50 years ago today at Boscombe Down...
Discussion
I never found the slightest hint of any dodgy dealings in my researches. The Americans offered a cheaper alternative; we accepted. They then sweetened the deal with a good loan; they then accepted an exchange whereby we sold them lots of stuff too. And we screwed them and cancelled the F-111, so they screwed us in return and cancelled all the buys they were in the progress of carrying out. A sad chain of affairs really, but that was how it went...
As for the TSR2 itself, a hugely impressive aeroplane but by the time it was cancelled the RAF didn't want it, because it was too big, too heavy, too expensive and too limited.
As for the TSR2 itself, a hugely impressive aeroplane but by the time it was cancelled the RAF didn't want it, because it was too big, too heavy, too expensive and too limited.
Buy him a proper book then not a pamphlet... www.tsr2.info
Mave said:
Not nonsense in the context of the flight testing covered. Higher top speed does not equal faster acceleration or faster climb.
Absolutely, totally, 100% nonsense.The TSR2 was a big, heavy, bomber. The Lightning had a substantially higher thrust to weight ratio and was sat in trail behind the TSR2 on cold power. *Of course* the TSR2 pulled away once it lit reheat! But it did so for a few seconds only, the Lightning caught up in moments and the entire summary of this event in the flight test report is that the Lightning was briefly left behind in the transition. It really surprises me how people are still trumpeting this little myth as fact without stopping to even think about it.
As it's PH, imagine you are driving behind a nice big Mondeo, in your nice little Elise. The Mondeo floors it. Now, is he going to accelerate away from you? Yes. Will you have to press your loud pedal to catch up? Yes. Does this mean the Mondeo is faster than your Elise because you had to - gasp - go faster to catch him?
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.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.
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.Test pilots tend to know what they're talking about.
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.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.
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.
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).
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).
Ginetta G15 Girl said:
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?
No, I say that the stable platform component of the TSR2's overall INS could not detect displacement due to wind and then put my foot in it somewhat by trying to produce a simplified explanation as to why (the moving air mass comment). The overall INS was made up of stable platform for attitude and heading/velocities in space, doppler for drift/speed relative to the ground, central computing system with air data inputs and thus could detect drift as part of the overall system.Would you like to explain to us all here just why an IN can not measure such?
John Forbat's book is rather better than mine at explaining the intricacies (and unreliability and inaccuracies) of the navigation system - but as that's basically what that book is about (setting aside the non-TSR2 stuff later on), it's hardly surprising, and it is a very technical read indeed. I wasn't aiming for that level of detail.
telecat said:
ALthough the TSR2 was rated at MACH 2.35 in "Dash" mode. Its theoretical maximum speed was Mach 3 in level flight at 45,000 ft (14,000 m). I doubt the airframe would have taken that very often unless it was uprated.
The aircraft's design mach number, as of 1961, was 2.25. Beyond Mach 1.5 it would be uncontrollable without artificial stability measures - a fin auto-stiffener and augmented yaw and roll dampers. However by 1964 wind tunnel testing had shown them that the design was more unstable above Mach 1.5 than expected, and the aircraft would be struggling to sit at Mach 1.7 without becoming uncontrollable - despite the auto-stiffener. I interviewed their head wind tunnel man of the time and he was firmly of the opinion that it would 'swap ends' above Mach 1.5. They tried a *lot* of tweaks to the airframe (some drastically ugly bits were bolted on to models!) to improve stability at high mach numbers and were really struggling on this point right up until cancellation (by which time the RAF had agreed to a Mach 2.0 design aim, a Mach 1.7 guarantee point, and Mach 1.5 as a service limit).Also, as you say, the airframe itself would not survive it. The materials used would be suffering badly at much above Mach 2. Most of the external stores being discussed were firmly subsonic carriage only as well - but as you can see the sea level continuous speed had been reduced to Mach 0.9 by then anyway.
Fat Albert said:
Found where I had heard the out-accelerating a Lightning cliam, it was on a documentary:
The full documentary (TSR2: the untold Story)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o53u0X0Ik0w
Snippet with tale of Flight 14 here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXdJxjvQZW4
That documentary is littered with inaccuracies. And for those who think test pilots have the last word on accuracy, fast forward to 44:25 in where Roland Beamont explains how airframes were dragged out of the factory and burnt, particularly the magnesium parts which burnt "like a holocaust".The full documentary (TSR2: the untold Story)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o53u0X0Ik0w
Snippet with tale of Flight 14 here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXdJxjvQZW4
Only the footage shows a *wooden mockup* being burnt (many months after cancellation), not a single airframe was burnt, and the TSR2 had barely any magnesium parts...
Sadly, just like everybody else, old test pilots get confused and stories become ever more exciting with each successive recounting. Even Bea's books show confusion with his earlier ones being the better ones - he gets confused about which flight is which in some later volumes.
Gassing Station | Boats, Planes & Trains | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff