BBC 4 tonight. Jet. When Britain Ruled the Skies
Discussion
Eric Mc said:
Simpo Two said:
They said the TSR2 was scrapped because it tried to do too many things. But they made the Tornado (Multi Role Combat Aircraft) work.
And they would have made the TSR-2 work as well - if they had been prepared to throw more money at it. By the time the Tornado was flying, aviation and avionics had moved on a decade and what had been extremely difficult to do in 1964 had become somewhat less difficult by 1974.
Basically there was a lot of stuff that resulted in it's cancellation, the bulk of it being the ridiculous management structure, resulting in immense bureaucracy and resultant overspend.
E.g. If I remember correctly, there were situations along the lines of 60-70 people in a meeting to decide the location of a switch/colour of paint etc, type scenarios.
Foreign involvement in it's cancellation cannot be ruled out, but no hard evidence has come to light at this time.
Ali Chappussy said:
TSR2 was scrapped because the Yanks were s
t scared it would take sales from their proposed customers. If it was something simple like it was trying to be too many things why were all the jigs and tooling destroyed as well?
I don't think it was any one reason, more like all of the above. t scared it would take sales from their proposed customers. If it was something simple like it was trying to be too many things why were all the jigs and tooling destroyed as well?Ali Chappussy said:
TSR2 was scrapped because the Yanks were st scared it would take sales from their proposed customers. If it was something simple like it was trying to be too many things why were all the jigs and tooling destroyed as well?
Jigs and tools are always broken up when a project is scrapped.t scared it would take sales from their proposed customers. If it was something simple like it was trying to be too many things why were all the jigs and tooling destroyed as well?Yertis said:
I don't think it was any one reason, more like all of the above.
Agreed, I think I stormed in on that missing thread moaning about the UK selling out and rolling over when the USA demanded the project cancelled, and it was swiftly pointed out that that was just one of the reasons for its failure.Still really saddens me when I saw a nosecone sitting there on the ground at Brooklands and realising what it was when I read the accompanying note, and when you read the story of the last days, and how the breaking of the moulds & jigs happened you can feel the pain.
annodomini2 said:
There was a very long thread on this forum about the TSR2 and a lot of insider information, but it's not showing up in the search...
Found it :http://web5.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
annodomini2 said:
There was a very long thread on this forum about the TSR2 and a lot of insider information, but it's not showing up in the search.
Basically there was a lot of stuff that resulted in it's cancellation, the bulk of it being the ridiculous management structure, resulting in immense bureaucracy and resultant overspend.
E.g. If I remember correctly, there were situations along the lines of 60-70 people in a meeting to decide the location of a switch/colour of paint etc, type scenarios.
Foreign involvement in it's cancellation cannot be ruled out, but no hard evidence has come to light at this time.
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&t=794083Basically there was a lot of stuff that resulted in it's cancellation, the bulk of it being the ridiculous management structure, resulting in immense bureaucracy and resultant overspend.
E.g. If I remember correctly, there were situations along the lines of 60-70 people in a meeting to decide the location of a switch/colour of paint etc, type scenarios.
Foreign involvement in it's cancellation cannot be ruled out, but no hard evidence has come to light at this time.
That is probably the thread. Anyone interested in TSR2 should read Damien Burke's book. It covers pretty much everything there is to know about the project, and the situation was certainly not as clear cut as is often claimed.
There are some very good Farnborough DVDs out there where nearly all of that footage is shown - with all the original fairly jingoistic commentaries.
It was nice to see some video clips from the BBC TV broadcasts of the 50s. That stuff is quite a rarer that the cinema newsreel films but it must be lurking in the vaults somewhere because every so often there is a snippet included in programmes such as this. These clips are so old they even pre-date Raymond Baxter's time as their aviation reporter. Before Baxter, the main aviation man at the BBC was Charles Gardner.
He's probably most famous for this radio report in 1940 -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/battleofbritain/11431...
It was nice to see some video clips from the BBC TV broadcasts of the 50s. That stuff is quite a rarer that the cinema newsreel films but it must be lurking in the vaults somewhere because every so often there is a snippet included in programmes such as this. These clips are so old they even pre-date Raymond Baxter's time as their aviation reporter. Before Baxter, the main aviation man at the BBC was Charles Gardner.
He's probably most famous for this radio report in 1940 -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/battleofbritain/11431...
Eric Mc said:
There are some very good Farnborough DVDs out there where nearly all of that footage is shown - with all the original fairly jingoistic commentaries.
Possibly no coincidence that as the jingoism faded, so did our prestige and ability to do anything. Not sure which happened first though.
sounds like the same fuel consumption on my TVR Chimaera!prand said:
Agreed, I think I stormed in on that missing thread moaning about the UK selling out and rolling over when the USA demanded the project cancelled, and it was swiftly pointed out that that was just one of the reasons for its failure.
Or in fact not a reason at all as that didn't happen. The US pushed a lot of business our way afterwards to keep our aviation industry afloat. Until we screwed them over by cancelling the F-111 buy at which point they lost patience and gave up on us.prand said:
Still really saddens me when I saw a nosecone sitting there on the ground at Brooklands and realising what it was when I read the accompanying note, and when you read the story of the last days, and how the breaking of the moulds & jigs happened you can feel the pain.
Yet it's at Brooklands where you can see so many concrete TSR2 moulds lying around in the grass...A sad story, but so much myth and legend other the years and so little truth.
Gassing Station | Boats, Planes & Trains | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff