PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - TSR-2 (Merged a few times)
View Single Post
Old 26th Oct 2018, 23:31
  #337 (permalink)  
DHfan
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Derbyshire
Age: 72
Posts: 548
Likes: 0
Received 8 Likes on 6 Posts
With my hindsight, I believe TSR-2 was doomed from the outset. Everything that could have been calculated to be a bad idea was selected.
The RAF picked the figures they wanted out of thin air, from memory particularly range and sea-level speed, when say 90% of the performance was relatively simple to achieve although still impressive.
The government decided Vickers were to be the main contractor on what was basically an English Electric design, despite them having no supersonic expertise. To add to that, they then decided that apart from the basic airframe, it was to be effectively designed by committee.
I think it's Hooker's book that describes a meeting that was adjourned because there were too many people there. It was to resume with only people that absolutely had to be there and when they did, there were even more.

Amazingly, despite the teething troubles and the limited number of test flights, it appears to me the aircraft itself was well on its way to probably achieving the requirements.
The electronics are far beyond me, especially for that era as I've no idea what was feasible, but what always staggers me is the size of the avionics bay in XR220 at Cosford. It's looks the size of a small room yet modern electronics to do the same job would probably fit in a shoe box with space to spare.
DHfan is offline