Some thing different for the jet boys.TSR2

It has also been posted before that some of the printed circuit board was turned into wacky jewellery 😮

….. Would be interesting to know where all the components finally ended-up though….

As has been posted before, if you scroll down here you’ll find details of where some bits ended up!

Indeed, we got the follow-on to the Hunter – it was called Harrier. It was a project which Healey pushed-for oddly enough!

It would have been a natural follow onto the Hunter, could have sold into NATO to resist Lockheed and the F-104 and would have been a platform with real development potential.

Wires crossed a bit here? This sounds more like the Hawker P1121 than the TSR2.

If only!!!

This short film says it all….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7JAYHHsVU8
ps it does have sound only music but very apt music.

Couldn’t agree more! Of all the cancellations of the late 50’s and 60’s that was the one that hurt. It would have been a natural follow onto the Hunter, could have sold into NATO to resist Lockheed and the F-104 and would have been a platform with real development potential.

Would never have worked- we didn’t have the money for those kinds of bribes.

Cheers
Mad Jock

I’d say that was close enough to ‘from the horse’s mouth’ to be totally credible, unlike chinese whispers-style hearsay.

The supposed “credible eye witness account” by someone, told to somebody, then in turn related to someone else is hearsay.

I am refering to the Father to Son conversation…………

The credible eye witness account of a particular incident is so compelling in it’s aparent absurdity,

The supposed “credible eye witness account” by someone, told to somebody, then in turn related to someone else is hearsay.

Er, well if you read what I said I didn’t “wash-away” his account at all – I said it was doubtless true. What isn’t true (in terms of much-published material) is the reason why.

But if you’re suggesting that my assertion isn’t true, rest assured that the reality of the documentation is on record, as stated by a senior member of the design team. It’s not invention.

Sgt Austin The reason for this absurdity is because there were very stringent requirements laid-down in advance, and by this stage the spectre of non-compliance penalties was starting to appear, so BAC were keen to do everything to the letter.

Have you located the specific articles from the Contract which illuminate this hypothesis that we can review?

The credible eye witness account of a particular incident is so compelling in it’s aparent absurdity, that it deserves significant documented references of the facts, if you are attempting to wash it away don’t you think?

Well some of it, although I finally decided not to devote much space to the subject of what units might or might not have equipped with TSR2, as there was virtually nothing documented, and I didn’t want to waste space on supposition. The basic story takes up more than enough space – I ended-up with precisely twice as much text as I’d been commissioned to write.

Company archives? Virtually nothing actually other than photographs, and most of those have now gone (and some are damaged). Having looked for myself, there isn’t all that much to access. But material was lurking around through other sources thankfully.

….. All the books and magazine features that obsess over what brilliant weapons TSR2 might have carried, what fancy colour schemes it might have worn, or where it might have operated, etc., are all very nice, but they fail to address the key points of the project’s history. I didn’t want to devote space to more of this “what if” stuff, and I’ve opted for a more straightforward account of what did happen, not what might have happened. Okay, I know I’ll get plenty of criticism, especially from those who still want to convince themselves of dark conspiracies, but that’s okay, I have broad shoulders!

So would it be right to assume that none of this http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=94873&highlight=TSR2 will be in your book?

Also out of interest, how much material was forthcoming from the various Company Archives?

Sgt Austin it’s true that an awful lot of effort was put into destroying all traces of the project – some of the BAC people have commented that more attention seemed to be devoted to this than the actual project! The reason for this absurdity is because there were very stringent requirements laid-down in advance, and by this stage the spectre of non-compliance penalties was starting to appear, so BAC were keen to do everything to the letter.

As for public records, as far as I know there is nothing else expected to emerge which would be relevant to TSR2. Pretty-much everything that relates to the project has now been released. Of course, like most of the stuff you can find at Kew, the greater proportion doesn’t tell you anything of direct relevance as most papers inevitably refer to proposals and plans that became dead-ends. As far as I can determine, only one mystery it still classified, and that concerns a Government decision on the permitted yield of the aircraft’s nuclear bombs which was (for reasons yet unclear) limited for some time.

