TSR-2 (Merged a few times)
 

Any ideas on what really caused TSR 2 to be not only cancelled when pretty well ready for production, but jigs broken up? It was over budget, but by then the money was spent and the rewards were about ready to be reaped.

We've heard all the conspiracy theories - but can any one throw any real light on this apparent mystery?

SSD

Mr Sheep Driver,
Have you read "Project Cancelled" by Derek Wood it gives a good oversight of the whole sorry affair. And If memory serves he also raises the interesting point that when BAC offered to use the TSR2's that were completed for flying test beds for the Concorde programme they were told in no uncertain terms that this would not happen under any circumstance.

I also recomend reading "The Murder of TSR2" by Stephen Hastings if you can get hold of a copy. My grandfather was working for Rolls Royce at the time and the cancellation really upset him.
Politics was the problem, the Americans didn't want the British selling a bomber that could compete with and beat the F-111. I believe that when the project was cancelled the RAF was meant to buy F-111s which they never did and when they eventually got Tornadoes in the 80s the aircraft were not really more capable than TSR-2 would have been if produced 10 years earlier!
A great tradgedy, yet again British designers came up with a world beater and didn't get the backing!

Not read either book, but I have a video on TSR2. On it, Dennis Healy says "wasn't me gov, and I don't know who it was" when asked who ordered the jigs to be destroyed.

There were rumours that Healy wanted US backing for UK to get an IMF loan, and cancellation was the price the US demanded. But this is the conspiracy theory - anyone know anything concrete?

SSD

I haven't read the books either but I do remember sitting on a airfield in 1968, listening to two Boscome Down test pilots discussing it (anything was better than trying to teach me to fly).

They said that the reason that it was scrapped was that it would not do what it was meant to do - fly to Moscow supersonic at low level and return. It could not carry enough fuel.

The same thing applied to the F111 which is why we didn't buy that either.

They could both do the trip just subsonic but the Buccaneer could do that better than either of them. This was why the Buccaneer was transferred from the Navy to the RAF.

As I said, this was the informed opinion of some current RAF test pilots at the time. I do remember reading a novel at about this time which seemed to be based on the TSR2 and, to stop the Soviet's cunning plan to takeover the West, the Brits had to demonstrate that they could deliver a bomb into Red Square. They used the TSR2 knowing it could not get back, and then quickly pick up the crew from a crash landing in the North Sea to show that they had returned. Can't remember the author bu it might have been James Beatty.

Unfortunately as the TSR-2 did not complete it's test program and go into service I guess we will never know if it would have done the job it was designed to do. Military aircraft rarely if ever enter service at their full design potential and improvements are made during the production run and retrofitted to earlier airframes. I am sure this would also have been the case with the TSR-2.

I remember visiting Boscombe Down in 196? as an air cadet. We were allowed to scramble all over a TSR2, and I vividly recall a mock heraldic device had been pencilled on the fuselage with the motto "Harold Wilson's Folly'.
The whole navigation and weapons system was analogue, so must have weighed a fair bit. With a digital update it might have done what it was designed to.
There was a rumour that a couple of airframes were kept in a flyable condition for some time after they were all supposedly scuttled.
The design of the Jaguar also seemed to have borrowed many of the TSR2's characteristics, albeit on a smaller scale.

The aircraft was certainly good enough. Without wanting to disclose matters which are probably still classified, the range of the Vulcan was also pretty limited if you are talking about an out-and-return flight....

TSR2 was murdered by Wilson, Brown and Healey. It had been mortally wounded by Mountbottom with his love for all things Navy and support for the infinitely less capable Buccaneer. When government support was looking chancy, the airships of the time lacked sufficient spine to do the decent thing - and last of all BAC should have refused to comply with the decision to destroy all evidence of the aircraft's existence.

A quite appalling episode; the aircraft wasn't perfect and was difficult to fly at low speed, I am told - but then so was the Buccaneer. However, TSR2 had immense potential. The scrapping of all jigs, destruction of plans etc was carried out so that the decision was irreversible.

Whenever I see a picture of those bumbling Labour idioits, I have a burning desire to kick them hard in the slats!

Ok - I'd like to toss a fairly large spanner in here now.

I am old enough to remember the TSR2 (but only just) and the uproar when it was canned. Since then, I have been given the impression that the TSR2 was the answer to all our prayers.

So with the passage of time and hoping that there are a few ppruners who were closer to the project than I was, (at school), I'd like to pose the question.

Just how good was the TSR2?


PS - I think it was a superb aircraft.

