Tango01  | 03 Jul 2012 10:20 a.m. PST |
"…could easily be regarded as the last significant attempt by the UK to occupy a leading position in top tier military aircraft design…"
Is this true? From
link Like this plane from the 60's
Amicalement
Armand |
| 55th Division | 03 Jul 2012 10:30 a.m. PST |
I have worked on one of these at the RAF Cosford Aerospace museum. when the labour government cancelled the project they ordered the destruction of the blueprints. and in the 80s british aerospace sent a team to the museum to make new drawings of some of the systems |
| Unrepentant Werewolf 2 | 03 Jul 2012 10:58 a.m. PST |
Damn good plane by all accounts, cancelled by the government after liberal application of bribes & slush fund payments from McDonnell-Douglas I believe? |
 martinjpayne1964 | 03 Jul 2012 11:20 a.m. PST |
Thought it was cancelled because our arse-licking Labour Government didn't want the UK to have anything that could be seen as a threat to their Communist masters! |
| Timmo uk | 03 Jul 2012 11:21 a.m. PST |
Apparently years ahead of its time. |
| MajorB | 03 Jul 2012 11:27 a.m. PST |
"the last significant attempt by the UK to occupy a leading position in top tier military aircraft design…"
Is this true? I don't think so. Both the Harrier and the Tornado would easily fall into the "top tier" category. |
| Evzone | 03 Jul 2012 12:19 p.m. PST |
Could of have reached Moscow flying on its belly! |
| Maddaz111 | 03 Jul 2012 12:35 p.m. PST |
I think any comment about how the politicians of the day were persuaded one way or another would be blue fez territory. I have to suggest that a number of British designs of the 50s and 60s were superior aircraft, but the needs of the air force and their political masters continued to change. Most of the early threats were nuclear bombers dropping dead fall bombs over British cities, and to do the same to enemy cities. When that threat lessened due to effective sub launched ballistic missiles, then the British air force had a lot of surplus aircraft in search of a mission. Some became ground support and tactical bombers, some became air defence fighters, and others were shuffled into support roles. The long range V bombers were not used anymore because they were inferior to Missiles. America provided some support for our country, and F111 were based here to provide tactical delivery of guided bombs and nuclear munitions. Lucky that we never needed to use them. |
| Goober | 03 Jul 2012 1:10 p.m. PST |
Compare the TSR2 and the later Jaguar – many similarities. All the research didn't go totally to waste. G. |
 20thmaine | 03 Jul 2012 4:14 p.m. PST |
Apart from Jaguar being a teeny-tiny little plane and TSR2 a true monster of the skies – very similar ;-) Maddaz111 – think we're ok – 1960's is history now, not politics. Margard – harrier already existed, and Tornado is a product of the multi-national Panavia consortium. Future harrier development involved the little known McDonald-Douglas aviation company. Who were not a UK design house ;-) Since no-one else would have bought TSR-2 it would have bankrupted the industry it should have been saving. Yes, it was ahead ahead of it's time, yes it was better than th plabes the UK eventually bought, yes it is spectacularly pretty. But the French and the USA wouldn't have bought it because they were protecting their own industry and we were simply too poor. |
| Jemima Fawr | 03 Jul 2012 4:45 p.m. PST |
An old friend of mine was a Corporal techie on the ground support for the TSR-2 trial. When the prototype took off, they realised to their horror that the cantilevered undercarriage had been installed back-to-front, which meant that the thing had to land with an astonishingly high angle-of-attack and ground-speed in in order to get the wheels on the floor! |
| Lion in the Stars | 04 Jul 2012 12:50 p.m. PST |
A gorgeous aircraft, and broadly comparable to the North American Aviation A5 Vigilante. Shame the Brits couldn't afford to make them! |
 David Manley | 04 Jul 2012 1:41 p.m. PST |
"slush fund payments from McDonnell-Douglas" Surely not? :) Didn't something similar happen when the Germans were looking to buy a low level strike aircraft? Lined up to buy the Buccaneer, ended up buying the F-104 (!). |
| Etranger | 04 Jul 2012 8:58 p.m. PST |
Strangely, the RAF ended up with the Buccaneer in just that role, after the TSR2 was cancelled. There was some overseas interest in the TSR. Australia was looking to buy some, for one. They ended up with the F-111 after the TSR got scrubbed. The order was many years late and well over budget… |
| Etranger | 04 Jul 2012 8:59 p.m. PST |
And for a bit of trivia, this was the TSR2. What was the TSR1……? |
| Martin Rapier | 05 Jul 2012 5:04 a.m. PST |
No-one actually knows, although there is much fevered speculation on air forums. As TSR stood for Tactical, Strike and Reconnaisance, the most favoured (and likely) answer is the Canberra for TSR1, but it was never offically called that. |
| Jemima Fawr | 05 Jul 2012 5:19 a.m. PST |
I'd often wondered about that. Also what happened to the TOG 1 tank (and the T56, T57, T58, T59, T61, T63, T65, T66, T67, T68, T69, T71, T73…). And why were Challenger 1 & 2 not called Challenger 2 & 3, as we'd already had a Challenger in 1944? And why did we have a New Shmoo cartoon? What happened to the Old Shmoo? |
| Timbo W | 17 Jul 2012 12:17 p.m. PST |
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| Etranger | 17 Jul 2012 7:57 p.m. PST |
The TSR 1 might have been the Fairey 9/30, which was the ancestor of the legendary Swordfish. The Swordfish was the original TSR 2 (Torpedo, Spotter, Reconaissance)… link (Wiki, but gels with the Aeroplane articles covering it) |
| Lion in the Stars | 20 Jul 2012 4:43 a.m. PST |
And for a bit of trivia, this was the TSR2. What was the TSR1……? I'd heard the name translated as 'Tactical Strike/Reconnaissance, mach 2' |
examines another pre-painted building for WWII.
