Some memories of a remarkable test pilot and a remarkable aircraft
... more can be found here:
http://www.hawkertempest.se/storybee.htm
To cut a long story short, it did get out in the shape of an aeroplane onto Boscombe Down airfield in about 18 months later than the original predicted date and by August 1964 it was ready to fly, there were an awful lot of technical difficulties that occurred on the way, some of them predictable due to the unbalanced design organisation, some not so predictable and one major area of problems, in the engine. We at English Electric had very strongly advocated the development of the Rolls-Royce series of engines for this aeroplane that was turned down by the Ministry. Basically it was done to provide work for the Bristol area and it was given to Bristol's to develop the Olympus, which they said was not going to be a new engine but a development but it was in fact a new engine.
In the stages of introducing it to the TSR a whole series of catastrophic failures occurred, at least 3 engines were blown up in the year prior to the first flight of the aircraft, one in the Vulcan flying test bed, and which destroyed the aircraft, so the ministry said bad luck, we can't afford another test aircraft, so you'll have to manage without one. When we got to the flight stage, the cause of these catastrophic failures was understood, but it had not been cured. I was given the interesting proposition of accepting for the first flight of this airframe, on my decision alone, there was a major meeting which this was debated all day and I was given the casting vote, as the pilot to say whether I would fly it or not and it was for an engine that had not got a certificate of airworthiness to fly. There were ways that it could just be flown with a certain high degree of risk, nobody would accept responsibility for it and I spelt out to the meeting exactly what risk we were going to take if we flew it and I said that in view of the mounting political pressures on this program, it might be considered acceptable to take this level of risk for one flight only. But if we do that then I would suggest that we program that we do not fly again until we have fully adequately modified engines for the programme. They said that's it and we flew the next day.
Well.. the flying….. a fantastic aeroplane, you would expect it with the aerodynamics and controls and basic control systems were the product of the English Electric supersonic team at Warton, and they got it absolutely right again. To quote the words of my friend and deputy Jimmy Dell who flew it with me, "this aeroplane flies just like a big Lightning", fantastic, it was a wonderful experience; we were only allowed 23 flights in it. Because of the difficulties, with technicalities and so on. We weren't able to retract the undercarriage till the 10th flight, that limited the test flying enormously, on the 10th flight we got the undercarriage away properly, did two cycles. On a conventional programme we would probably have been required to land, put the aircraft up on jacks check the recycling of the gear, see that everything was fine, then prepare it to fly again. But no, after getting the gear to work twice, with all lights working right, I went straight out to the far extent of the test programme at that time. It had a flight resonance clearance of 500 knots for that state of the flying; I took it out in stages to 500 knots on that flight. The first time we had got the undercarriage up and it was simply superb and I was so confident in it, I ended up over Boscombe Down, the weather was very bad and I had got Don Bowen in the back, not quite sure what was going on, Jimmy Dell was flying chase in the Lightning, trying to keep up with me in the rain, low cloud etc, and I brought it round Boscombe's circuit thinking this aeroplane is designed to contour fly at high speed so let's see what it does. I brought it down Boscombe Down runway at 100 ft at around about 450 knots and the precision, it had beautiful control, I was able to relax and take my hands off the controls if I'd wanted to, and it was perfect. We were on to what appeared to be a magnificent technical break through which should have gone into service with the RAF in the 70's and provided them with an aircraft that with updating would have been in service today and would have had all the abilities and the modern developed equipment of the Tornado but it would have much further range and a lot faster
Wing Commander Roland Beamont
Who by that time had been chief test pilot of both the EE Canberra and the EE Lightning, two exceptional aircraft, with this was the third of that generation, albeit forcibly turned over to a hotchpotch organisation led by Vickers who knew nothing about supersonics... fortunately they got their heads down and worked together, producing something so good that idiots could only take their spite out on it, rather than genuinely criticise it.
This was 1965... after only a dozen or so test flights ... By the time the F-111 had been redesigned, first to prevent intake surges on approach (that proved lethal) then to give it a fatigue life measured in days rather than a few hours, where were we exactly? 1980? 1984?
So remind me exactly how many years had transpired by the time that F-111 radar could be actually used in anger, should it have become necessary?
I should think quite enough time to have re-assessed navigational matters... though I admit that is not a sphere I have any great knowledge of, but the TSR-2 was a pretty healthy size; indeed, didn't it have good provision for a forward looking radar too, purportedly for terrain following?