When I was with 'Bee' Beamont at the signing of our TSR2 prints for the PPRuNe Fund (we still have plenty if anyone wants one - £35 inc p&p) in April of last year. I had the opportunity to discuss the TSR2 with Bee and his anger at the project being cancelled, though controlled, was discernible. He could never understand it. When I asked him what its potential was, where it would be today, if it had been completed he said "it would be still be operational and there would never have been a need for Tornado at all". I also asked him what speed it would have achieved if the trials had continued on and he quickly said "mach 2.35".

I was accompanied by New Bloke in a hotel in Wilton, near Salisbury, for the signing, and we were both in awe of this man so simply called 'Bee' - but we also knew that we were in the prescence of one of the greatest aviators this country had.

As BEAgs says it was a gentleman whose name I hardly like to utter who sold TSR2 down the river. What a terrible thing to have happened.

BEAgs. I thought it was Callaghan, Jenkins and Healy. They are the ones Bee like to hate most anyway.

Btw, our prints of TSR2 were the last prints that Bee ever signed.

Echoing the comments above...

TSR2 was before my time...but I have to comment that maybe there was something wrong with the design...hence the embarrased scrapping of the project and all the jigs etc...not saying there was but be nice to know more...

Anyone out there work on the project?

There was nothing wrong with the project. Things happened that happen with any new design and prototype. Bee said that this aircraft was an absolute winner - had the government given it the support it deserved, and BAC deserved.

The scrapping of the project WAS an embarrassment to the government. They also committed an act of sheer vandalism by giving instructions that all the jigs, mock-ups and documents connected with the project should be destroyed. With much outstanding cash to be paid to the contractors, they were ordered to destroy them or forfeit their payments. Not much of a choice was it! This act of destruction was done to prevent the Conservative government resurrecting the project if they returned to power. How's that for wilful destruction?

There are several sites with news of TSR2 and its sudden demise. But I find this one particularly close to the truth.
http://www.aemann.demon.co.uk/aircra...tish/tsr2.html

When 'politicians' meddle in aviation the results are often less than optimal. Anyone spot what the following debacles have in common?
1. TSR-2 cancellation?
2. Government promotion of the SR 177 instead of the Lightning?
which ruined its prospects of selling into the countries that bought the 104
3. Cancellation of the Miles M.52?
4. The belief that missiles were going to do the work of aircraft so lets cancel loads of 'unneccesary' projects?

answers on a postcard please:confused:

Beags is correct to say that Mountbatten drove the final nail in the coffin. He went on a state visit to Australia. At the time the Aussies were looking at the TSR2, against a US offer of F111 and Herc package. The Aussies were known to favour TSR2, but Mountbatten knew that if they took the US option, it would kill off the project. He told the Australians that in all probability TSR2 would be cancelled.

The Aussies couldn't wait around forever, so decided to cut their losses and accept the immediately available US deal. This gave the labour gov the chance they had been waiting for and used the Aussie cancellation to re-inforce the non-viability of the aircraft.

:mad:

TSR2 leftover bits
 

Well, I definitively wasn't around at that time, but that doesn't relieve me of the feeling of having missed something great.

Although the jigs for the TSR2 were destroyed as ordered, there are some leftover bits still around. Having spent some time around the Brooklands museum I know of a corner there where you can find quite a few concrete blocks lying in the brush. They look innocent but they are formers that were used to create the skin panels of the TSR2. It looks as though they were just dumped in a corner, which may not be all too far from the truth I guess....

And for the really adventurous ones amongst us: there is a rumour, or so I've been told, that one airframe has not been accounted for after the destroying was done. The rumour goes a bit further and speculates that it was buried somewhere at Brooklands! It would be great of course if this was to be true, but then, I'm not holding my breath (or buying a metal detector) yet.

TSR 2
 

I visited Duxford about 3 years ago. In one of the hangers they have a TSR 2 which looks complete, I think it was used as a instructional airframe.

Also don't underestimate Lord Mountbattens input which contributed to the demise of TSR 2. He was on a vist to Australia in 64 when the Ozzies were looking for a Canberra replacement - he told them that TSR2 was disaster and would never be procured which lead to the selection of the F111 for the RAAF.

Of course this had nothing to do with the RN's carrier CVN1 competing for funds with TSR2.

Some good friends of mine used to work at Broadlands, Mountbottom's home before he was murdered by the IRA.

I was down there visiting them once when I was struggling at the Buccaneer OCU - and was introduced to Mountbottom as being in the RAF. "A flier?", he asked. "Yes, sir- Buccaneers", I replied (keeping my back firmly against the wall). "Really? An excellent Naval design. Enjoying it?" "Well, they're not too bad. But they were the RAF's fourth choice after the brilliant TSR2 was killed off by incompetent idiots and then the F-111 and AFVG went the same way", said I (we'd had a pretty good liquid lunch.......)

