The Valiant B2 was a very promising design and it was a great shame that it didn’t survive any longer than it did. I was castigated many years ago when I wrote a book on the V-Force, in which I stated that if we were to make a judgement as to which V-Bomber was the “best” design then in my view it would be the Valiant, or more precisely the Valiant B2. I based this assertion on the fact that it was designed and built cheaply and quickly, and it did precisely what Edwards said it would do. It was then transformed into the very aircraft that the RAF would need, when operations switched to low level, but by that stage the Valiant B2 project was gone.

On the basis of what actually happened (rather that what might have happened) then the Vulcan proved to be the most successful design, as it didn’t suffer from any structural problems, it performed flawlessly, and it was sufficiently rugged to operate in the low level role. In terms of Value for Money, the Vulcan was obviously money well spent. But I still think that if things had been a little different and the low level role had been identified earlier, then maybe the Vulcan and Victor would never have been built. The Valiant B2 would have been a perfectly adequate machine for the role and would have been produced at a fraction of the cost that arose from the V-Force programme. But then hindsight is a wonderful thing 🙂

There were actually very few changes to the TSR2 spec after contract award
True, most aspects were fixed before construction began but the project still ran hopelessly out of control. There was no clear project leadership and no overall control, and this enabled the project to continually drift and become increasingly expensive. It was a classic illustration of how not to run a military aircraft programme.

It’s quite ironic that we mention TSR2 really because the Vickers-Supermarine 571 emerged from the same factory that produced the Valiant B2. The endless nonsense that dogged TSR2 was partially the responsibility of Vickers, and yet Vickers was the company that designed and built the Valiant without fuss and without complication within a remarkably short time scale. It was a tragedy that the same discipline didn’t extend to TSR2.

The specs were very demanding and not realistic.
Very much so – and they kept changing and growing as time went by.

Mountbatten was bad-mouthing it
He wasted his time as nobody listened. Australia abandoned TSR2 because they wanted to buy American – their government records confirm this. Our Government finally told Mountbatten to keep his mouth shut.

merger of the aviation industries at the same time shows bad timing
It was deliberate. Vickers and EE became BAC as part of the agreement to give them the TSR2 contract. BAC was blackmailed into existence.

The F-111 being more affordable than the TSR2? We bought Buccs and Tooms in the end, after that Jags and Tonkas
F-111 was way cheaper because it was to be bought on credit. Buccaneer was the eventual replacement for TSR2, F-111 and AFVG. Tornado was in effect the direct replacement for AFVG. Jaguar was a more complicated project that started out as a trainer but became a partial replacement for the Hunter and Phantom (so Phantoms could go to AD to replace Lightnings).

There was no mystery to any of these projects. Valiant B2 being one of them. Problem is that a lot of nonsense was written about all the projects and a great deal of it simply wasn’t true.

I don’t blame anyone for making the effort to find a better vantage point outside a show. If the aeroplanes can be seen closer/clearer outside the venue then it’s the display organiser’s issue, not the spectator’s. Instead of trying to make parking difficult around the show, maybe they should try putting some energy into talking to the CAA and explaining that the people outside the show get a better view of the planes than the people inside who have paid for the privilege. We all know it’s an utterly absurd situation but nobody seems prepared to do anything about it.

I don’t blame anyone for making the effort to find a better vantage point outside a show. If the aeroplanes can be seen closer/clearer outside the venue then it’s the display organiser’s issue, not the spectator’s. Instead of trying to make parking difficult around the show, maybe they should try putting some energy into talking to the CAA and explaining that the people outside the show get a better view of the planes than the people inside who have paid for the privilege. We all know it’s an utterly absurd situation but nobody seems prepared to do anything about it.

money would be better spent on these aircraft than on yet another bl00dy Spitfire replica.

I agree entirely. Naturally, museum operators and volunteers can do whatever they like but I don’t think we should be morally obliged to congratulate them for everything.

Maybe it’s more to do with the perceived value of the show. They do seem to be on a sort of linear scale in terms of cost-versus-content these days 🙂