TSR-2 What If?

By Stuart Beatson
Sapmail, June 2001

Having recently returned to the modelling hobby after a 15-year hiatus I have been greeted with the greatest variety of possible modelling subjects that there has ever been. I have always been a fan of Sci-Fi subjects and when I started back into building models this is principally what I built. This all changed a year or two ago, when I bought a book called Secret Projects of the Luftwaffe. I became intrigued with project aircraft and X-planes. This interest gradually spread to non-Luftwaffe subjects. Unlike the Luftwaffe whose many projects were stopped by being on the losing side of WW2, I discovered that project aircraft from other countries sometimes do not get selected for production, not for performance deficiencies but for political deficiencies.

One aircraft that suffered from this was the TSR2. On hearing that the Model Company Dynavector was releasing a 1/48th scale TSR2, I began to wonder about why the project was cancelled and what maybe would have happened had it gone into production?

The TSR2 had many teething problems as most advanced designs do, with virtually every system in the plane being new, but this was nothing compared to the political problems that would eventually bring about it's demise. The problems stemmed from government mismanagement and the fact that the company, BAC that was building the aircraft was a bloated bureaucracy, whose individual departments rarely coordinated together on what was a very complex project. This was graphically illustrated when in attempting to marry the engines to the airframe it was discovered that they did not fit in the tunnels supplied. In addition some of the subcontractors working on the project were not working for BAC but for the ministry, this exacerbated the communication problem. Ministry interference extended into design and manufacture of the aircraft, they took charge of designing the cockpit, and often would have three-hour meetings to decide the location of a switch and usually got it wrong. Another problem was American pressure to buy the TFX (F-111) instead of continuing development on the more expensive TSR2.

One thing that would have guaranteed the future of the TSR2 was export orders, and with Australia's interest in the TSR2 this looked like the break that the program needed. When the delegation from Australia arrived in Britain to discuss the TSR2 Lord Mountbatten a known critic, met with the delegation and after this meeting Australian interest in the TSR2 waned. One must wonder what qualifications in aerospace technology Lord Mountbatten had, to have influence on what aircraft a country should buy for it's military. The Australians went on to buy the F-111 which would cost 10 times more than they had been promised and would be 10 years late into service.

Engine problems surfaced, as a point of concern was the manufacturer's not being able to guarantee the survival of the engines beyond 5 hours of use at a maximum of 97% power. Despite this the first test flight occurred on the 27th of September 1964.

It would take the rest of the year to iron out engine and other problems after which more testing flights took place. Most concerning of the many problems plaguing the aircraft, was the vibration problems in the landing gear.The vibrations were so bad that it temporarily blinded the crew on landing, this potentially fatal problem was caused by the vibration of the landing gear being at the same frequency as the human eyeball.

As the test flights continued the problems gradually were remedied and by the 14th test flight the TSR2 was taken supersonic. The TSR2 was no slouch with the chase plane, a mach2 Lightning, being left well behind even after engaging afterburners on its engines!  Despite the positive advancements the TSR2 program was under concerted attack. Poor management and inter-company cooperation cased spiralling costs and rumours of impending cancellation circulated.

The fact that the problems were being fixed and that the aircraft was very advanced, well ahead of anything built or projected did not save it in the end. On the 6th of April 1965 the TSR2 program was terminated. The reason given was that the F-111 was a better and cheaper option, even though in the end they cancelled on that order because of cost overruns with that project. What happened with the TSR2 next is the most extraordinary episode in the whole sorry saga. All bar two of the airframes were destroyed and this included even a wooden mock up, which was burned while company employees looked on. All tooling, technical publications, photographs and even the records of the test flights from the airfields, were destroyed as the government attempted to make the TSR2 vanish from history.

The British were to pay hugely for the cancellation of the TSR2 program. Not only did they lose the development experience gained from the project; they had to pay large sums of money to General Dynamics for reneging on the promise to purchase the F-111, which was the reason for cancelling the TSR2 in the first place    The British then decided to buy the Phantom , which was a very capable aircraft in its own right, but not really a satisfactory replacement for the TSR2. This especially when to avoid more controversy it was decided to use Rolls-Royce Spey engines which were generally thought to be unsuitable for a fighter. This marriage of American airframe and British engine was to make the UK Phantoms the most expensive of all and not as fast as the original US Phantom. Not only were the U.K. Phantoms poor replacements for the TSR2 but they could not fulfil even the interceptor role which forced the aging Lightning fleet to soldier on until 1988. Interestingly the Australian Airforce was given Phantoms while the problems with the F-111 were being sorted out.

Strangely the conservative government in 1981 looked at reviving the TSR2 program but in the end it was decided to return the project to the aerospace scrap heap. The UK would eventually get a capable strike aircraft in the Tornado but the irony is that the British could have had an aircraft slightly better than the Tornado fifteen years earlier and would not have required the resources of three countries to produce it.

Next Month: we have a look at the possible future of the TSR-2 , potential operators and some theoretical camouflage schemes for it. Stay tuned till next month.

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