The USN had two EB-47E's for ECM duties and one B-47E for flight test of the engine that was to power the E-3 Viking.

The B-47 had a very interesting history and did some very dangerous work as a Recon aircraft.

Some wound up as Drones.

Has the fact MI5 kept a file on Harold Wilson ever been investigated given it was Wilsons government that canned TSR2.

Because Mountbatten told them it was rubbish, and they could get three Bucks for the cost of each TSR2. With friends like that.....

Thanks John B Quite certain that cancellation did not force the UK out of the Commonwealth and into the Common Market though...

Voila! One U.S. Marine F-4B aboard H.M.S. Ark Royal. They'd been cross-decking with the Forrestal in the med. This one went U/s and was put in the hanger. It emerged with 892 squadron tail markings.




http://www.stormclimb.com/wp-content...600&zc=1&q=100

Nice photo Phil :)
So I suppose my next logical question would be - could the US Phantoms operate from our carrier with any sort of useful load other than a belly tank ??

If I may return to the reasons for cancellation of the TSR2...some years ago, Radio 4 broadcast a late night series called "The Benn Tapes", presented by Tony Benn who had kept a diary, and then taped records, every day during his time in office. He described the circumstances resulting in the cancellation of the TSR2; since one of my relatives had been involved in the mechanical design of the sideways looking camera for that aeroplane, I sat up and took notice of what TB was saying.

The gist of it was that the Treasury had told the Cabinet that the country was broke and needed to borrow money...(nothing's new, is it?) So an approach was made to what was then called the World Bank...who said they'd have to ask the Americans. The Americans, in their turn, said we could have the money...providing we cancelled Concorde (thus leaving the SST field open for the Boeing aircraft). However, the contracts between the UK and France were copper bottomed water tight and there was no chance of effective cancellation...this was because HM Government had wanted to guard against the French getting cold feet! Once the impossibility of cancelling Concorde had been admitted, then the fall back position was for TSR2 to be cancelled, leaving the F-111 unopposed, and this is what happened.

After explaining this, TB went on to say that the true tragedy was that UK plc was actually trading itself out of the mire unassisted, and the loan that the Treasury had said was essential was never needed.....so the cancellation was for nothing, in the end.

U.S. F-4s could be launched with a typical F-4 load but.....only on the longer(200') waist cat.
Now, in an interesting piece of selling coals to Newcastle there was talk of McDonnell modifying the Phantom to be able to operate from the "Essex" class ships. These were comparable in size to Ark Royal. The modification(s)?
Fit the F-4K's extendable nose leg and Speys. Talk was that this was to be designated F-4L. I think it was dropped because the F-14 and 15 were on the horizon.

Thanks Phil...I think that would clarify to a certain extent the need to fit speys to our F4's,but dont worry I am aware of the politics of procurement :)

rgds LR

Molemot

I wouldn't believe much that Benn says now - he is as slithery as any politician and on a number of occasions his "evidence" is totally at variance with the facts

Heathrow Harry...if you have any inside knowledge I would be interested to hear it! TB's explanation was succint and logical, with the original contemporary recordings he made. Of course, it could all be nonsense...but I can see no possible advantage to him if it were. The programme to which I refer is nothing he "says now"...it was a long time ago,but has stuck in the mind.

Reference TSR 2, see here* pages 33-44, but especially 40-44.

As stated the TSR 2 was a Canberra light bomber replacement, not a strategic bomber replacement and, with the cost going through the roof and the pull back from east of Suez on the cards, cancellation was inevitable - as was the subsequent cancellation of the F-111.

* RAF Museum - "TSR2 with Hindsight". Edited by Air Vice-Marshal A F C Hunter CBE AFC DL

ORAC - Great link. I had only seen that document previously in print form for silly prices, and it is now on its electronic way to my iPad.

And some stuff about "digital Bucc" in this, from the same source...

http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/document...of-Tornado.pdf

What???

I have a couple of drinks over Christmas and wake up out of the commonwealth. When did that happen?

BEagle.

No problem. No sorry needed.

I have sent you a PM with some detailed info so as not to bore folk here.

