A betrayed industry?

Harry, you mention the Spitfire a few post back. It’s been said that Mitchell created the Spitfire with admirable prescience; he certainly produced something that would look good at post war airshows.

In the 30’s many elliptically shaped wing aircraft were proposed, the shape was seen as a good way of tackling the wing tip drag issue and while aesthetically pleasing it makes a wing difficult to produce – no-one ever produced an elliptically wing heavy bomber, although they were proposed, producing Spitfires was labour intensive enough.

The Battle of Britain, won, not by the Spitfire but by the following:

• Simple, robust Hurricanes –easy to fly for low time pilots, easy to repair using simple local level repair techniques. – The Spitfires with their complex compound panels were written off, far sooner than the Hurricane
• A fighter commanded that had practiced for the battle, to the exclusion of just about everything else for years.
• Radar and -the immediate post war accounts couldn’t relate this – the Bletchley Park Enigma intercepts that gave Britain the German order of battle for the next day

As the Germans say, ‘They are all cooking with water’ – everyone’s got aluminium, steel, rubber, manpower, yet one team made a beautiful point defence fighter that was a bugger to handle on the ground and a nightmare to repair, another team, at the cost of equivalent resources and fewer man hours made a fighter that could get to Berlin and back.

The British aircraft industry, in 1940, had to be shown by companies like Hoover and Electrolux, (when they were subcontracting for Avro and HP) how to produce properly toleranced engineering drawings for small, simple assemblies like bomb racks.

The appliance manufacturers had figured out a trick that the clever boys, the aeroplane builders, had missed – how to make up simple straightforward assemblies that could be bolted together by unskilled labour.

The British aircraft companies, with their fag packet engineering practices and labour intensive craft culture, operated more like Morgan and Aston Martin than volume manufacturers. Packard had to carry out a similar sanitisation exercise on the engineering drawings for the Merlin engine.

The Mosquito was a brilliant innovative solution. By the middle of the war, the aircraft industry was flat out producing complex aircraft like the Spitfire and a bomber fleet that was literally laden down by the complexity and weight of power operated turrets, which served little useful purpose as on night time raids few of the gunners ever saw a thing. With the wooden Mossie, at least cabinet makers could supplement the workforce.

Without diminishing the efforts of Frank Whittle, Germany did fly an aircraft with a turbine in it in the 1930’s. But Whittle’s struggle is a story so quintessentially British it might be Dickensian. Whittle got more support from the RAF than he did from the British engine manufacturers who stood to gain most by his invention. They held to the line that it was the governments job to support innovation. Small wonder then that the frustrated war time government gave American all the gas turbine knowledge.

Yes and British academics did produce innovations like the cavity magnetron and the pioneering work on digital computers by Turing. What a pity British engineering was so rarely capable of exploiting it.

By 1960 British aircraft industry was ripe for merging, too bad they had to be forced into it by the government of the day, but they’d hardly been that clever.

Now at last came a sustained period of profit for the merged UK aircraft industry, as the merged companies were able to divest them selves of the numerous airfields and manufacturing facilities, frequently in prime sites where property development would make for easy money.

And where are we now? At least what remains of UK aircraft manufacturing is (mainly) subject to adult supervision by its European partners, when it’s not, as in MRA4, watch your pockets.

JJ, Quite right and of course it didn't finish there. Every V-bomber was unique too.

When Hawker Siddley, or was it BAeS, got the Victor K2 Conversion programme they could have done with you analysis. They used one Victor as a template and made wing templates from it. Unfortunately all he wing attachments they made for the fleet would only fit one aircraft.

The Vulcan had an offset doppler bay. The distance of the bay centre line from aircraft centreline varied by about an inch.

I believe there was a similar issue with the MRA4.

The video clip of the assembly of a B737 anc conversion to an elint fit was beautiful. No hammering, twisting etc, everything seemed to click fit.

Harry,

You moved the arguement slightly. In the early 60s the CND was a significant political movement and the Labour party in 1964 had every expectation that the Bomb would be scrapped when they got in to power. The Tories believed that too. Once he had the key Harold went very softly softly on our intentions. At one point I handled a Secret letter that I was not allowed to read. It was then deemed not to be merely Secret but was upgraded to Top Secret at which point I was allowed to read it. It had been upgraded for just one reason and one word. No, nuclear was very sensitive, especially as the Polaris programme was also underway, the TSR2's bomb development continued and a fair bit of its kit too.

"no-one ever produced an elliptically wing heavy bomber..."

Heinkel 111?

