It can be narrowed down a bit more than that as Duxford Grange still exists, valued at just short of £3,000,000.

It’s pretty well smack in the middle of the airfield section of Grange Road.

I think it was Stanley Hooker that said the Operational Requirements Board(?) kept pulling numbers out of thin air for the specification with no thought as to whether it was feasible or even genuinely necessary. For examples, supersonic at low-level, then they added an extra 100 miles out of the blue to the range required.

What amazes me until this day is despite the complete dog’s dinner of management – BAC being lead contractors on what was basically an English Electric design, massively over-stuffed committees continually interfering… – they seemed to be well on their way to meeting most if not all of the specification.

The hydraulic leak on the day of cancellation was only the latest mishap to XR220.

On delivery to Boscombe Down the lorry jacknifed after entering the site and the fuselage half fell off the trailer, damaging the extreme rear. After hurried design of lifting equipment it was assembled and examined. The damage, originally thought to be superficial, was more substantial although still able to be repaired at Boscombe Down. After repairs were completed there was a further delay waiting for flight-capable engines.

Although the original dry Olympus was a model of reliability and development, Bristol really struggled with the TSR.2 version to start with.

XR220, now at Cosford, was complete and planned for its first flight on the afternoon of the day it was cancelled. I have heard, although I don’t know if it’s true, that the wiring looms were deliberately cut when it was prepared for transport.

My father was one of the police escort motorcycle outriders when it was delivered to Henlow.

XR222, now at Duxford, was never completed although is now cosmetically complete.

XR219, the only one to fly, was maliciously sent to Shoeburyness for target practice.

IIRC, there was briefly a proposal in the early ’80s, whether serious or not I don’t know, to revive the project, as it was apparently still superior to the Tornado, but the destruction of drawings etc. made it a non-starter, apart from any other considerations.

Nobody can PM him Peter. You can PM any of us “old-timers” and vice versa.

I can PM everybody who has posted on this thread except FKA Trolley Aux.

Anybody who has joined since the forum meltdown has to have made a ridiculous number of posts before PMs are enabled. I did manage to work out a rough ballpark figure for it once, which I can’t remember now, but it’s several, if not many, hundreds.

I’m away for nearly two weeks from tomorrow morning so I’ll see if anything’s changed when I return.

I won’t hold my breath…

Kermit’s B.35 flew with RR299 at the Mosquito Museum not long before it left for America so presumably 1987.

Seems to be back now, but I can’t see anything from Scott about upgrading the server.