The Demise Of The TSR.2 (merged)

Sorry if I’ve missed it somewhere here or elsewhere, but which squadrons were designated to receive TSR-2, if in fact any were in fact designated?
Thanks in anticipation,
Be lucky
David

beautiful 🙂 clean it all up nice and frame it 🙂

Mate of mine handed me this spanner today as he no longer needed it. Just seemed like a nice big old spanner until he said turn it over and see what is stamped on it….

Jon

Last Page

you can see all the pages a visitor looks at when browsing the visitors and clicking the look for the last page and thats the last page they browsed, is that what you mean?

WP: US SecDef McNamara cancelled Skybolt, B-58B and B-70 Valkyrie in 1962 because his quiver was loaded with ICBMs & Hound Dog B-52D/G/H by the hundreds. He funded dual Service F-111A/B on the public basis of buying >3,000, with a public loadout of 6 nukes. Neither he nor the Sovs knew of or cared about the paper prospect of 40 TSR.2, maybe 20 fit and well to go, each with one Red Beard squibnuke, which Sovs may have known had no low-level capability, or Pandora ASM hatching at GW powerhouse, Bristol.

Thinking out loud, recently I have been thinking that maybe the TSR-2 was never really intended to enter service with the RAF but the whole project was intended to scare the Russians.

Spending a small percentage of the full design, development, testing and purchasing costs only designing and developing 2 top level attack aircraft to show the Russians what we are capable of if they decided to warm up the cold war. Does anybody know what the Russian opinions of this aircraft were when they found out about it?

Sorry if these question have already been answered! :p

Buy your own !

http://www.collectorsaircraft.com/ECOM_Detail.asp?ID=12733

Corgi 1/72 model for all you TSR-2 fans! Not sure when its out, they do lag behind at times (especially Corgi) but it may be of interest to some….

Just to put it in perspective, the amount of money required (at the time) to keep the TSR2 going was chicken-feed Resmoroh

Everything back then was “chicken feed” compared to today.:rolleyes:

I’m not sure I get your point, but there was no denying the TSR.2 was going to be an expensive piece of kit…as was the F-111.
There was a reason why the Americans didn’t buy more. The Phantom was a lot cheaper.
So it was too expensive for the budget…it wasn’t the first time it ever happened, and won’t be the last.
Hardly conspiracy stuff.

Well I don’t about a “definitive paper” but I was hoping to produce a major book on the subject this year, and hopefully clarify things as best I could. Unfortunately the publisher has had a change of heart and they’ve dropped the idea now – along with the “Aerofax” book which was what started-off the plan in the first place. I believe this book is still advertised on Amazon etc., but it doesn’t exist and never will sadly. We’ve drifted-off onto other more successful EE designs!

As for Mountbatten, as I said some time back, that tale is another glorious red herring. The Aussies pulled-out of TSR2 because America gave them a better offer. Simple as that, as the papers in the Australian Public Records Office confirm. Just one of many TSR2 conspiracies which gets thrown-around but actually have no basis in fact.

Resmoroh, you’re right that the costs are indeed chicken feed, but that’s only when compared to modern standards. At the time it clearly was showing promise of costing way more than the government could justify. Naturally, with the benefit of hindisght, and knowing how little the aircraft would have cost when compared to later aircraft, and when we now know how much F-111 cost, it would have been sensible to have stuck with TSR2. But, like poor ol’ Duncan Sandys who also gets the blame for so many crimes, neither he or the government had the luxury of a crystal ball!

You can bring personal opinions into this as much as you want but it won’t put things into perspective, it is apparent the right descision was made when you take into account cost, our role in NATO, and the outcome of history.

The stupidity of this government dosen’t have any influence on the past, thank god.

Just to put it in perspective, the amount of money required (at the time) to keep the TSR2 going was chicken-feed (even on a pro-rata basis) from that we are all going to have to stump up in the next 10-20 yrs for the current financial mess(not that I’ll be around!). So the verdict has to be (1) not aeronautical, (2) not financial, but (3) foreign political (and we know where from!) interference.
Watched the videos with some considerable interest. Anything that had Mountbatten’s finger-prints all over it is immediately suspect! The UK Govt (of whatever colour) regarded him with some considerable distaste (he thought he should have been King!!). Just look, at the end of WW2, who they gave him as his Chief-of-Staff – none other than Gen “Boy” Browning (Arnhem failed). As a couple of prima donnas they deserved each other!
Not, strictly speaking, aviation – but certainly political!, and where there is politics (particularly international politics) logic and reasoned argument goes out of the window! And logic and reasoned argument is what a vast amount of this very interesting thread has been based on. False premise!
Who, I ask, is going to write (and publish) the definitve paper on this? Or should some young, unsuspecting, Uni UG (or MA, or PhD candidate) be asked to sort it out for a Dissertation or Thesis?
HTH
Resmoroh

