Originally Posted by
Loose rivets
BEagle, can you lay hands on James Hamilton Paterson's Empire of the Clouds? The quotes and declined quotes* are very well laid out and I'd love to know how you interpreted John Farley's opinions from the quotes vs your personal contact. I of course have no first hand knowledge at all.
I'm loathe to quote the book without J H-P's approval though I'm sure I can say John Farley did not approve of TSR2 primarily because "It didn't have enough wing".
The whole quote goes into a bit more detail about the cancellation and touches on some other issues as well, but it boils down to its small wing and the consequences of this design choice.
The trouble with a negligible wing is your take-off and landing performance becomes appalling. And if you look at the films of the one TSR2 that flew - and that was flying at light flight-test weights, not operational weights - you see the large angle of attack needed and the long ground run and the very poor landing performance.
Even if they had accommodated that, the aircraft was still going to have very poor manoeuvring capability.
John Farley as quoted on page 313 of the paperback version of 'Empire of the Clouds', J. Hamilton-Paterson (2010).