The seeds for TSR2s demise were sown as far back as the 1957 defence review with Duncan Sandys in charge.

This master tactician decided that the future would not need any winged aircraft at all, missiles were the future, bear in mind this at a time when hitting the right county with a missile was a success, this guy cancelled every single fast jet under development the only survivor was the P1 which became of course the Lightning, just for laughs he also cancelled the UKs missile development programme which seems absurd under the circumstances.

The came the enforced mergers with the enforcer being that all future government contracts would go to only 3 companies, Westland for helicopters, BAC and Hawker group for fixed wing, the only major to hold out was Handley Page, the government soon fixed that by simply delaying the final build of Victors and waited while HP went bankrupt, then sub contracting the order to Avro who supervised the build of the last Victor order, not surprisingly when it came to development Avro were more concerned with developing the Vulcan than the Victor.

Sandys made the boast that none of the expertise and experience would be lost in these mergers, net result BAC had within it’s company 4 full design teams and no work, English Electric had already started design work on what became the TSR2, this plan was resurrected, then in a great piece of admin thinking the the Vickers team were put in charge of further development with input from all almalgamated teams, result TSR2 was designed by committee, I think the classic example of this was a meeting to decide the position on the dash of one switch, now I am very aware that it’s not just a case of sticking somewhere were it looks good, but 42 people turned up for this meeting in an office which could possibly take a dozen.

Somehow the project muddled on, always grossly under funded, beset by delays when specific equipment wasn’t ready on time, in some cases work on this equipment was only at drawing stage and then stopped until needed, surprise, surprise when the call went out for this equipment it simply wasn’t available. Eventually the TSR2 flew, in some opinions that was the biggest surprise of the lot, now I am very well aware that an incoming Labour government scrapped the plane, but just who had already started discussions about the F111?, who in fact was already well down the road of placing an order for the F111?, of course as we all know the TSR2 was cancelled on cost grounds and transferred to an aircraft which became an even bigger money pit.

With hindsight should we have kept TSR2, debatable it’s main design role was already coming under threat, remember that at high speed even with terrain following radar staying at 200 hundred feet was not a practical possibility, it certainly couldn’t get down with the Buccaneer which is were it needed to be to have any chance at all, then of course the advent of look down radar made even that a dodgy business.

As far as operating at high altitude the only thing keeping it up would be engine power those wings would not fare very well in thinner atmosphere unless at high speed, our little band of enthusiasts would certainly have loved to see TSR2 operational, but unfortunately we don’t carry much weight with governments, but for practical purposes the TSR2 had already become hugely expensive for the job it had to do, but it was still as good as anything else out there, we probably should have kept it and possibly sold some abroad as well, but as we also know many countries particularly NATO were under pressure to standardise equipment as long as it was American equipment.

After all that I’ve probably talked myself in a circle because we simply don’t know what the outcome of continuing with TSR2 would have been.

Hi Viscount, thanks for the list of ships and the details of what’s happening, yes I did manage to get to the celebrations although it took about 8 hours to get there (Bank holidays, don’t you just love them). I was a bit disappointed with the turn out but got some good photographs of what was there and the weather was excellent so had a good day. Not knowing the area, I could not find HMS Edinburgh which was a bit disappointing but understand she is due in at Portsmouth next week to pay off so will go and see her then. Also, I could not understand why they kept HMS Bulwark and the Belgian ship, Louise Marie out of the way. Went and had a look at HMS Plymouth and HMS Bronington, very sad and I hope it’s not to late to rescue them (My boss informed me that he served on Plymouth many years ago).

HMS Edinburgh was in the Cammel Laird shipyard Birkenhead, which is on the other side of the river, HMS Bulwark and Louise Marie were not fully open to the public, HMS Bulwark was invited guests only, don’t know what the situation was with Louise Marie.

Visitors have been given as 300,00 sounds like pretty good attendance.

Jeremy Hunt, Health Minister, states, the Conservatives are muting an idea, that if any of us pay too many visits to our G.P. we could be forced to look elsewhere for treatment.
So what happens if you have a progressive illness, elderly or young child?.and need to pay regular visits.
Are they trying to put the screws on gradually into making us take out a Private Healthcare Plan?.
Jim.
Lincoln .7

With Tories in charge of the NHS don’t get old or sick, both and you’re a write off.

Farage was quite obviously hit by an unreasoning mob in Scotland, which incidentally could happen anywhere, but his handling of it was not good, certainly ruffled his feathers coming out with labelling of this mob puts him in as poor a position as them.

Just one or two more and the Tories will be embroiled in another cat fight, the thing is who will benefit?

No, it won’t. That wasn’t the point. The point was that if elected they cannot do any more damage than they’ve already done. So, forget all the excuses and campaign hard for UKIP. Don’t be afraid to dip your toe in the water – you won’t catch cold.

I take it your stance is vote UKIP, get out of Europe, the rest we make up as we go along.

I think you may just find in the cold light of day that the majority like to know where they are headed, the concept that stepping out of Europe is a cure all for our problems and gives us entrance to some sort of golden age is a very limited concept with little contact with the real world.

However I do applaud UKIP for putting in a wake up call to all politicians, may jolt them out of their complacency, but then again I won’t hold my breath.

Looking at the pictures they appear to share about 4 brain cells between them.
I feel nothing – society is full of morons.

True, don’t look to be the sharpest blades in the drawer, but there are very few who don’t know just how wrong their activities are, my only feeling is revulsion.