In all fairness mate, I find the whole project, and the aircraft themselves fascinating. Certainly one of the most beautiful aircraft produced by the british aviation industry 🙂

BAC did propose that both airworthy prototypes should be retained for trials/development work but after due consideration, the powers that be decided that they didn’t want to provide the funding. Some have suggested that this was another example of polticial motivation to destroy every trace of the aircraft but it was probably more a case of BAC trying to cling-on to a reduced test programme for purely monetary reasons.

As for the undercarriage it did cause problems and it clearly didn’t behave precisely as predicted, but I’ve never seen anything to indicate that the gear was regarded as a long-term problem. It was presumably destined for modification and refinement as part of the development programme. You could level similar criticisms at the air brakes as they didn’t work as advertised either, but they were also not regarded as a potential problem. You have to bear in mind that the test programme had barely begun and no doubt many alterations and refinements would have been made. With regard to the undercarriage it’s perhaps worth noting that the extendable nose wheel leg had – for example – been effectively dropped by the time of cancellation as the aircraft had already exhibited very effective tailplane authority which meant that there was no need to push the nose high with the landing gear for short take-off runs.

I notice you keep picking up on the U/C problem, any major componant of an aircraft can have problems or need further sorting out at the prototype stage – nothing unusual in that at all.
Most aircraft have significant changes made (usually U/C involved) from prototype to production standard, hence all the manufacturers and service test flying and trials involved in getting a type satisfactory for use.

The engine problems were more of a serious issue with TSR.2 at the time.

None of this has any bearing on its cancellation though.

forgetting the politics for a moment, an issue raised in the documentary that i posted concerning the uc, really has stuck in my head.

upon landing the main UC bogeys being dragged inward toward the airframe due to the angle of the UC legs.

did nobody consider this to be a serious problem at the time, anyone with a reasonable mechanical mind should be able to spot this?

I doubt it, Farnborough (I assume you mean RAE) like to use established types that were known to be safe, could carry test kit and were relatively easy on spares and maintainance for their trials.

One thing has always intrigued me about TSR2: Why were the flying prototype, and the second prototype (which from all accounts was ready to fly) not transfered to Farnbourgh?

Surely much could have been leant from these two aircraft had they been used for trials work.

May I take issue with one strand in MM’s posts? #189: The public believed what it was fed by government as did the lower levels of the military. The conspiracist stocked in every UK High St. is N.Chomsky: he even has one of those Understanding primers. So: Deterring Democracy,Verso,91,P21: “the military-industrial complex (is a) welfare state for the rich (. It ensures) a guaranteed market for waste production (. The) Cold War had a functional utility for the Superpowers: one reason why it persisted.”

“The whole art of war consists in getting at what is on the other side of the hill.” Duke of Wellington. Ike proposed Open Skies; Krushchev declined. Saddam boasted of his WMD – unserviceable/exhausted; Hitler lied to UK Ministers in 1936 on “parity” with RAF; USSR at Tushino Show, 1955, circled their sole serviceable flight of Badgers to imply Squadron strength. We know now that all these were cases of deception-in-weakness…but Ministers’ duty is to defend the Realm on the evidence of the day.

I prefer: A.Schlesinger (advisor to JFK) in M.J.Hogan(Ed),The End of the Cold War,CUP,92,P56: a “lesson to be drawn from the Cold War is that more things in life are to be explained by c@ck-up (not by) conspiracy.” Wilson had the option, and in 1964 had campaigned on (an ambiguous) pledge, to delete Deterrence. But I presented at #203 that he met TSR.2’s intended roles with other kit…because you never can tell…what lies on the other side of the hill. There has been no Cold War conspiracy-to-squander, Bomber-gap, Ike; or Missile-gap, JFK. The same deception point now arises, affecting 3G SSBN/FBM. UK Ministers and their Opposition would gladly today seize the savings of deleting Trident/Vanguard follow-on. But only the less credible LibDems are mooting that. Other jobs (which are few, near-term) could be invented cheaper. But, so long as Iran, N.Korea, who knows next, adhere to deception as policy, then let us discuss role, kit, quantity, solo-or-coalition…but let us bustle, caparison, buckle.

