]

People I once knew told me about the way he handled HMS Kelly. Not totally brilliant, I understand.

However, decency prevents me commenting further on the man himself. For it was on this very day in 1979 that he was murdered by Irish terrorists.

[John Farley]

It is the Nostalgia forum I know, but Bill Waterton convinced me that a tp should always tell the truth regardless.

I always thought they were right to cancel these four as I believed they had fundemental flaws:

TSR2 Not enough wing

P1154 Exhaust gas pressures and temps too high to allow
any operating site flexibility (which iswhat VSTOL has
to be all about)

AW681 Helicopters would do the tactical support job more
cheaply and reliably

Rotordyne The noise of a tip jet driven rotor was never going
be acceptable in city centres

Mind you I realise they were not cancelled for these reasons

[BEagle]

But JF, do you think that Camm's TSR2 competitor, the P1129, would have fared any better with the Air Staffs and government of the day?

Perhaps it was the fault of the Air Staffs of the day in demanding that aircraft such as TSR2 and P1154 were to be so cutting edge? Whereas Camm's rather more conservative P1129 and P1150 would perhaps have had an easier gestation?

I've heard another tp suggest that the TSR2 was a $od at low speed, but wonderful above 350 KIAS. Was the wing too small - or the effort to obtain a clever Cl alpha curve too clever for its own good?

But it still looks terrific!!

[John Farley]

BEags. Cor that lot would take a book and a lot more info than I possess to answer your specifics with any certainty.

Some minor comments. Whatever the shape of the lift curve there is the matter of wing area. Without that the whole thing has to work too hard. The Vulcan (ah!) is the only aeroplane I have ever flown where I never felt short of wing. The aerodynamics (nothing else) of the TSR2 always looked too much like those of the 104 to me and that was a specialist interceptor design where much (everything?) was sacrificed for speed.

I think interservice rivalry certainly played a part in the poor contractor performance that eventually resulted in many cancellations. (P1154 for one) Then too many designers finish up designing what they want to do rather than what would be most use for the chap in the crewroom. Too many designers get a good idea about a new whatever and press on with it without thinking the whole thing through. The bottom three in my list are classic examples of that. Perhaps its human nature at work – the navigator who sees four things on his map that fit the place under the nose beautifully and chooses to ignore the one feature that does not fit - type of behaviour.

Certainly in that period of history service staffs tended to hear of a new thing and automatically just add it to the aircraft they were considering like mum wanting an extra for her car just because she has heard about it. But then many of the OR staffs were not educated or trained to know better, so we must not lay too much at their door. More the system that gave them the responsibility without the training.

Sorry I’ve had a bad day!

[BEagle]

Sorry you've had a rough day, John!

TSR2 had an aspect ratio of 1.97. Vey, very flat lift curve slope as a result. No snag when you're going at the spped of heat and there's plenty of V squared to compensate for the lack of Cl and S, but a real trial at low speed, particularly when you've got as much wing as a plucked fly. So much cleverness needed in the sucky squeezy blowy department and some very clever flappery to try to stop it falling out of the sky and to try to make it fly acceptably well enough on the approach for the pilot to be able to see the runway threshold over the nose during landing!

All the shots of TSR2 on the approach give the impression that it was pretty awkward to fly in that regime. Long flat approaches with very high incidence angles and hight thrust settings.

Apart from the shots of 'Bee' wazzing Warton at 420KIAS+ !!

[InFinRetirement]

John. If you are going to have any more bad days let me know. Somehow you are at your best. Great double act with BEAgs there.

Didn't understand it! But it was good.

[Flash2001]

JF

Don't think the 104 was an interceptor design. Gun armed air superiority fighter more like. Only later fitted with AI radar. Used by the RCAF in a ground support role. Most unsuitable.

[John Farley]

Flash

I’m sure you are right. The prototype 104’s did have an APG-34 fire control radar but I accept that is not AI stuff. Back then (the ‘50s) we considered an interceptor to be a fighter designed to get as far away from base in the direction of the incoming raid as quickly as possible while the location of the target was entirely by following the fighter controllers instructions based on his ground radar. Speed and time to height was all that mattered. I’ll go back to my deck chair now.

[Flash2001]

JF

I think that the Canadian version had a full AI radar in it. It didn't have the Hardcore afterburner mod. It was also designed for ground support. I don't think it did either well. When it was sold to the West German Air Force in the '60s I am told they nicknamed it Canada's Revenge as it accounted for more GAF pilots than were ever shot down by Canadians during WW2.

[PPRuNe Pop]

I knew a German Luftwaffe Pilot, a General he was, and when I asked him why so many F104's crashed his answer was: "when you have so many you are bound to have more crashes than anyone else!" Well, you have to admit it was a novel answer. Far removed from actuality I fancy.

[brain fade]

I've been told that the easiest way to acquire a luftwaffe Starfighter was to buy an acre of farmland in Germany....................and wait.

[Woff1965]

F104

I thought the germans liked these in the ground attack role because -

a) the high wingloading meant it was very stable and smooth on the deck.

b) it had a low RCS.

c) it was very fast on the deck.

[reynoldsno1]

I've been told that the easiest way to acquire a luftwaffe Starfighter was to buy an acre of farmland in Germany....................and wait.

The same was said about the Jaguar in Scotland.......

[Nopax,thanx]

Oops, we've wandered off a bit here, but I must add my 104 piece. Back in the 70's the papers were full of F-104 Widowmaker stories; and of course the WGAF/WGN did lose a lot of 'em. But, as was said, with 800+ (I think) aircraft, it translated to a loss percentage in the low 20's.

By loss rate comparison, more Lightnings were lost in accidents (About 27% if my memory serves correctly) Another factor was that German pilots were (and still are) trained in the clear blue skies of Arizona initially; then they zoom about in the low level clag that covers Europe - of course they crash a lot!

