Here is what a fellow ppruner thought of the TSR2, and yes it made me friggin laugh.
~ Shamlessly cut and pasted from a thread in D&G
Ahh, the old TSR2 chestnut...!
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I was waiting with baited breath for this one to pop-up!!!
Let me, if I may be so bold, to express my opinion on the matter of the infamous claims of "superiority" of the TSR2 over, well, every aircraft that has ever existed.
Firstly, I would like to retort in Haiku:
Fabled British Plane,
Uglier Than Sin Itself,
Total Piece Of Sh!t
And, if the meaning of the Haiku is too obscure for some, here is a metaphor I think is very appropriate: About 40 years ago, whilst out fishing in a tinnie in Port Phillip Bay, I caught a Blue Whale using 10 pound line and a hand reel. You may not have seen this but, trust me when I tell you (and my friend's brother Davo who was on the tinnie will back me up) it was without out a doubt the greatest fishing event EVER. Okay, now when I say I caught the whale, whilst not ever actually landing it on the tinnie (the fisheries department came along just as I was hauling it in & demanded I release it immediately) it was as good as in the boat. And when I say I hooked it, well, it never actually took the bait, but it gave it a loooong hard look. And when I say it was a blue whale, well, it er, umm... looked like a blue whale. It may have in fact been a flathead... but it was (may have been) a BIG one!! TRUST ME!
My point is this. Everyone has a "one that got away" story that grows in stature as the years pass. The TSR2 story seems to posess an especially exaggerated list of capabilities. I understand the fervour and national pride stirred up in people when it comes to home grown products, but, there has to be a "realism" element in assessing an aircraft that never proceeded pass the prototype stage!!. Yes I know it was politics that eventually killed the thing but come on, there wasn't any shortage of problems with it either!! Undercarriage, engines (serious problems with the Olympus fit in the TSR2 from memory) and as a result an almost entirely theoretical list of specs.
DISCLAIMER: I have flown the Pig hence have a soft spot for it, & of course I never flew the TSR 2. (nor do I know anyone who did). Also, I am no Aero Eng or TP but I reckon I'm a good judge of "horse flesh", and the old adage that "if it looks good it flies good" is true more often than not. Based on this and an up close and personal inspection of the airframe at Duxford Air Museum I feel confident in saying that the TSR2 was/would have been a total frickin' dog!!.
For a tactical/interdiction strike aircraft this thing was ENORMOUS...
* with a hideous slab sided rectangular fuselage and the smallest freakin' wing area for an aircraft of its size I have ever seen!!
* For its size (about 20% larger than a Pig) its internal weapons bay (an overly complex arrangement if ever there was one) was quite small.
* The tiny wings probably resulted in a wing loading higher than that of an F-104 (and we all know how well that turns!) and were clearly incapable of carrying large external stores, IF anything at all.
* Landing Gear?? I think you could have completed a Rubik's cube before the complex arrangement would have retracted.
*The Olympus engines, impressively large and powerful as they were, would have chewed through the juice like a fat chick with a Maccas shake and
any substantial fuel reserves (which I don't think it had) would have been for nought.
Anyway, the TSR2 is dead... Long live the TSR2!!