50 years ago today at Boscombe Down...

50 years ago today at Boscombe Down...

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dr_gn

16,140 posts

183 months

Tuesday 30th September 2014
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Talksteer said:
Mave said:
Hooli said:
Mave said:
DamienB said:
Sorry, total nonsense. TSR2 top speed ever reached - Mach 1.12. Lightning top speed - Mach 2+.
Not nonsense in the context of the flight testing covered. Higher top speed does not equal faster acceleration or faster climb.
Was the TSR2 or Concorde people clam was quicker than Frightning because the Frightning had to use reheat to keep up while the test aircraft was testing it's reheat?
The concorde's ability to cruise at Mach 2+ without reheat gives some indication of its aerodynamic efficiency compared to the lightning.
Most of all it's simply a view of the square/cubed rule in action. Big things are fast and find it difficult to change direction little things accelerate and change direction quickly.
A small aircraft with high wing loading will probably be far less manouverable at altitude than a larger aircraft with a lower wing loading.

Talksteer

4,843 posts

232 months

Wednesday 1st October 2014
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FourWheelDrift said:
Example thrust/weight ratios from the Internet.

Harrier 1.1
F-22 1.09
Typhoon 1.07
Lightning 0.78
TSR2 0.59
Concorde 0.37
I should introduce a number of concepts to the debate.

Thrust numbers quoted are usually static thrust and quite often uninstalled static thrust.

Those are values for the jet engine a sea level and with the engine tied to a stationary test stand.

Once you start moving forward you get drag from the air coming in the inlet. But then you get additional compression which means you get some of this drag back as additional thrust. The Ratio between these two factors is dependent on many factors, the bypass ratio of the engine, the compression ratio and the temperature the combustion chamber operates at. Commonly known as thrust lapse.

As your plane moves forward you get compression from the forward velocity with this comes a temperature rise. Depending on your engine's pressure ratio and what it's made out of may see you hit temperature limits and have to throttle back once to reach a certain speed.

Now add in altitude the air gets thinner the higher you go, this causes your mass flow to go down and so does your thrust. However the air is thinner so if you have the aerodynamic margins you can run your turbo machinery faster. Civil engines for example have a design point of the top of climb, at takeoff they are limited by temperature limits.

Therefore unless you want to get into understanding the design points of those specific engines and their specific thrust a thrust to weight ratio is at most broadly indicative.

To all that we can then add the airframe optimisation with regards manoeuvrability, takeoff distance, optimisation for drag a specific speed range and as mentioned in my last post the square/cube law.

The TSR2 did have a higher design speed than the Lightning and was nominally designed supercruise at mach 2. Inevitably there will be a speed/altitude range at which it would have out accelerated the Lightning think Caterham vs Mercedes S400. However I'd be loathe to estimate it based on anecdotes.

Also imagine what tranche 2's performance would be with the Concorde engines installed!


SlipStream77

2,153 posts

190 months

Wednesday 1st October 2014
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DamienB said:
V8 Fettler said:
Function defines form. Lightning couldn't catch one in test flights, so quite nippy.
Sorry, total nonsense. TSR2 top speed ever reached - Mach 1.12. Lightning top speed - Mach 2+.
One of the TSR2's operational requirements was for a high altitude dash capability of M2.5. It was shaping up well in testing according to Jimmy Dell and Don Knight, the latter even said it was faster than a lightning.

Test pilots tend to know what they're talking about. smile

V8 Fettler

7,019 posts

131 months

Wednesday 1st October 2014
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During an early test flight, Dell (Lightning on reheat, both engines) reported that he could not catch the TSR2 when the latter was using reheat on one engine. Perhaps he was mistaken?

Ah, Lightning lore! Mike Hale's stern intercept of Concorde and intercepting a U2 being highlights.

Dr Jekyll

23,820 posts

260 months

Wednesday 1st October 2014
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Didn't someone suggest reviving the program in the late 70s as a Tornado substitute?

IanMorewood

4,309 posts

247 months

Wednesday 1st October 2014
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Possibly but by the late 70's the first batch of Tonkas were in production.

dvs_dave

8,581 posts

224 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
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z06tim said:
Another great looking and interesting aircraft cancelled with the loss of 1000's of jobs, and effectively killing Canada's aircraft industry is the Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow.

There are none of these preserved, only some parts, including a nose section at the musuem in Ottawa.

Wiki here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Canada_CF-105_Ar...
Was this the one where is was discovered the Ruskies had infiltrated Avro and were passing info back home? Hence the reason why it was so hastily cancelled and everything related to it subsequently destroyed to stop any further intel falling into the wrong hands?

