A lot of those computers would have been analogue or hybrid devices - only 20 years later being re-fitted with full digital systems...
Why are we talking about inlets when the TSR-2 already had what it needed, it wasn't designed with a complex shock-recovery variable geometry ramp system, but moveable conical inlets... and they obviously worked OK.
Diving into a whole new realm of digitisation of this that and the other function, prematurely, when analogue circuits or clever fundamental design ruling out it's necessity would suffice has admittedly dogged countless aviation projects... UK Chinook acquisition for one!
A first class airframe was still the pre-requiste then, and I don't believe the RAF would have too much trouble getting it to target, with whatever stage of development the nav systens were in... they'd certainly been thought about a lot, and a lot of pre-planning had been done, by big brains that weren't then trying to achieve the impossible - or that overly flattered themselves, despite their achievements. You can see some of them standing by the crew-ladder towards the end of the video linked on the first page...
Far too much speculation on the negative side I fear... it's not like we weren't in on the ground floor with radar development in this country, is it!
JtxJim ====
You can't stop~start that sort of development momentum too often, you lose the good guys and like as not we did...
Here are some projects that almost certianly suffered from cancellation of TSR2
Olympus data and development for Concorde
Aerodynamic data and development for Concorde
Nimrod AEW...
All subsequent miljets obviously suffered from some lack of continuity in design and engineering expertise carryover.
Yes, there was immmesne pressure from the US to cancel TSR-2 ~ from McNamara (if that's how you spell it).. .
Have you read the supersonic Miles M52 story about the all-moving tailplane ?
Tube Alloys reaearch and manpower
Whittles work (all handed over even before the thing had left the ground for the first time
Cavity Magnetron
All these things and more were conceded by the uk govt. in appeasement of so-called shortcomings in repayment of war loans, something we were still paying dearly for in 1965.
Last edited by HarryMann; 8th Feb 2008 at 22:48.