"Nice to have met you" mumbled Mountbottom - and promptly turned away......

I WAS around at the time of the cancellation and fumed about it mightily. However, at that time I hadn't been exposed to the excruciating activities of the 555 committees and the ability of the P E to modify a basically good design into a 'dog'. It may well have been that TSR2 could have withstood such inputs but we'll never know.
What I did note at the time was the frequent correspondence from one particular reader in 'Flight' magazine decrying the aircraft and its concept. These letters naturally ceased at the time of cancellation and, as far as I know, the particular gentleman has never ventured into aviation correspondence since.
"Curiouser and curiouser", said Alice. :confused:

I know where the 'Duxford' airframe was in 1971. At a show in the SE, after a bit of a liquid lunch, I was asked if I 'could keep a secret' - after swearing on the latest Pooley guide that I could, I was ushered into a hangar and there it was. Seemed not a big deal to me at the time, but then nothing does when you're young.....

TSR2
 

As I understand it, the only reason the Duxford TSR2 survived was that some forward thinking manager at the Shoeburyness gunnery range had the foresight to "lose" this airframe at the far end of the site and cover it with a tarpaulin till the heat died down. How true I don't know but it makes a good tale.
Apparently it had the computing power of a first generation laptop. Imagine what it could still do with modern refits. It still looks the business and is a monument to the view that politicians don't have the first idea about aircraft procurement. Can anyone tell me who the current Minister is? Bet he doesn't even have a PPL

I guess most of you will already know this, but there are two TSR2s still with us:
The second airframe is complete and preserved at Cosford, while Duxford has the fourth (or fifth, I'm not sure) airframe which is unfortunately not complete. It lacks engines and a lot of internal stuff, but it still looks the part though!

In addition to these two airframes the Brooklands Museum has a TSR2 cockpit section that was used for pressurization testing.

TSR-2
 

The TSR-2 at Cosford is in good nik. It never flew because it was damage while it was being transported. By the time it was fixed it was to late. I used to work on the Cosford one when I worked at the museum before I joined the RAF. Iwas lucky enough to chat to "Bee" when he visited the museum. We were stood next to the beast and I was in awe.

Another good book worth a read is "TSR-2 Phoenix or Folly?" by Frank Barnett-Jones ISBN 1 870384 27 X

Tonks

Mountbatten...........

A few posts ago BEAgle commented on 'Mountbottom'. A very apt title for the man in my view.

The Daily Mail last week came up with the 100 WORST Britons.

There was one 'nominated' by Simon Heffer:

That just about sums up my opinion of him too. I also suspect that 'Bee' Beamont is sitting on cloud somewhere, grinning from ear to ear.

People I once knew told me about the way he handled HMS Kelly. Not totally brilliant, I understand.

However, decency prevents me commenting further on the man himself. For it was on this very day in 1979 that he was murdered by Irish terrorists.

It is the Nostalgia forum I know, but Bill Waterton convinced me that a tp should always tell the truth regardless.

I always thought they were right to cancel these four as I believed they had fundemental flaws:

TSR2 Not enough wing

P1154 Exhaust gas pressures and temps too high to allow
any operating site flexibility (which iswhat VSTOL has
to be all about)

AW681 Helicopters would do the tactical support job more
cheaply and reliably

Rotordyne The noise of a tip jet driven rotor was never going
be acceptable in city centres

Mind you I realise they were not cancelled for these reasons

But JF, do you think that Camm's TSR2 competitor, the P1129, would have fared any better with the Air Staffs and government of the day?

Perhaps it was the fault of the Air Staffs of the day in demanding that aircraft such as TSR2 and P1154 were to be so cutting edge? Whereas Camm's rather more conservative P1129 and P1150 would perhaps have had an easier gestation?

I've heard another tp suggest that the TSR2 was a $od at low speed, but wonderful above 350 KIAS. Was the wing too small - or the effort to obtain a clever Cl alpha curve too clever for its own good?

But it still looks terrific!!

BEags. Cor that lot would take a book and a lot more info than I possess to answer your specifics with any certainty.

Some minor comments. Whatever the shape of the lift curve there is the matter of wing area. Without that the whole thing has to work too hard. The Vulcan (ah!) is the only aeroplane I have ever flown where I never felt short of wing. The aerodynamics (nothing else) of the TSR2 always looked too much like those of the 104 to me and that was a specialist interceptor design where much (everything?) was sacrificed for speed.