DamienB

Original Poster:

1,189 posts

218 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
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Ginetta G15 Girl said:
The comments from the Lightning chase pilot were more about ride quality at low level
No, we're referring entirely to the TSR2 pulling away on one burner story, which happened once, at high level.

Ginetta G15 Girl said:
However your comment rather disengenuously fails to address the fact that TSR2 was designed to be supersonic at low level.
I fail to address it as it's not relevant to the oft-quoted fairy tale we're talking about.

IanMorewood

4,309 posts

247 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
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Let's put it this way, without the CF105 program it is unlikely that the Mig25 would have been such a high speed interceptor.

DamienB

Original Poster:

1,189 posts

218 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
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Talksteer said:
The TSR2 did have a higher design speed than the Lightning and was nominally designed supercruise at mach 2.
First I've heard of it...

SlipStream77 said:
One of the TSR2's operational requirements was for a high altitude dash capability of M2.5.
Not true.

SlipStream77 said:
It was shaping up well in testing according to Jimmy Dell and Don Knight, the latter even said it was faster than a lightning.

Test pilots tend to know what they're talking about. smile
They sometimes do, they sometimes peddle the company line, and sometimes they are misquoted. Don Knight certainly never said it was faster than a Lightning - he described it as handling "like a big Lightning" and was, if I recall correctly, talking specifically about handling in the circuit when he said so.

V8 Fettler said:
During an early test flight, Dell (Lightning on reheat, both engines) reported that he could not catch the TSR2 when the latter was using reheat on one engine. Perhaps he was mistaken?
You're mistaken - this is the story I am referring to. He certainly *could* and *did* catch the TSR2, in a matter of seconds, as soon as he engaged reheat. As I've already posted, the Lightning was only briefly left behind.

DamienB

Original Poster:

1,189 posts

218 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
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Dr Jekyll said:
Didn't someone suggest reviving the program in the late 70s as a Tornado substitute?
Yes, but it was a laughable suggestion.

An extract from my book:

DamienB said:
Christopher de Vere, through his company Interflight Ltd., began looking at reviving TSR2 in 1977. By March 1979 de Vere had written to Stephen Hastings, Conservative MP and author of “The Murder of TSR2”, asking for help on how to proceed with his grand plan to resurrect the TSR2. Hastings, to give him credit, managed to reply with an entirely calm and rational recommendation that de Vere go away and return with further information – specifically, what roles the TSR2 could fulfil that the Tornado could not; that there was a definite service operational requirement for the aircraft; that the type had not been overtaken by technology and made obsolete; and that there would be good export potential. It was basically a polite brush-off but de Vere was not put off – and produced a paper entitled “The Need for TSR2 in 1979”, which talked of re-engining the aircraft with Olympus 593 and giving it square intakes so that the UK would have a means of delivering nuclear weapons to Russia in the mid 1980s when our nuclear submarines were expected to be worn out and a confrontation with Russia “most probable”; that it could also carry out long range air defence loaded down with missiles and fuel; and could operate from island bases on long range maritime patrol. As for being made obsolete, it could easily be fitted with up to date electronics, and as for export potential... well, the Canadians needed an air defence aircraft just like this (the cancellation of the Avro Arrow in 1959 having presumably passed de Vere by) and the US Navy could team up with the Royal Navy to form a Euro-American force to control the Indian Ocean using a maritime version based on Diego Garcia or Gan (cue several paragraphs going off at a tangent bemoaning the UK's treatment of the natives of the Maldives). Further export customers suggested were Australia, China, South Africa and Japan. XR220 could be back in the air by the 1980 Farnborough air show and new TSR2s in service by 1984. Entertaining as this all was, even better was a supporting letter sent to de Vere in August 1979 which, no doubt tongue firmly in cheek, suggested that there was “...no sound argument against putting the TSR2 into production, and getting negotiations with the US Department of Defense under way.” As the first production RAF Tornado GR.1 had rolled off the production line the month before, there was at least one sound argument against resurrecting the TSR2!

Later that month de Vere had an aircraft maintenance engineer inspect XR220 at Cosford and produce a report on her condition. This was, however, a less than detailed study carried out without opening a single panel – i.e. nothing more than a visual study without a single piece of internal equipment being seen. Regardless, the report predicted that 12 to 18 months of work would be necessary to carry out a real check of the airframe; “engine installations may be a difficult area” (masterful understatement given the engines' history of development problems), but that overall “...the feasibility, from the engineering standpoint, of restoring the aircraft to a standard of airworthiness necessary to continue with the development of the type subsequent to the production of a new Series of aircraft, is quite valid and could well be the means of recouping a considerable amount of of the vast amount of public monies already expended on the project, which currently stands as a complete loss to the British taxpayer.”

