Canadian alternative to F-35

[Valiantone]

I spotted this on Fighter Control.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLLW...ature=youtu.be

I swear I can vaguely recall an article in one of the aviation magazines in the early 80s by someone contemplating putting the TSR.2 back into production

V1

[kbrockman]

Give the task to Dan Cooper, he'll bring it into fruition.

[Roland Pulfrew]

I swear I can vaguely recall an article in one of the aviation magazines in the early 80s by someone contemplating putting the TSR.2 back into production

You can indeed. I remember reading the articles in my school library (probably when I should have been revising). They were, IIRC, in Air Pictorial magazine; they ran a series over 2 or 3 (or was it 4?) months. I found a copy of the magazines in the Shrivenham library a while ago, I may even have a copy of the articles somewhere.

[Martin the Martian]

I liked the comment by the retired senior officer that the Arrow is still better than anything that has come since. I'm sure that anybody who has flown an F-4, F-14, F-15, F-16, F-18, F-22, MiG-29, Su-27, Typhoon, Rafale etc would agree.

Just let it go, guys. It was sixty years ago, for crying out loud.

[NITRO104]

I think the biggest issue in front of the Canadian gvt. right now is defining the aircraft's gender in ORD.

[milosbanshee]

there was a short-lived suggestion during the Falklands war that the existing TSR2 museum airframes should be "finished off" using Olympus engines borrowed from British Airways's Concordes, and avionics lifted from Tornado F2. The idea was that they would fly from Ascension and fly fighter patrols over the islands. There was a short article about it in - I think - Flight International.
Happily the idea quickly came to nothing

[msbbarratt]

There's also the point that whilst an old design may or may not be as fast and exciting as a modern design, it's still going to need a modern weapons system. And without a sniff of stealthiness it's going to be pretty vulnerable to someone else's weapons system.

If we scrubbed the F35 and started all over again such a programme would still involve a weapon system along the lines of the F35's and stealthy designs. Thing is you might then end up with a marinised F22 and an updated, slightly cubist Harrier...

[glad rag]

all of which is irrevelent if you were to produce a product with a performance step up comparable to the SR 71when it was introduced....

[msbbarratt]

all of which is irrevelent if you were to produce a product with a performance step up comparable to the SR 71when it was introduced....

Well, given that a halfway decent SAM system these days can take out anything from a Cessna to a satellite (such as the one sported by a lot of USN vessels), it'd have to be an almighty big step up in performance over an SR71. A "Rocket Ship" wouldn't really be good enough to be guaranteed invulnerability through performance alone.

Even if the A12/SR71 design was completely stealthed-up (its air frame had a pretty good RCS for the day), it's a struggle to conceal the shock diamonds in the supersonic exhaust (they're nice radar corner reflectors) and the IR heat signature is pretty un-stealthy too, no matter what fuel additives are used. This was all realised back in the 1960s, which is why AFAIK the first few A12s had RAM wedges in the wing/chine edges and the later ones and SR71s didn't, the irony being that one of the things that held up the initial contract discussions between CIA and Lockheed was air frame RCS; they needn't have bothered. All these things were factors in the closure of the SR71 operation, and had it continued operating it would have served as a stimulus for SAM system developments even more capable of knocking one out of the sky than an SA-5.

The SR71 is probably close to the limit of what one can achieve in terms of sustained airborne air breathing flight. If you want to go much faster you run out of materials that will work throughout a sustained flight. If you want to go higher there's no air to make wings work thus requiring fuel to maintain altitude and manoeuvre, limiting flight time, and you have to take your own oxidiser with you too.

The altitudes between 100,000ft and space are called the "ignorosphere" for a reason - we've never really been able to operate there in any meaningful way other than brief hops or excursions to/from orbit.

However, an updated SR71 would be a real crowd-pleaser at airshows, and personally speaking I think that alone would justify it