Well, still a way to go before the target is reached but I pledged some cash in the early afternoon and the amount pledged overall was at around £478,000. Checking just now and it is up to nearly £528,000. What an incredible response. Well done to everyone who is prepared to chip in. Seems a bit more likely that they will get there if this rate is maintained.

Where is RN201 these days?

Any chance we can see it, or how we can find it?
I’ve really never heard of a name being officially thought of for the TSR-2, and I really don’t see how the bird of prey scheme fits.

Model Aircraft Monthly had a string of articles going over the documentation relating to the TSR2 in 2007. Most of this was memos rather than official orders, but of what exists relating to the name, the evidence points to Eagle. The original ‘Harrier’ BTW the P1154 was definitely in the ‘fast jet’ category as a supersonic VTOL aircraft for the RAF and FAA and this was contemporary with the TSR2. As has been suggested, Merlin was mooted for the F-111, though I haven’t seen anything official relating to this. I don’t think the bird of prey theme was official policy, but does seem to have been a passing fad in the early-mid 60s. The only dissenter from this period is the Jaguar, but that was an Anglo-French design and I suspect the name derived from ECAT(Ecole de Combat et Appui Tactique) and later SEPECAT.

I believe ‘Eagle’ was the most likely – there was an emerging ‘birds of prey’ theme for naming fast jets at this time (Harrier, Kestrel, slightly later Hawk) and this was considered the front runner. ‘Trenchard’ had also been mooted.

Seems unlikely. According to Thunder & Lightnings (‘cos it’s a lot quicker than going to look at some books) the Sea Vixen had been in squadron service for 3 years before the Buccaneer was officially named.

Don’t have sources to hand but this is what I’ve heard.

The Sea Vixen was still being referred to as the DH110 as late as 1957, just before it went into service, while the name Buccaneer could well have been flying around long before the aircraft were – ‘Buccaneer’ was definitely painted on some of the pre-production batch of NA39s, before the name was official (April 1960). The DH110 had been born in 1948 and the Buccaneer in 1954, while the RN only decided to order the DH110 in 1955. Vaguely possible that the Buccaneer/Pirate names originated at the same time, well after the DH110 had already been unofficially known as the Sea Vixen…

This is only my take on it, but I thought the ‘Sea’ prefix was only used on fighters designed for the RN:

Unless there was a switch in policy after the war that I’m unaware of, it’s the other way round – that way there was, as I said, ‘Skua, Osprey, Roc, Fulmar’ that were designed for the RN* and ‘Sea Gladiator, Sea Hurricane, Seafire, Sea Mosquito, Sea Vampire’ etc that were based on existing landplanes.

The Admiralty apparently favoured ‘Pirate’ for the Sea Vixen, as it would have matched the Buccaneer, but DH were allowed to call it the Sea Vixen – I suspect because the name ‘Vixen’ had been been unofficially applied by DH to the RAF all-weather fighter variant, and the naval variant was already widely being referred to as the Sea Vixen.

*I appreciate that the Fulmar started life as the Fairey P.4/34 light bomber for the RAF, but it lost that competition and was not named before being offered by Fairey to the Air Ministry and redeveloped into an interim naval fighter.

The Wyvern was being considered as a long range naval fighter and torpedo bomber as early as September 1944 – it is referred to, though not by name, in a summary of naval air operations to the War Cabinet, so it’s not fair to consider this as an aircraft designed for the RAF. In fact it was probably a Navy-only project by the time it was named.

I believe that both Victor and Valiant were names proposed for Spitfire variants – in fact types that in the end were simply designated marks of Spitfire, IIRC the MkXVIII and Mk21. I presume these names came about to alliterate with ‘Vickers’ (whose previous non-Supermarine fighter design was called the Venom, another name resurrected in the jet age).

Whilst there appears to have been quite a strict naming policy for bombers and transport aircraft, and lend-lease types, this doesn’t seem to have been the case for British fighters or attack aircraft. Manufacturers seem to have had much more freedom – i.e. Hawker had their ‘winds’ theme, DH went with a thematically appropriate ‘Mosquito’ and Bristol was allowed to name the fighter derivative of the Beaufort an alliterative ‘Beaufighter’.

The Fleet Air Arm had its policy of seabirds for fighters (Osprey, Skua, Fulmar – not adopted for Roc) which then changed briefly to ‘fire’ themes for fighters developed after the outbreak of war (Firefly, Firebrand), with ‘Sea’ prefixes only for aircraft that had land-based forebears – Sea Gladiator, Sea Hurricane, Seafire. The strict-ish policy seemed to break down somewhat after the war, seemingly being left to manufacturers. DH continued with its ‘V’ theme with the Sea Vixen and Supermarine with its alliterative Scimitar and seemingly random Attacker. Interestingly, there seems to have been little logic to the ‘Sea’ prefix postwar. The Sea Fury, Sea Hawk and Sea Vixen were all aircraft designed with the RAF in mind, but so was the Attacker, which did not have a ‘Sea’ attached, nor did the Wyvern (which was considered to naval and RAF specs simultanously but only reached hardware stage as a naval aircraft).

What about the last officially credited kills against them?

In November 1948 a Mosquito of 13 Squadron was shot down by an Israeli fighter. In January 1949 four Spitfires of 208 Squadron and one Tempest of 213 Squadron were shot down by Israeli fighters. The volunteer IAF pilots included several Americans and one Canadian.

Hardly fair given that the RAF was not part of that war and not shooting unless fired upon – and the Spitfires and Mosquito were unarmed recon aircraft, while the Tempest was unable to detach its drop tanks. The IAF allegedly mistook them for Egyptian aircraft.

And how is this relevant to the Lightning vs Phantom scenario?