Armed with this apparent good news de Vere then wrote to the Chief of the Defence Staff in November 1979 enclosing his proposal, entitled “TSR2 – The Choice for the 1980s”. In this paper, amidst the hyperbole and outright nonsense used to try and justify the resurrection, de Vere outlined his plan to refit XR220 with Olympus 320 engines that by now were “benefiting from the extra years of development” (though work on the 320 had ceased in 1965); manufacture production aircraft to be fitted with the Olympus 593 as used on Concorde; mount cruise missiles on the aircraft; use it for air defence against hordes of Backfire and Fencer bombers; and control the seas from the Indian Ocean to the South Atlantic via bases such as Gan and Ascension. Exports to the USA, Australia, Canada and France were on the cards (China, South Africa and Japan having quietly disappeared from the list); there was no reason why the aircraft could not be airborne at Farnborough in September 1980 (conveniently ignoring the report his own engineer had produced), and in production for the RAF by 1984. CDS no doubt guffawed heartily and passed de Vere's communication to the Chief of the Air Staff, who no doubt guffawed heartily and passed it to his Assistant, Air Vice Marshal Hall, for a reply. The reply was polite and pointed out the modern requirements and financial realities made the resurrection impossible.

However, de Vere was not downhearted and replied in December 1979 in typically verbose style, attempting to justify his plan once more and suggesting a mere £24M would get two prototypes in the air; 30 men could dismantle the two airframes at Cosford and Duxford, transport them to BAC's Filton plant, report on their condition and re-assemble them within 4 months. This time the reply from ACAS was shorter – and still very much in the negative. Admiral of the Fleet The Lord Hill-Norton was next on de Vere's list, and after a visit in January 1980 wrote back to him - “...I do not think your proposal is a serious runner”. Lord Home received another copy of the proposal, passing it to the Secretary for Defence, Francis Pym, who replied to Lord Home acknowledging that they were already aware of de Vere's efforts and had been corresponding with him already, further claiming that his paper had been “studied carefully by my Department” but that “It certainly could not be accommodated within the defence budget unless we were to abandon or at least disrupt key equipment projects for which the services have a real need”.

Next stop on de Vere's increasingly tiresome tour was Roland Beamont himself. Beamont humoured him; pointed out a few basic flaws (e.g. for air defence, the high wing loading made turning performance inadequate) and the costs of incorporating a different engine, and then the kicker that the RAF was now a tactical air force, not a strategic one, and until the Air Staff and Government accepted the need for a strategic nuclear role, then the TSR2 was never going to be of interest – and even if it was, a “fully developed” TSR2 would only “possibly” be cheaper than developing an entirely new aircraft.

The next person to be hit by the campaign was Group Captain Mason at the RAF Staff College. He too was unimpressed but, obviously appreciating a good laugh, asked de Vere to please forward on any other papers that he considered would influence his arguments. Things were not going well, and de Vere decided that the similarities of all the replies he was getting meant there was some conspiracy behind the scenes to derail his plan. Stephen Hastings MP received another verbose and rambling letter in March 1980, to which he replied with a typically restrained re-statement of the fundamental problem that the RAF had no strategic role. de Vere was not put off, and, amplifying his achievements, contacts and prospects somewhat, went back to Roland Beamont. who simply pointed out the key obstacles as he saw them – the Olympus 320 engine and undercarriage problems which still had some work to be done to fix them when the project was cancelled.

The whole sorry story went on to appear in an article in Air Pictorial magazine in September 1981, basically a straight copy of de Vere's long-winded justifications for the idea, though this version of the story was represented as being kicked off by the Conservative Aviation Committee asking “a group of aviation engineers” to “study the feasibility of rebuilding the TSR-2”. This was hardly an accurate portrayal of Stephen Hastings' initial response to de Vere's letter, and it gave rise to a myth that Margaret Thatcher's incoming government threatened to restart TSR2 as Tornado was suffering delays. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Mave

8,208 posts

214 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
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DamienB said:
You're mistaken - this is the story I am referring to. He certainly *could* and *did* catch the TSR2, in a matter of seconds, as soon as he engaged reheat. As I've alrea dy posted, the Lightning was only briefly left behind.
Have you got a source for this?
And what are your thrust and weight values that support your assertion that the TSR2 was a "big, heavy bomber" and the Lightning had "substantially higher thrust to weight ratio"?