As for being a “pretty” aeroplane, well yes, I agree that it certainly was. Guess that’s a symptom of its sustained supersonic capability. Of course its graceful looks were hindered by the ghastly undercarriage that was created in response to the Air Staff’s slightly bonkers obsession with STOL operations. It was over-engineered and caused the whole flight test programme to be held back.

Bruggen, I don’t know how I could explain more clearly? You’re asserting that there was some dark Government plot to destroy everything and I’ve illustrated that there patently wasn’t. BAC could have kept two aircraft flying if they’d wanted to. You can’t really get any clearer than that. As for shifting to the wider issues of cancellation (which wasn’t what I referred-to as “nonsense”), you seem to think that Wilson was the culprit? In actual fact it was he who proposed that the project be kept alive for six months, when everybody else wanted to scrap it.

[QUOTE=

As for your comments Bruggen, I know you’ve explained before what your father saw, and I’m quite sure his recollections are accurate. But the idea that this was a manifestation of a Government plot is indeed nonsense, which people have been peddling for decades. It has to be, otherwise how do you explain Jenkins’ and Healey’s agreement to keep two aircraft flying? That’s a complete reversal of the “destroy everything” myth..[/QUOTE]

There’s a bl**dy big difference between letting the manufacturer keep two
aircraft flying,and letting the RAF have it in squadron service, especially
if the current pm and some of his ministers are in the pocket of a foreign
power. BTW please explain how you know that it’s rubbish, who told you,
names please, the fact is you don’t know any more than the rest of us, it’s just your opinion, even somebody with limited intelligence would think it a strange that a PM who’s under the suspicion of the secret service cancels
the countrys top military project at the drop of a hat.:D

Whenever I’ve had the chance to talk TSR2 with people that were directly involved, at various levels, they’ve never said anything concerning their own role that would flatly contradict what Chox has said, although there would certainly be differences of emphasis.
On a slightly frivolous note, it has to be said that the TSR2 was quite a handsome beast. Sometimes I wonder if the nostalgia, the what-if yearning, would be quite so strong if it had been a creature of undescribable ugliness?

Are all the files concerning TSR2 available today for the public to inspect at Kew?

Are there any details being retained for a specified period of time?

:confused:Sadly I can believe it!!!

I had a friend who was a tool maker on the TSR 2 project. When it was cancelled everything connected to production had to be destroyed. Not everything could be found and accounted for so he spent the best part of a year recreating tools and jigs so that they could be officially destroyed. He made it, it was taken away immediately and destroyed! All this was done to save money on the project rather than waste it!! I will never understand government accountants.

Oh I quite agree – things are never entirely black and white. But I wanted to try and put things straight as best I could in my book, as I think the story has been allowed to run out of control for far too long (a bit like the actual TSR2 project in fact!).

Whilst it will always be possible to cast doubt on various aspects of the story, I think it is now possible to clarify some of the key points which have been misinterpreted for years. We all know why this has been done – it’s human nature. The “conspiracy theory” was very exciting and gave the aircraft an added touch of glamour (the “Elvis/James Dean” syndrome), and of course there’s nothing us Brits like more than obsessing over what might have been. But I think it’s unfair for serious historians/enthusiasts to be fooled by this kind of stuff forever, and I wanted to try and set the story straight for once.

All the books and magazine features that obsess over what brilliant weapons TSR2 might have carried, what fancy colour schemes it might have worn, or where it might have operated, etc., are all very nice, but they fail to address the key points of the project’s history. I didn’t want to devote space to more of this “what if” stuff, and I’ve opted for a more straightforward account of what did happen, not what might have happened. Okay, I know I’ll get plenty of criticism, especially from those who still want to convince themselves of dark conspiracies, but that’s okay, I have broad shoulders!