I think its stretching it a bit to call the He111 a heavy bomber,

or for that matter eliptically winged

http://www.raf.mod.uk/Bob1940/images/he111_3vw.gif

Print - yes please
 

Are you able to send them to Australia?

My Dad worked on the TSR2 (was involved in the design of the reconnaissance pack). He doesn't talk about it much, but I seem to have inherited aviation genes so I'd be interested in the print.

Thanks

Dingbat

TSR.2 drop tanks?
 

Hello everyone

Were there any under-wing drop tanks designed specifically for the TSR.2, or did development not get that far advanced?

I see that one of the aircraft modelling mags produced a resin set of 450 gallon drop tanks, as well as a 1,435 gallon ventral conformal tank. Is this based on anything 'official', or just an educated guess?

Many thanks

Simon




(was going to post this on the TSR.2 prints thread, but thought I'd keep it separate)

And we don't allow multiple posts!

Absolutely! Have sent them there before.

But..........sad to say, it will cost an extra £2 and I will send it by air mail.

I await your cheque - but not Oz dollars. US are OK but I prefer something that doesn't mean loss in the exchange process.

Thanks,

PPP

Jim, It wasn't specifically the elliptical nature of the wing I was thinking of, although the wing did turn out to be approximately elliptical for other reasons... the 8 gun midwing fitment. Read the history of its genesis, and this will become apparent. Mitchell even said so emphatically, when accused of copying the Heinkel's (He177?) elliptical planform... the aerodyanamic benefits came as a secondary effect, and they aren't quite so strong as people imagine, a reasonable ratio straight taper wing gives a very close approximation to elliptical lift distribution.

...'twas actually the overall way it was originally designed (for evaporative cooling) with those big l.e. D-boxes (subsequently, and bit by bit as the years went by, turned into fuel tanks) - just luvverly the way things work out. 'twas also the wing spar construction ... and yes, 'twas also the many changes between prototype and production.

One could hardly expect Supermarine's to have created an in-house mass production-line setup by 1938/9 as "The first Supermarine landplane design to go into production was the famous and successful Spitfire."

The lack of large orders for mil aircraft between the wars, even approaching WWII, was probably the biggest reason for no-one in their right mind to have reason to expect plain sailing when enormous numbers of aircraft with completely new all-metal monocoque construction were required in a hurry... but surprised they were, as you seem to be too :rolleyes:
Its not they couldn't draw or wouldn't, literally, the draughtsmen nor the crafstmen were just not a round in that industry in the numbers required..

Whilst there's merit in pointing out the debt we owe the Hurricane and Hawker's bold decision to lay a production-line down early, with their own money, before the obvious occurred to the Ministry (that we would need monoplane fighters of high performance and lots of them!)...

.. this is however sometimes overplayed, as Alex Henshaw pointed out in his lovely book, 'Sigh for a Merlin', recalling the moment he finished testing the last of more than 3,000 Spitfires he had flown in over a period 6 years ...

More than that, with the sudden appearance of the FW-190, only one machine we had could re-assert any allusion to equivalence, let alone superiority in the air - the Spitfire, in Mk IX form, and then the first Griffon powered Marks which consolidated the position.

12,000 came out of Castle Bromwich and were flight tested under his stewardship, so they certainly weren't 'hand-built' after June 1940, when he flew the very first production Mk II from there. This was as much a joint effort between Supermarine's and the motor industry as anyone else's input... and largely, very little had to be done to any of them despite being test flown to extremely harrowing limits. The largest problem was engines, with first the (ominous and hated) sudden bevel gear failures and then the Packards, that had a bad habit of seizing pistons, then propellor problems (incredibly frightening). The airframe was almost entirely as good as gold through every Mark, with the final PR version having been calculated as reaching over M 0.9 in an unplanned dive from over 50,000' - without breaking up.

With substantially the same wing design, 3 times the internal fuel, twice the climb rate and 25% greater speed (exactly 100mph greater at 27,000') than the Mark 1. Probably about twice the max take-off weight too...

So not only did it play a vital role in the Battle of Britain, but a whole 5 years later, its last incarnation could climb to 40,000' faster than the brand new Sea Fury (just over 10 minutes for the Spit)

I say again, only a few brave and enlightened souls made sure that this absolutely vital machine got the support and focus it needed for commitment to high-volume production - one being the very same Sir Wilfred Freeman who did the same for the Mosquito.

So lucky we didn't need the TSR2 - so very easy to see in retrospect!

While I agree this is all fascinating, and the stuff of which hundreds of books have been written. The subjects have been very well covered before so please keep to the topic.

