AFVG anyone?

There are numerous mentions of it in “BAC A History” by Charles Gardner although nothing of real substance, apparently BAC were to have had the airframe lead.

Paul

Beyond the scope of Tony Buttler’s BSP Bombers,Pp.178-180? Not much more than that, is there (“mesmerised”)?

I haven’t looked, but tried Flight Global??

Roger Smith.

Thanks for the suggestions. The main thing I was looking for was any indication of how and when the project actually started. All the articles and snippets I’ve read are pretty vague about this and it’s difficult to work-out the origins of the design. It seems to have started somewhere in 1964 or 1965 but precisely when, how or why… not so sure!

I haven’t looked at the wiki page so apologise if I am repeating things you have already seen, very brief summarisation of the book I quoted above,

AFVG and F-111 were supposed to take over the role left vacant after the TSR2 cancellation. The TSR2 was going to cost 270 million in launching costs and 3.4 million per aircraft based on 100 aircraft, 50 F-111’s was going to cost 125 million (had escalated to 425 million at time of cancellation), UK share of AFVG launching costs was 150 million and each AFVG would cost 1.7 million.

A Memorandum of Understanding on the AFVG and ECAT was announced on the 17 May 1965.

The French manufacturers lead by Dassault wanted to go their own way instead of sticking to the AFVG concept and secretly started work on the mirage F1 and 3G. The French told Healey on 29 June 1967 that they were withdrawing from the project.

Reading between the lines I assume that the only reason the ECAT survived is because it was being run by Breguet and not Dassault, later when Dassault took over Breguet they did everything possible to harpoon Jaguar sales in favour of their own products.

Paul

Thanks for that Paul. You’re right that AFVG was intended as a replacement/partial replacement for TSR2 but the reason I was (am!) trying to establish the origins of the programme is to clarify whether it had any direct influence on TSR2. The implication seems to be that the project emerged after TSR2’s cancellation but it evidently came into being before that, therefore it seems reasonable to conclude that AFVG was yet another nail in TSR2’s proverbial coffin.

Interesting that you mention ECAT – it would appear that the two projects were associated so I’ll follow that lead!

TSRJoe – you still not talking to me?!

theres (as iv accessed) at least 2 files relating to AFVG. on open access at Kew, interesting background material and well worth a looksee

cheers, joe

Tornado son of AFVG

From what information I have seen in Robert Jacksons book ‘Combat Aircraft Prototypes since 1945’ published 1985, the TSR2 was cancelled well before the AFVG was initiated. This book covers most of the worlds prototypes and is well worth looking out for in the s/h bookshops, mine cost me £2 !:)

There is a first rate chapter-length developmental history of it in Bill Gunston’s excellent Attack Aircraft of the West from 1974.

A few years ago whilst doing some systems architectural work I came across a AFVG document which had an initial issue of Jan 65. The work to produce the document had been done sometime prior to this. It was still classified but was very clearly the origins of the Tornado systems.

By the way did you know, that shortly after Tornado GR1 went into service with the RAF it had its intake upper inner door ramps disabled. This limited it max speed to around Mach 1.2. There was no aircraft related technical reason for this, and other operators retained the full capability, as did the RAF’s F3’s. This was an RAF requested/embodied tactical mod that was not even reversed for GW1 or 2. In later years the actuator in question was changed for fixed length strut.

God bless you Louis, history proved you were right all along, all the RAF really needed was a gassed up Buc with a few more techy toys.

some bureaucratic blah blah http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1967/apr/20/anglo-french-variable-geometry-aircraft sorry if its not relevant it put me to sleep:)

Sorry just tried to read it again same thing happened zzzzzzzzzzzzz

I’m still investigating. It does indeed look as though AFVG was already underway before TSR2 got the chop, at least in terms of dialogue with France. It suggests that the prospect of a “TSR2 replacement” on the horizon was another reason to simply abandon TSR2 – combined with cost, the cheaper (at the time) F-111K, a reluctance to remain in the Middle/Far East, anti-bomb sentiment, bitter Naval opposition, and an aircraft industry that was still mentally living in 1940.

That report seems to cover part of the project’s steady decline – seemed to go sour from the day it started. The mystery seems to be establishing when it started and why/how.

ill try scan some of the AFVG. and later go it alone UKVG. stuff from the files and post it up, another source is the excellent ‘secretprojects.co.uk’ which has a thread on the type

hiyas ‘choix’ ill try get an email over asa, pretty hectic past weeks this end, cheers joe

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,3836.15.html

European Collaboration on big-ticket techno-projects was Macmillan’s choice entry route to the EEC, trying to buy Big Charles’ favour. See ELDO.

Thanks Joe – I’d definitely appreciate your thoughts/input on my book seen as you probably know more than the rest of us!

AFVG is obviously a bit of a side issue as far as TSR2 is concerned but I think it’s important to put everything into context. I’ve tried to get to the roots of the whole saga as best I can and my conclusion (at the moment) is that there was no political conspiracy to kill-off TSR2, even though this notion is churned-out time and time again in books and articles. The more you look at the facts, the more it becomes clear that the Conservative Government was already less-than fully supportive of TSR2 and they should have had the guts to cancel the project at an earlier stage when costs began to run out of control. Labour effectively took the decision that had been needed for some time. Healey is always accused as the man who “murdered” TSR2 but it wasn’t quite this simple. Okay, he did want to cancel the project but not through any political motivation. He clearly believed (with good reason) that F-111K was a cheaper option and it clearly was at the time. The fact that F-111K subsequently hit difficulties and the UK’s dire financial situation forced the aircraft’s price to rise was simply unforseen. It’s also clear that the US did not have any part in TSR2’s cancellation. Likewise, they cannot be accused of trying to force F-111K onto us, indeed they appear to have been surprised at how keen we were to buy it, and made every effort to enable the UK to get the aircraft even when it began to look increasingly difficult.

Healey was not hell-bent on destroying the RAF’s capabilities, indeed he fought hard for the F-111. AFVG comes into the story because it was originally seen as a long-term replacement for the F-111 (and therefore the ultimate replacement for TSR2), and the mystery (at least as far as I’m concerned) is trying to establish just what the projected policy for the 1970’s actually was. Healey clearly believed that F-111 was necessary in order to maintain an East of Suez capability (given that the carriers were unaffordable and less effective) and the US was keen to enable the UK to maintain an East of Suez capability as a means of providing them with token international support – hence their efforts to ensure that we got F-111. AFVG seems to simply cloud the issue. From the information I can find, it would seem that AFVG didn’t have any direct effect on TSR2 and didn’t directly contribute to its cancellation, but it does seem to have been regarded as a longer-term project which would provide a good replacement for both TSR2 and F-111 whether they be purchased or not. Consequently, it looks as if AFVG contributed towards the growing appetite for cancellation of F-111K, before it too was cancelled after France withdrew.

The are many odd points to consider. With regard to AFVG, it’s difficult to establish how the project got started. It just seems to have emerged and then became a projected TSR2/F-111 replacement for the mid-1970’s. On the face of it this seems quite absurd as the TSR2/F-111 would have been in service for only five years or so, therefore the prospect of rapidly replacing/supplementing the existing fleet with an aircraft which was hardly a drastic improvement, seems bizarre. It’s even more hard to swallow when it had clearly been stated during the TSR2’s troubles, that there would not be sufficient resources to fund the design/manufacture of a replacement… and yet…

It’s a very complicated and cloudy story and I’m still not sure that I’ve got it sorted-out!