AlertKen you may propose that understanding of the Cold War, but unless you can come up a coherent means of expressing that belief then I am afraid that I do not quite understand what you are saying. I apologise if you find that offensive, which it is not intended to be, but the narrative style of writing with proper explanation rather than shorthand referencing is easier for older chaps like myself to follow.

That said I can only surmise that, and I may be wrong, that you are promoting Schlesinger’s views over those of the others. However it is in essence no different to mine if you read my posts carefully, The major misunderstanding in the Cold War was our lack of firm knowledge about Soviet arms development and production. We equated nuclear tests with actual possession of the resulting deliverable systems. In response we, who had far greater economic capacity, were able to match what for the Russians was experimental technology with production weapons, this then forced the Soviets into a response which then created a response from us – yes it is a **** up, but it is a product of misunderstanding and having the wrong information has never prevented anyone from acting. Satellite technology was the key to clearing some of the fog.

That was the problem which then influenced how our politicians acted and why in the case of the TSR2 Britain painted itself into a financial corner and found that the only way out was to cancel the project. But that of course ignores the real problem which was that the expensive system was not necessary in the first place. The Americans had their White Elephants – YF12A, B70, B58 and the F111 in its original role, Britain had 3 V bombers and the TSR2. All of which were in effect rendered redundant by better systems based on ICBMs or nuclear armed submarines.

The Russian equivalent of those, of course, was its out of control defence budget which saw nearly 35% of its economy diverted from domestic production to what became a fundementally redundant military systems.

Make no mistake, I am not talking conspiracy, unlike the TSR2 supporters, I am simply talking about how both sides managed to fuel each others’ misconceptions. We can see now with the release of so much secret documentation just how far those misconceptions were allowed to spread simply because dialogue became impossible. The TSR2 was rightly cancelled – far better schools and hospitals than an answer to a non-existent threat.

Yes, that account on Airscene describes the story fairly well although even then, Beamont comments:-

“The Americans were developing very fast – they had got an aeroplane in this particular role, the F-111, coming along fast and no way were they going to be zapped by the British as they had been with the Canberra – this was very apparent…”

It’s obviously a throw-away comment but it just doesn’t add-up. How would they be “zapped” and by whom? Where did Beamont suppose that they were going to sell the TSR2? Where did he think they were going to sell F-111? It’s quite absurd.

May I take issue with one strand in MM’s posts? #189: The public believed what it was fed by government as did the lower levels of the military. The conspiracist stocked in every UK High St. is N.Chomsky: he even has one of those Understanding primers. So: Deterring Democracy,Verso,91,P21: “the military-industrial complex (is a) welfare state for the rich (. It ensures) a guaranteed market for waste production (. The) Cold War had a functional utility for the Superpowers: one reason why it persisted.”

“The whole art of war consists in getting at what is on the other side of the hill.” Duke of Wellington. Ike proposed Open Skies; Krushchev declined. Saddam boasted of his WMD – unserviceable/exhausted; Hitler lied to UK Ministers in 1936 on “parity” with RAF; USSR at Tushino Show, 1955, circled their sole serviceable flight of Badgers to imply Squadron strength. We know now that all these were cases of deception-in-weakness…but Ministers’ duty is to defend the Realm on the evidence of the day.

I prefer: A.Schlesinger (advisor to JFK) in M.J.Hogan(Ed),The End of the Cold War,CUP,92,P56: a “lesson to be drawn from the Cold War is that more things in life are to be explained by c@ck-up (not by) conspiracy.” Wilson had the option, and in 1964 had campaigned on (an ambiguous) pledge, to delete Deterrence. But I presented at #203 that he met TSR.2’s intended roles with other kit…because you never can tell…what lies on the other side of the hill. There has been no Cold War conspiracy-to-squander, Bomber-gap, Ike; or Missile-gap, JFK. The same deception point now arises, affecting 3G SSBN/FBM. UK Ministers and their Opposition would gladly today seize the savings of deleting Trident/Vanguard follow-on. But only the less credible LibDems are mooting that. Other jobs (which are few, near-term) could be invented cheaper. But, so long as Iran, N.Korea, who knows next, adhere to deception as policy, then let us discuss role, kit, quantity, solo-or-coalition…but let us bustle, caparison, buckle.