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Old 7th Feb 2008, 07:50
  #67 (permalink)  
HarryMann
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
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On a technical note and because of the comparison with the swing-wing F-111 makes it even more fascinating...

.. and not many people know this

The TSR-2 may well have originally been conceived, to reduce low altitude/high-speed gust response still further, with a variable 'pitch' wing mounting.

That is, the wing could pivot about its aerodynamic centre in pitch, to a small extent.

Look at a GA of the wing planform, and you will see chordwise panel lines at the outboard edge of the engine intakes, where they effectively meet the fuselage.

A very novel idea (and a potentially weighty one) to have a main spar pivot bearing through the fuselage.

I have read of this only once, in a reasonably authoritative appraisal of the aircraft, and could only conclude that once a reasonable w/t adn theoretical analysis of its gust-response had been made and found satisfactory, and due to its controversial nature, the idea was dropped thereafter or hushed up, being subsequently built with the potential for it, but without the hardware in place.

Those early test-flight certainly seemed to confirm to WC Beamont and the test programme, that nothing quite as smooth as this in thick air and rough weather had taken to the skies before...

Also, earlier, there was a suggestion that the cockpit was isolated from the airframe for much the same low-level gust response reasons... wheras in fact, I believe, it was simply that some very good resonance analysis had allowed the EE design team to place the pilot at a resonance node, rather than an anti-node.

More evidence that a design team far in advance of others, was destroyed by 'mindless meddling' by all concerned in its cancellation...

Yes, we could not really afford to build it ...

But equally, and so it proved, it probably cost the country dearly...

The same has happened in govt software acquistion now... having destroyed the teams who could, then 'buy in' contractors efforts that can't!
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