British Aircraft Corporation TSR2

TSR1 was not the Canberra (the S stood for strike and when it entered service the Canberra wasnt a strike aircraft, strike aircraft carry strike weapons ie nuclear), it was in fact the Swordfish! In the case of the Swordfish TSR was Torpedo Strike and Recconaisance.

As for the name I was told it was going to be Eagle (and it does look like a bird of prey when landing IMO), but Im willing to beleive that no name had actually been thought of.

As for manoeuverability, I dont think so. The aircraft has a wing that would have given it very little manoueverability, it would have manouevered like an F104!

Tim McClelland here tried in 2011 to debunk some of the mythology, but, like many hypotheses, its very implausibility is attractive: "I know what I, uniquely, know, so don't confuse me with the facts".

Improved Kiloton Bomb (to be Red Beard) confirmed into production 1956. Big. Not as big as Blue Danube, but big. GOR.339 to carry it in RAFG, out to tender 9/9/57. TF capability derived from transistors. Measure the cube/sense the vibration-dampening weight/sense the temperature control pain of the avionics cavern in the photo above of the Cosford example. Length 89% of Vulcan. MTBF would be measured in minutes RAF Mus Jnl.17B,P.170. Inoperable by conscripts, so just as well that we went all professional in 1960.

12/9/58: TI Dallas demonstrates silicon chip IC.

15/12/58: blissfully ignorant thereof, MoS awards chipless TSR.2.

10/61: DOR circulates draft Buccaneer+TSR.2 replacement OR.355, for maybe 1975 Service: chips.

1/9/63: new CAS Elworthy, facing budget constraints, recommends to Minister Thorneycroft, deletion of TSR.2, acquisition of chippy F-111A. M.Quinlan,RAFHist. Soc. Journal 24, 01, P.10. (Thorneycroft.MoD was) writing (it) would have (to go) it was just that (Labour) took the opprobrium” B.Jackson/E.Bramall, Chiefs, Brassey’s, 92, P3. Nevertheless PM Wilson offered to buy 50 for East of Suez at an all-up fixed price. Sir G.R.Edwards declined. R.Gardner, Fr.Bouncing Bombs to Concorde, Sutton, 06 has an offer of acceptance of loss upto £9Mn., plus absent profit, presented as BAC “exposure” to £55Mn. Unreal, bottomless pit, so chopped.

If GRE had bluffed, asserted a ceiling cost, then threatened bankruptcy when the project was utterly committed (see Lockheed, C-5A) chop would have been late-1967 (maybe confined to 543Sqd vice Victor SR.2) when £ was devalued and UK withdrew from East of Suez.

Scrap: disposal instructions.

When the Customer stops paying, firms clear out the junk to free floorspace for revenue. See Avro and Arrow. No conspiracy.
The way it works is that (MoA here) must promptly cease nugatory expenditure of our money. General Works detritus - raw material, jigs, tools - is segregated into: a) peculiar-to-type (here TSR.2-bespoke) and is promptly scooped up by the site's current scrappie for swarf; and b) general (or multi-)purpose: NC tools for example. The firm will bid to take them over, offering scrap yield. What's then left is end-items, with some form of ownership paperwork (flown/unflown prototype aircraft, engines, avionics boxes). MoA circulates those assets and invites bids. I assume CofA and P&EE said me, please for 2 survivors, that MoA chose to forego scrap yield - public interest, and that someone found a way of burying the cost of shifting the things. Remember, it is junk. Forget all conspiracies.

There was a very feeble murmur from BSEL that a few flights as Flying Test Bed would help read across BOl.22R to Concorde/B.Ol.593: France, with no comparable, said thou art in jest. No-one else showed the slightest interest in putting his R&D budget behind TSR.2. So last year.

Hooraay!!! Outside at last. Taken at Cosford yesterday (14-6-15) -

She looks like she really means business -


Steve

The way the RAF are running their force, TSR2 would probably still be flying in several rolls. I just wonder what the upgrades would have looked like. She looked a beast then.

What magnificent photos . I agree she still looks the business even after Fifty years !!
Bomber .

She still looks striking even after Fifty years . I've got both corgi examples they just look superb !!