I think interservice rivalry certainly played a part in the poor contractor performance that eventually resulted in many cancellations. (P1154 for one) Then too many designers finish up designing what they want to do rather than what would be most use for the chap in the crewroom. Too many designers get a good idea about a new whatever and press on with it without thinking the whole thing through. The bottom three in my list are classic examples of that. Perhaps its human nature at work – the navigator who sees four things on his map that fit the place under the nose beautifully and chooses to ignore the one feature that does not fit - type of behaviour.

Certainly in that period of history service staffs tended to hear of a new thing and automatically just add it to the aircraft they were considering like mum wanting an extra for her car just because she has heard about it. But then many of the OR staffs were not educated or trained to know better, so we must not lay too much at their door. More the system that gave them the responsibility without the training.

Sorry I’ve had a bad day!

Sorry you've had a rough day, John!

TSR2 had an aspect ratio of 1.97. Vey, very flat lift curve slope as a result. No snag when you're going at the spped of heat and there's plenty of V squared to compensate for the lack of Cl and S, but a real trial at low speed, particularly when you've got as much wing as a plucked fly. So much cleverness needed in the sucky squeezy blowy department and some very clever flappery to try to stop it falling out of the sky and to try to make it fly acceptably well enough on the approach for the pilot to be able to see the runway threshold over the nose during landing!

All the shots of TSR2 on the approach give the impression that it was pretty awkward to fly in that regime. Long flat approaches with very high incidence angles and hight thrust settings.

Apart from the shots of 'Bee' wazzing Warton at 420KIAS+ !!

John. If you are going to have any more bad days let me know. Somehow you are at your best. ;) Great double act with BEAgs there.

Didn't understand it! But it was good. ;)

JF

Don't think the 104 was an interceptor design. Gun armed air superiority fighter more like. Only later fitted with AI radar. Used by the RCAF in a ground support role. Most unsuitable.

Flash

I’m sure you are right. The prototype 104’s did have an APG-34 fire control radar but I accept that is not AI stuff. Back then (the ‘50s) we considered an interceptor to be a fighter designed to get as far away from base in the direction of the incoming raid as quickly as possible while the location of the target was entirely by following the fighter controllers instructions based on his ground radar. Speed and time to height was all that mattered. I’ll go back to my deck chair now.

JF

I think that the Canadian version had a full AI radar in it. It didn't have the Hardcore afterburner mod. It was also designed for ground support. I don't think it did either well. When it was sold to the West German Air Force in the '60s I am told they nicknamed it Canada's Revenge as it accounted for more GAF pilots than were ever shot down by Canadians during WW2.

I knew a German Luftwaffe Pilot, a General he was, and when I asked him why so many F104's crashed his answer was: "when you have so many you are bound to have more crashes than anyone else!" Well, you have to admit it was a novel answer. Far removed from actuality I fancy.

I've been told that the easiest way to acquire a luftwaffe Starfighter was to buy an acre of farmland in Germany....................and wait.

F104
 

I thought the germans liked these in the ground attack role because -

a) the high wingloading meant it was very stable and smooth on the deck.

b) it had a low RCS.

c) it was very fast on the deck.

I've been told that the easiest way to acquire a luftwaffe Starfighter was to buy an acre of farmland in Germany....................and wait.

The same was said about the Jaguar in Scotland.......

Oops, we've wandered off a bit here, but I must add my 104 piece. Back in the 70's the papers were full of F-104 Widowmaker stories; and of course the WGAF/WGN did lose a lot of 'em. But, as was said, with 800+ (I think) aircraft, it translated to a loss percentage in the low 20's.

By loss rate comparison, more Lightnings were lost in accidents (About 27% if my memory serves correctly) Another factor was that German pilots were (and still are) trained in the clear blue skies of Arizona initially; then they zoom about in the low level clag that covers Europe - of course they crash a lot!

Anyway, back to the TSR2; wasn't the one at Duxford used by Cranfield for years? I did read 'Project Cancelled' and it actually brought tears to my eyes just to think of what could have been - of course prototypes don't always live up to promises, that's what development is all about. Looking at the military aircraft that are still about today (F-111, B-52, KC-135, et al) it shows what can be achieved over the years - they must bear hardly any resemblance to their original versions, except in the purely visual form.

At least the HS681 got built - it just took twenty years and a name change to the BAe146!!!!!

Yes, the Duxford airframe was at Cranfield in the early 70's.

Nopax
Some confusion at the end of your post I suspect. The AW681 was a VSTOL transport that used Pegasi.