If you wish to use search you will find the other topics and you can continue there.

Thank you.

PPP

This is a very thought-provoking assessment of the relative merits of the TSR-2 project using the Tornado and F-111 as reference points - from an Australian perspective!

http://www.ausairpower.net/Profile-BAC-TSR.2.html

Mountbatten and his Mrs.
 

They were both AC/DC

:) Well, one of them liked Buccaneers...

Carl Kopp’s article (in Australian Airpower) contains a vivid description of the TSR2 mission profile

Quote:

---

The TSR.2 has been described as aerodynamically a Mach 3 aircraft, built with materials to a Mach 2+ specification. A nominal mission profile for the TSR.2 would involve an afterburning takeoff and 5,000 ft/min climb to 23,000 ft, followed by a Mach 0.92 dry cruise climb to 26,000 ft. At 630 NM, afterburning thrust would be selected again, and a Mach 1.7 climb to 50,000 ft initiated upon entering hostile airspace. The TSR.2 would then dive at Mach 1.7 down to low level, where it would decelerate to its TF 600 kt/200 ft AGL penetration mode. The aircraft was cleared to TF at Mach 1.2 / 200 ft AGL.

---

I’m not sure how Kopp can say it was cleared to Terrain Follow at Mach 1.2/200ft AGL. - Having a design goal is one thing, having an aircraft that will do it (here dependent on fully functional mission avionics) is quite another, many development hours separate the two.

For me the TSR2 will always be the James Dean of aircraft, there are great historical advantages in being cut down early, memories and pictures always record beautiful youth, the Marlon Brando style conclusion is never reached.

JJ: the Marlon Brando style conclusion is never reached. Superb!

Think he means it was a spec. point, though nearer M .9 was to be used for any serious time at that height. From what we know the airframe and engines would've been capable, and the question remains about the avionics. Of course, remember that we had an industry then un-ravaged by cancellations and consequent serious brain drains... you may be judging by latter day achivements (or apparent lack of them).

Then, what is terrain following at 200ft? certainly not over the Alps!

Let's all just agree that team, in that era, had proved they could build exceptional aircraft, had done twice before, looked like they'd done it again (which was seriously pissing off Wislon and his sycophants Mountbatten, Zuckermann, and the anti-nuclear press as the test programme started ramping up) and that it was our best chance at that critical time and just simply shouldn't have been cancelled.
Remind yourselves it had a total programme cost of £750m and had consumed about £125m at that point.. a lot of which was down to the govt. and civil service itself ordaining how it should be done and with what engines.

Personally, I can see from the way it was going then, the disparate design teams finally gelling, the untold committess being told to get thee hence once it was flying; that there is much less reason to doubt it would have been fully capable than the converse.

So to be a detractor in hindsight without any real foundation, seems just as ridiculous, more so, than being an optimist, with some considerable foundation... the F-111 got there (eventually, :bored:), so I expect TSR-2 would have too, and from everything Beamont said (and that's a lot) there's no way it would have needed a complete redesign like F-111.

In conclusion, cheap as chips for what we were getting (a terrifically capable aircraft and industry rather than a few tank shell targets and the loss of an industry).

It is indeed a mad, mad world... eulogy to TSR-2 (Video credits Sonicbomb) as this was the pinnacle of UK aeronautical achievement, and at the time, the best in the world by a long, long way.

Technicians know what they know; engineers also know what they don't know
(whilst politicians and historians equivocate...)

and every decoding is yet another encoding.

Do you accept Paypal as payment for the print?

Thanks

John

Great post, reminds me of the Avro Arrow. It's too bad that politics get involved.

kstater94, sorry I do not accept PayPal. I will accept USD slightly above the current exchange rate to cover bank charges if that will help, which I think is about 6%.

PPP

P Pop

Great picture and my cheque's in the post(!). As with several posts here I was lucky enough to see her fly, only once, from the end of the runway at BD. I was small but the noise impressed. My father worked at BD for all but about 3 years (when he went to Bristols) of his career & also taught in ground school at TPS. My brother and I spent may happy hours up at the 'track' by the threshold for 23 watching all the different types - Herc, Argosy, Lightning, Phantom, Bucc, Hunter, Victor, Harrier, Andover, even the Varistab Bassett. Ironically, given the politicking which led to TSR2's demise, when somewhat older we spent one summer watching the 111s from the States which were based there for one of the big NATO exercises.

G

re. ...
 

... a link to my TSR.2 resource page, might be of interest, feel free to post or add anything of possible interest ...

TSR.2 Research Group

cheers, Joe Cherrie