Anyway, back to the TSR2; wasn't the one at Duxford used by Cranfield for years? I did read 'Project Cancelled' and it actually brought tears to my eyes just to think of what could have been - of course prototypes don't always live up to promises, that's what development is all about. Looking at the military aircraft that are still about today (F-111, B-52, KC-135, et al) it shows what can be achieved over the years - they must bear hardly any resemblance to their original versions, except in the purely visual form.

At least the HS681 got built - it just took twenty years and a name change to the BAe146!!!!!

[Biggles Flies Undone]

Yes, the Duxford airframe was at Cranfield in the early 70's.

[John Farley]

Nopax
Some confusion at the end of your post I suspect. The AW681 was a VSTOL transport that used Pegasi.

[ORAC]

The Starfighter had its origin in a November 1952 unsolicited proposal by Lockheed for a lightweight and unsophisticated air-superiority fighter. Johnson had visited Korea in December of 1951, and while there he had talked to fighter pilots then flying in combat over North Korea. He asked them what kind of fighter plane would be ideal. Their general consensus was that the trend toward ever-increasing weight and complexity had gotten completely out of hand, and they would gladly trade in their existing fighters for a lighter, less costly fighter with clearly superior speed, ceiling, climb rate, and maneuverability.

Even though the Air Force had no official requirement for such a fighter, Johnson was nevertheless authorized by Lockheed management to proceed with an initial private venture design.

In late 1952, Lockheed presented an unsolicited proposal to the Air Force. Even though the USAF did not have a standing requirement for such a fighter, they thought sufficiently highly of the general idea that they issued a General Operational Requirement in December 1952 for a lightweight air-superiority fighter to replace the North American F-100 in TAC beginning in 1956 followed by a contract.

By the time that the F-104A was finally ready for delivery, requirements had changed and TAC lost interest. However, there were delays in the delivery of the F-106 to Air Defense Command, and the USAF decided to accept the F-104A and assign them to ADC as a stopgap measure. The high climb rate made it attractive and it was hoped that they could fill in until the F-106 became available. The aircraft were fitted with the interim AN/ASG-14T-1 radar fire control system until it could be replaced by the more capable AN/ASG-14T-2.

However, Its short range was a problem for North American air defense, and its lack of all-weather capability made it incapable of operating in conjunction with the SAGE. Service with the ADC was consequently brief, and they were replaced by the end of 1960.

They were transferred to three ANG squadrons, the 151st, 157th and 197th FIS. These three squadrons were called up for active duty during the Berlin crisis of 1961 and were deployed to Europe. Following the end of the Berlin crisis, thee squadrons returned to the USA in 1962. The F-104As, however, were retained by the USAF and were transferred to two ADC units, the 319th and 331st FIS at Homestead AFB.

The last USAF squadron to operate the F-104A, the 319th, was disbanded in December of 1969.

The F-104C was the tactical strike version of the Starfighter. It was designed to meet the needs of (TAC), which had earlier found the F-104A to be unacceptable because of its low endurance and its inability to carry significant offensive payloads. AC felt that it needed a supersonic tactical strike fighter to fill the void between the F-100C and the F-105 Thunderchief.

The F-104C carried a removable refuelling probe, thus allowing the range to be extended and was designed tactical nuclear weapons on a centerline pylon, which could alternatively carry a 225-US gallon droptank. Equipped from the start with the AN/ASG-14T-2 fire control system, the F-104C was capable of operating in clear night as well as day conditions, although it was not truly capable of all-weather operations. The internal 20-mm rotary cannon of the F-104A was retained, as was the ability to carry a Sidewinder on each wingtip.

The first F-104Cs entered service in 1958 with the 479th TFW in the nuclear strike and ground attack role.

In 1961, the F-104Cs were modernized with the addition of hardpoints which enabled an additional pair of Sidewinders to be mounted underneath the fuselage. They were also given the ability to carry and deliver a larger variety of air-to-ground weapons. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, they were deployed to Key West, Florida to protect against attack on the USA. They were also tasked to carry out air strikes against targets in Cuba in case an invasion proved to be necessary. Whether these would have been conventional or nuclear is not known.

In 1965, a squadron of the 479th deployed to Da Nang Air Base in South Vietnam. Their job was to fly MiGCAP to protect bombers from attack by North Vietnamese fighters. They flew these missions armed with their 20-mm cannon and four AIM-9 Sidewinders. Unfortunately, the range of the F-104C was too short to make it a useful escort fighter, a fact which the North soon discovered. They simply waited for the F-104s to turn back before launching their own fighters in safety.

On September 20, 1965, An aircraft was shot down over Hainan Island by a pair of Chinese MiG-19s. The navigation system had failed whilst on MiGCAP over the Gulf of Tonkin and the pilot had gotten lost. He ejected and was taken prisoner. While the rest of the squadron was out looking for him, two other F-104s had a midair collision while returning to their base and both their pilots were killed. A week later, another aircraft was shot down by enemy AAA, and its pilot was killed.

After these four losses, the remnants of the 479th were rotated back to the USA. A new contingent of F-104Cs returned to Vietnam in 1966. This time, all four squadrons of the 479th TFS were involved and were assigned to Udorn Thailand. These F-104Cs were mainly tasked against ground targets in the CAS role. The F-104C proved unsuited for the ground attack role, due to their low range and inadequate weapon load and were replaced by F-4Ds in July 1967. The 479th was then rotated back home.

Following their withdrawal from Vietnam, the surviving F-104Cs were transferred to the Puerto Rico ANG. They were replaced by A-7Ds in 1975.

The Joy of High Tech - Paean to the F-104