British Aircraft Corporation TSR2

Thanks Paul. I've been expat too long!

Two airframes then. I have viewed the Cosford example so need to get to Duxford on my next UK visit.

I started at Brooklands (then BAe) in 1980 and it was still very much a subject that really hurt 15 years after the decision.
I don't have much information other that but those worked on the project were extremely bitter for understandable reasons.
I have a book somewhere, which describes when the test pilot got the news at Boscombe Down.

Is there any truth in the story that one of the TSR2 was hidden at Boscombe Down?. I heard they just hid it behind stacked wooden crates and forged the destruction documents.

Can anyone throw any light on this?

mbriscoe;156899 wrote:

The destruction of the jigs etc was definitely a political decision by the Labour government. I suppose we are lucky the two aircraft survived as I suspect they would have destroyed them as well if they had known.

Richard, thanks for merging the two threads as I did a quick search for a TSR2 thread before adding my post without success.

The Dave Reeves film was also very interesting as it was a very good example of what can happen when individuals are given decision making responsibility with little or no technical ability.

William Morris encountered similar problems and refused to supply Wolseley aircraft engines for the Airspeed Oxford project due to Air Ministry ITP process requirements in the 1930's.

The TSR2's ability to out accelerate a Lightning using only one after burner and exceed Mach1 at low level where never high lighted at the time.

Note: I heard a couple of decades later that the Americans had convinced themselves that our PM was the principle ' Red under the Bed " and that they had requested surveillance cooperation to counter what they perceived as a leaky culture on our side of the pond. If my memory is correct the PM felt that he was being spied on during his later years in office.

I also have a recollection of some one promoting the ' Better be RED than DEAD ' or some thing similar at the time as it came up during my debriefing in 1971 ?

When the second prototype (220) fuselage was being off-loaded from a road trailer at Boscombe Down using two cranes working together it was dropped landing on its port side and sustaining damage so that didn't help things. Must have been late 1964.

As was the practice in those days, BAC made timber and plywood mockups of all the major assemblies and components inclyding wooden bombs on wooden carriers. The fuselage mockups were destroyed by burning at Samlesbury the rest at Warton(?)

I think that I have a lot of pics on an old internal drive which I did backup onto CD so where is it.......

PETERTHEEATER;156945 wrote:

When the second prototype (220) fuselage was being off-loaded from a road trailer at Boscombe Down using two cranes working together it was dropped landing on its port side and sustaining damage so that didn't help things. Must have been late 1964.

As was the practice in those days, BAC made timber and plywood mockups of all the major assemblies and components inclyding wooden bombs on wooden carriers. The fuselage mockups were destroyed by burning at Samlesbury the rest at Warton(?)

I think that I have a lot of pics on an old internal drive which I did backup onto CD so where is it.......

I recall that in the late 1970,s whilst at Cranfield for a technical meeting, I had a short discussion about this aircraft and the consensus amongst several of the techical staff was that it was a flawed design and would never have met it's original design parameters.

It was felt that it should have had a swing wing, (an idea endorsed by Barnes Wallis). A design project at Cranfield produced a report and an accompanying model of a swing wing version. I presume that this report is still around somewhere in their archives. The model did look rather good.

I was taken to see the TSR2 before it was cosmetically restored and it sported a large Red Star on it's fin. Apparently it had been loaned to a Japanese film crew to represent a Russian Bomber!

Just a thought, the Germans invented the swing wing concept although they did not complete there project by the end of WW2

Here is a couple of images of XR 219 one at the AAEE and one taken Air to Air turning finals on its first landing.
Images C/O Krul

This image is hidden for guests.
Please log in or register to see it.

This image is hidden for guests.
Please log in or register to see it.

Regards Ian

I forgot to acknowledge that the assembly of the aircraft was at Weybridge.

The wing skins were milled out of solid block using the new fangled NCR milling machines. As I recall, one machine operator was given an award for suggesting a change to the 'programme' which resulted in a significant saving of the amount of the expensive alloy removed and recovered for scrap.

'Stretch' forming of sheet material in huge presses enabled one piece skins of compound curvature for the intake ducts.

One thing I did have doubts about was the integral wing tanks. The integral tanks of the Lighting were a constant source of fuel leaks in service to the point where an Air Poster was issued showing what were and were not acceptable leaks. Starting with 'stain' and continuing to 'weep', 'drip' and 'flow'

One of the advantages of still being topside is if you live long enough and keep breathing what went around comes around again.

Mark Hookham has written an article that indicates the rational, thinking and belief in TSR2 had been right on the button but 5 decades ahead of its time.

www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_new...d/article1519176.ece

To protect the integrity of the Mother of all Parliaments this may not get any air time.

I'm positive that every exocet flying fish will be capable of tracking our new aircraft carriers once commissioned.

Could the end of silos and submarines be near one may ask.