Edited by Mave on Thursday 2nd October 20:57

DamienB

Original Poster:

1,189 posts

218 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
quotequote all
One could equally ask - Have you got a source for the claim?

None of Beamont's books make it, as far as I can recall. One - Testing Early Jets - reproduces the flight test report (#14) in question, which merely mentions the chase aircraft falling behind during the transition [to mach 1], as it was of so little consequence and entirely expected.

The first printed version of the claim I have found is in Frank Barnett-Jones' book 'TSR-2 Phoenix, or Folly?' which, sad to say, has a lot of inaccuracies and lots and lots of anecdotes that bear no relation to reality (lots of those in TSR2 lore!).

I interviewed Jimmy Dell and we briefly discussed the incident - he didn't recall telling the story as it appeared in the book and was embarrassed that the story had gone on like that ever since. He said merely that the acceleration was a surprise - he hadn't heard Beamont call that he was going to accelerate - so he plugged in the burners and caught up, mildly annoyed that he hadn't been able to keep up during the transition as would have been normal practice (in order to give instrumentation readings for comparison - the flight test report mentions the lack of these readings being available).

Mave

8,208 posts

214 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
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DamienB said:
I fail to address it as it's not relevant to the oft-quoted fairy tale we're talking about.
It's much more relevant than quoting the max speed of an operational aircraft against the highest achieved speed of a development aircraft early in its flight testing...

DamienB

Original Poster:

1,189 posts

218 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
quotequote all
I give up. Enjoy your fairy tale.

Mave

8,208 posts

214 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
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If you're going to make statements that things are "fairytales" and "nonsense" backed up by absolutely nothing of any substance or relevance, then you shouldn't be surprised to be challenged. If you had started off by talking about interviewing the test pilot you may have established some credibility, but your earlier shallow comments imply no real understanding of transonic flight performance.

Mave

8,208 posts

214 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
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DamienB said:
One could equally ask - Have you got a source for the claim?
I wasn't questioning the claim, I was questioning that it was nonsense and couldn't happen.

TSR2 flight testing at 79,000lb AUW with 60,000lb SLS thrust - say 0.76 T/W
Lightning, assume decent fuel load for flight test endurance, say 40,000lb AUW with 32,000lb SLS thrust - say 0.8 T/W - so approx 5% T/W difference SLS.

TSR2 has more better intake shock control and reheat nozzle control- so lower intake drag and reduced thrust lapse at M1.0.
It also appears to have better area ruling, so less wave drag.
Each of these differences alone is easily worth more than 5% T/W.


Ginetta G15 Girl

3,220 posts

183 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
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Damien, here's a Q for you.

I bought your book when it first came out and quite enjoyed it, especially the background to the OR that resulted in TSR2. Although, despite the promises, I didn't feel that the book was (as advertised) the definitive story about TSR2.

However.

In your book you clearly state that TSR2 was fitted with a Doppler Radar because the IN could not measure drift due to wind.

Would you like to explain to us all here just why an IN can not measure such?

Ayahuasca

27,427 posts

278 months

Thursday 2nd October 2014
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Yertis said:
I'm not sure that's true of the Gerry Anderson series Eric, the models they used were quite big and pretty much scratch built. Very few of the original Thunderbirds stuff survives at all. Here's an Interceptor pic for you though! biggrin

My one was green!

SlipStream77

2,153 posts

190 months

Friday 3rd October 2014
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DamienB said:
SlipStream77 said:
It was shaping up well in testing according to Jimmy Dell and Don Knight, the latter even said it was faster than a lightning.

Test pilots tend to know what they're talking about. smile
They sometimes do, they sometimes peddle the company line, and sometimes they are misquoted. Don Knight certainly never said it was faster than a Lightning - he described it as handling "like a big Lightning" and was, if I recall correctly, talking specifically about handling in the circuit when he said so.
Knight is quoted in the last paragraph here.

http://www.airsceneuk.org.uk/hangar/2006/tsr2/tsr2...

There's a member of PPRuNe who spoke personally to Beamont who reckoned TSR2 was good for M2.5

http://www.pprune.org/aviation-history-nostalgia/9...

I don't buy the argument that they are still towing the company line, why would they after retirement?

Misquotes do occur but looking at the evidence, it's fairly clear that it would have been a fair bit faster than a Lightning.