I wonder at what point in the past Britain was considered to have been preeminent in aviation?
Structurally
Regarding the Comet, as every schoolboy (once knew) the Comet hull failures were caused by fatigue fractures starting at the corners of square cabin windows. Given that another part of British Industry had been safely making pressure vessels for years,- and knew enough to always make access ports with rounded corners - its astonishing that the clever boys at DH would not have looked to the boiler industry to see how a pressure vessel could be safely made.
It was nice of Britain to pass the results of their pressure chamber testing to the USA, but since Boeing had been succesfully building pressurised aircraft since 1943 one wonders how much they could learn from it.
Quality
It's been mentioned elsewhere how British aircraft of the fifties each tended to handle differently, because of inconsistent build dimensions and rigging angles, and at the time the original Nimrod hulls were being produced these kind of inconsistencies were still being built in - as we are regularly reminded by BAE whenever they need to exercise their excuses regarding MRA4 lateness.
Aerodynamics
Regarding the TSR2; a comparison with the NA Vigilante is interesting. This highly advanced aircraft made its first flight in 1958, the same year as the TSR2 proposal was tendered. The Vigilante specification is very close to that of the TSR2.
Vigilante/TSR2
Length ft 76/89
Wing area sqft 754/702
Payload Kg 13,000/9,000
Max speed Mach 2.0/2.15
Range, miles 1290/1150
Ceiling feet 52000/54000
Rate of climb ft/min8000/50000
Engines 2 x J79/2 x Olympus
Thrust Dry lbf 10900 each/19610 each
Thrust A/B 17000 each/30000each
Its also worth remembering that the Vigilante was a carrier capable aircraft.
A look at the numbers reveals that the TSR2 is only slightly superior in speed and ceiling. And inferior in payload and range. The only major advantage being in much increased rate of climb, 8000ft/min v 50,00ft/min. But this seems a dubious distinction in an aircraft intended for nap of the earth operation.
Regarding the engines, the Vigilante used the J79, as per the standard model F4 while TSR2 would have used Olympus, almost twice the thrust in both wet and dry modes. Just what had they done with all that extra power? - not much - so much for superior aerodynamics.
It's traditional at this point to trot out the argument about unwanted government interference in engineering matters, and indeed Sir George Edwards does have a grumble about this in his biography, they would have preferred to use the Medway, but were obliged to use the Olympus in order to make work for Bristol's. This is generally the nature of government interference, steering work to a particular section of the industry in response to lobbying from within that industry.
The Spey engined Phantom; a huge amount spent installing Speys in what had previously been one of the worlds greatest fighter aircraft.
F4J (J79 engines)/F4M (Spey)
Speed Mach 2.4/2.07
Initial ROC, ft/min 41250/32000
Ceiling ft 70000/60000
Maximum range miles 1956/1750
Despite the extra power, all performance numbers are reduced. (This is normally the point where Spey apologists cough and start muttering about clean burning exhaust and reduced visual signature)
Requirements Analysis
To turn to the airline side of things, it was traditional (as described in earlier posts) for British industry to latch onto a launch customer, and let them write a specification for them. Boeing, by contrast, would do a world wide market analysis and then produce a generic type, nobodys ideal case but still worth buying.
Britain, meanwhile, having built the aircraft around its launch customers specification, then whines because it ends up with an aircraft that is only ideally suited to that one customer, and further away from what the rest of the world wants than Boeing design derived from analysis.
In retrospect, in numerous coffee table books and the biographies of retired British planemakers the British aircraft industry is always the victim,- it never got a fair shake.
Perhaps, but for me it's always talked a better game than it ever played.
Last edited by Jetex Jim; 14th Feb 2008 at 21:18.
Reason: spelling