JF

So despite my "tongue in creek" post at #43 ... is there no vote for re-mustering the VR and equipping it properly :(

JF, thanks - a gent as ever! Your PM made interesting reading and the point about specification writing was indeed very sound.

In my small area of providing a military aircraft system to a couple of customers, I insisted that we involved the end-users at an early stage, to ensure they received the system they needed. However, I also came across engineers who wouldn't listen to the voice of experience - a typical example being 3 functions being controlled by one 2-position push button. They wouldn't accept that this was silly, insisting that software would take care of 2 functions and only 1 alternative was needed. But we've since seen that the software doesn't always work as expected.......

They were the sort of engineers who, I'm sure, would be happy to fit a software controlled fire extinguisher....:\

Re. a couple of projects about which we disagree:

- ORAC's link to the TSR2 debate reveals Jimmy Dell's comment that initial climb angle (and hence body angle) was quite steep in order to remain below the undercarriage limiting speed. He raised no concerns about AoA and mentions that the aircraft handled well in the circuit and on the approach, concluding that, "as a flying machine, we did indeed have a world beater in our stable".

- Reading more about the Rotodyne, cancellation was due to lack of funding following problems with RR delivering the Tyne in time for contractual deadlines to be met. The RAF was diffident, considering that the Andover would be sufficient and BEA wouldn't commit without a military order. The prototype's noise problems had been overcome by the time of the Battersea demo flight and the production version promised even further reductions. There were no 'gearbox' issues; the aircraft did not have a main rotor gearbox by virtue of its tip-jet design and the cyclic/collective swashplate worked as advertised. I remain convinced that Rotodyne would have given the RAF vertical lift capabilities in excess of the Chinook some 20 years earlier - and civil flights between a wide range of small regional airports would have been possible.

I do agree about the AW681 though! As for P1154, it could not have been used from deployed sites in the same manner as the Harrier and PCB would have destroyed any 'natural' runway surface. In the end it wouldn't really have offered any significant advantage over a conventional second generation fighter-bomber, given that its V/STOL capabilities were becoming rather irrelevant. So the decision to go for Harrier at one end and F-4 at the other was undoubtedly correct at the time. Perhaps if P1121 'Hurricane 2' hadn't been killed by Duncan Sandys in 1958, the RAF wouldn't have needed to select the American design 10 years later?

The prototype's noise problems had been overcome by the time of the Battersea demo flight


Apparently down to the level of a DC-8. Only you don't operate DC 8s out of city heliports.
Having said that Beags, given an Osprey length of gestation with better powerplants and lower structural weights..........

Ah yes, the old DC-8 analogy. I'm not sure which aspect of DC-8 operation was used for comparison, but as you and I will recall from our university days, Haraka, the noise made by Heathrow-bound DC-8s, B-707s, VC10s and particularly Tridents even as far out as over Brompton Road was greater than the background traffic noise - but not so today!

The proof that noise was being dealt with satisfactorily came from the Battersea Heliport flights; zero complaints and only 2 calls from curious members of the public who wondered what was going on.

Derek Wood's Project Cancelled contains a number of significant errors about the Rotodyne; James Hamilton-Patterson's Empire of the Clouds also perpetuates the myth that Rotodyne was cancelled at the same time as TSR2, P1154 and AW681 rather than 3 years earlier......

Still, when the genpub are content to be deafened by the racket inside a London Underground train :( , yet whinge about the slightest noise made by an aircraft overflying the city, scientific noise measurement and silencer technology will always be defeated by rumours and false speculation....

It reminds me of the Concorde boom trials over the Irish Sea and off the coast of Cornwall. Some grumblers had decided that their local church would be damaged by the distant sonic booms. So the church was duly instrumented and observations made. As Concorde's distant boom was heard, the needles indeed twitched. "See, told you so!", claimed one of the agitators. Then someone slammed the church door....and the needles went to full scale deflexion....:hmm:

Was not the TSR2 liable to be unduly affected by side gust loads on LL flight as was the case with the USN Vigilante ? Perhaps someone with better information could elucidate.