The Starfighter had its origin in a November 1952 unsolicited proposal by Lockheed for a lightweight and unsophisticated air-superiority fighter. Johnson had visited Korea in December of 1951, and while there he had talked to fighter pilots then flying in combat over North Korea. He asked them what kind of fighter plane would be ideal. Their general consensus was that the trend toward ever-increasing weight and complexity had gotten completely out of hand, and they would gladly trade in their existing fighters for a lighter, less costly fighter with clearly superior speed, ceiling, climb rate, and maneuverability.

Even though the Air Force had no official requirement for such a fighter, Johnson was nevertheless authorized by Lockheed management to proceed with an initial private venture design.

In late 1952, Lockheed presented an unsolicited proposal to the Air Force. Even though the USAF did not have a standing requirement for such a fighter, they thought sufficiently highly of the general idea that they issued a General Operational Requirement in December 1952 for a lightweight air-superiority fighter to replace the North American F-100 in TAC beginning in 1956 followed by a contract.

By the time that the F-104A was finally ready for delivery, requirements had changed and TAC lost interest. However, there were delays in the delivery of the F-106 to Air Defense Command, and the USAF decided to accept the F-104A and assign them to ADC as a stopgap measure. The high climb rate made it attractive and it was hoped that they could fill in until the F-106 became available. The aircraft were fitted with the interim AN/ASG-14T-1 radar fire control system until it could be replaced by the more capable AN/ASG-14T-2.

However, Its short range was a problem for North American air defense, and its lack of all-weather capability made it incapable of operating in conjunction with the SAGE. Service with the ADC was consequently brief, and they were replaced by the end of 1960.

They were transferred to three ANG squadrons, the 151st, 157th and 197th FIS. These three squadrons were called up for active duty during the Berlin crisis of 1961 and were deployed to Europe. Following the end of the Berlin crisis, thee squadrons returned to the USA in 1962. The F-104As, however, were retained by the USAF and were transferred to two ADC units, the 319th and 331st FIS at Homestead AFB.

The last USAF squadron to operate the F-104A, the 319th, was disbanded in December of 1969.

The F-104C was the tactical strike version of the Starfighter. It was designed to meet the needs of (TAC), which had earlier found the F-104A to be unacceptable because of its low endurance and its inability to carry significant offensive payloads. AC felt that it needed a supersonic tactical strike fighter to fill the void between the F-100C and the F-105 Thunderchief.

The F-104C carried a removable refuelling probe, thus allowing the range to be extended and was designed tactical nuclear weapons on a centerline pylon, which could alternatively carry a 225-US gallon droptank. Equipped from the start with the AN/ASG-14T-2 fire control system, the F-104C was capable of operating in clear night as well as day conditions, although it was not truly capable of all-weather operations. The internal 20-mm rotary cannon of the F-104A was retained, as was the ability to carry a Sidewinder on each wingtip.

The first F-104Cs entered service in 1958 with the 479th TFW in the nuclear strike and ground attack role.

In 1961, the F-104Cs were modernized with the addition of hardpoints which enabled an additional pair of Sidewinders to be mounted underneath the fuselage. They were also given the ability to carry and deliver a larger variety of air-to-ground weapons. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, they were deployed to Key West, Florida to protect against attack on the USA. They were also tasked to carry out air strikes against targets in Cuba in case an invasion proved to be necessary. Whether these would have been conventional or nuclear is not known.

In 1965, a squadron of the 479th deployed to Da Nang Air Base in South Vietnam. Their job was to fly MiGCAP to protect bombers from attack by North Vietnamese fighters. They flew these missions armed with their 20-mm cannon and four AIM-9 Sidewinders. Unfortunately, the range of the F-104C was too short to make it a useful escort fighter, a fact which the North soon discovered. They simply waited for the F-104s to turn back before launching their own fighters in safety.

On September 20, 1965, An aircraft was shot down over Hainan Island by a pair of Chinese MiG-19s. The navigation system had failed whilst on MiGCAP over the Gulf of Tonkin and the pilot had gotten lost. He ejected and was taken prisoner. While the rest of the squadron was out looking for him, two other F-104s had a midair collision while returning to their base and both their pilots were killed. A week later, another aircraft was shot down by enemy AAA, and its pilot was killed.

After these four losses, the remnants of the 479th were rotated back to the USA. A new contingent of F-104Cs returned to Vietnam in 1966. This time, all four squadrons of the 479th TFS were involved and were assigned to Udorn Thailand. These F-104Cs were mainly tasked against ground targets in the CAS role. The F-104C proved unsuited for the ground attack role, due to their low range and inadequate weapon load and were replaced by F-4Ds in July 1967. The 479th was then rotated back home.

Following their withdrawal from Vietnam, the surviving F-104Cs were transferred to the Puerto Rico ANG. They were replaced by A-7Ds in 1975.

The Joy of High Tech - Paean to the F-104