Talk:BAC TSR-2

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

AVIATION This article is within the scope of the Aviation WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see lists of open tasks and task forces. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.
Aviation Portal
Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale.
MILHIST This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see lists of open tasks and regional and topical task forces. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the quality scale.

Contents

[edit] Canberra swordfish

Wasn't the TSR.1 was supposed to be the Canberra. The original TSR.II was the prototype of the Fairey Swordfish! --Daedelus 19:31, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Barnes Wallis' involvement

On this page it states that Barnes Wallis was the primary designer yet on the Barnes Wallis page it states he did not work on the TSR2 but one of his sons did. Which page is correct? -- Mariocki TALK 16:27, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Mmmm, who knows? I must admit that I had never, until I saw it here, heard that Wallis had worked on TSR-2, let alone been its "leading designer". However, I can't find any definitive info on the web, so at present it's hard to settle it. My father has a number of books about TSR-2, such as "Project Cancelled", etc, so perhaps I can get a peek at them and find out a bit more. In the meantime if anyone knows for sure, the article should be fixed if it needs to be. Graham 23:47, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
Wallis definitely didn't work on TSR-2, according to a number of books. The article as it stands todays appears to be correct. Graham 01:08, 9 September 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Cancellation

Rather than the political reasons I have heard from one source that the airframe suffered fatigue problems. Someone who is ex-RAF, and slightly connected to the project, commented that the avionics people where unhappy at cancellation but the airframe happy. One additional comment was that the USSR had got hold of the plans and it was important that they wasted effort finding the fatigue.--Paddy's Ego 19:35, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Very doubtful that this is true. By the time TSR-2 flew fatigue was pretty well understood and the number of hours that the aircraft clocked up would not have produced any fatigue unless the design was utterly hopeless, which it most definitely wasn't! I think some of the politics surrounding this is yet to come out, but I notice that all of the relevant secret govt docs on TSR-2 were released to the public records office in April this year as part of the Freedom of Information Act. Perhaps someone would like to pop down there and read them? I bet there's a book in it!!! Graham 01:08, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
My father was involved in the UK nuclear submarine reactor programme.

They were told at the time, that TSR2's cancellation and transfer of TSR2 technology to the USA was a condition for the purchase of Polaris missile system, & reactor technology.

That certainly sounds plausible. The Yanks have a history of making similar demands to maintain their military supremacy (e.g. Miles M.52). However, unless an official source can be found, it remains speculative. Graham 00:31, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fairey Swordfish

I have removed the following text because, as Daedelus said, it isn't really accurate:

(the TSR-1 being the pre-war Fairey Swordfish biplane, an aircraft that fulfilled a similar role in its day).

The Swordfish was actually the TSR II and in it's case the TSR stood for Torpedo-Spotter/Reconnaisance. If I remember correctly the Swordfish's TSR I predecessor was a previous Fairey design that wasn't proceeded-with.


As a matter of interest, some years ago when I was interested in that sort of thing I looked into the TSR-2 and the more I found out about it the more I came to the conclusion that the person responsible for drawing-up GOR 339 really knew what they were doing - even if the politicians didn't.

As such, the raison d'etre of the TSR-2 was that it was designed to fly very low (within the radar ground-clutter, in fact) and very fast, which would make it almost undetectable until it was too late to stop (the Tomahawk cruise missile does this sort of thing today, but at only about a quarter the TSR-2's speed) It could therefore almost guarantee to deliver it's (nuclear) weapon thus making it a very credible deterrent.

To digress: At these low-levels it's not (or wasn't then) possible to swing any (manualy sighted) anti-aircraft gun rapidly enough to track a fast moving aircraft in order to fire on it. A heavy gun is useless at low levels because it can’t be swung rapidly enough and a small, say 20mm, gun, doesn't have the range to fire out to the ranges it can track the aircraft at. If the aircraft goes overhead, then by the time the gun has been swung around to point in the aircraft’s direction (assuming that it wasn't already pointing in the correct direction by chance in the first place) the target is likely to be obscured by the surrounding terrain, eg. trees, buildings etc. A radar-aimed gun (or missile system) needs to acquire the target and again the system needs to be ready in the first place. Yet again, the time the aircraft is within the system's acquisition-horizon is so short as to make this difficult if not impossible and then there's the problem of ground clutter. Incidently, the only type of weapon that might be able to provide some defence against this sort of attack would be the Phalanx CIWS type of system of today, but that would probably be much less effective over land littered with radar-shadow causing obstructions and other clutter.

In addition, because the TSR-2 was designed to operate from 'advanced' areas (i.e., in time's of crisis it was to be deployed to forward areas and operate from dispersed rough-fields or roadways in Germany or wherever - that's why the TSR-2 was STOL and didn't need a nice, tarmac, runway) it would not be possible to wipe-out the aircraft on their airfields in a pre-emptive strike.

As an aside, the reason for the aircraft having been designed to fly most of it's sortie on autopilot has less to do with making things easy for the pilot than it being due to the extremely low-level and high-speed the TSR-2 was designed to fly these missions at, day or night and in all weathers - at these altitudes and speeds (~ 200ft and ~ 900 Kts) a pilot's (who might well be tired) reaction-times are not good enough for safe flying over anything other than perhaps a flat, featureless, desert in daylight and good weather, hence the autopilot linked-in to the navigation computer - and the RAF knew quite a bit about low/night/poor-weather flying.


BTW, there's an article by Roland Beamont called Testing The TSR-2 in a 1982 issue of Aeroplane Monthly (don't know the month) which includes his Flight Test Reports. TSR-2 flight testing was also done by Jimmy Dell. Ian Dunster 16:05, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Designation Sequence???

In the 'designation sequence' section of the page, someone has tried to do something but has only come out as sets of Square Brackets. First of all, were they trying to do anything important (as far I know TSR.2 was the only designation so I'm not sure there is any 'sequence' to detail). If someone knows what they were trying to do, could they repair it - or shall I just delete it?

I removed it - it's from a standard template used in many other aircraft articles, but doesn't apply here, since this aircraft was not part of a designation sequence. Graham 23:59, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Better than a B-1?

I think that the TSR.2 was an incredible airplane and, based simply on the merits of its' performance, it was a serious error not to put it into service.

However, saying that it's superior to a B-1B seems a bit of hyperbole. If you're talking about raw speed - okay, that's valid, at least at altitude. However, at low level, it's aluminum construction would likely have limited it to high subsonic speed except perhaps for final "run-in" dashes. The B-1B can penetrate at low level at .95 Mach; no mean feat.

But unrefueled combat range with normal loadouts (TSR.2: 1150 miles vrs B-1B: 2,993 miles), and total armament load (6,000 lbs against 75,000 lbs) are both in rather different leagues.

Also, every reference I can find on the Olympus shows max ratings in the area of 33,000 to 34,000 lbs thrust so the power listed for the TSR.2 is total installed thrust, not thrust per engine. In contrast, the B-1B has 4 engines each of 30,000 lbs each. At expected attack weights the TSR.2 would have had a much higher thrust-to-weight ratio than the B-1B but this is not a big issue in their respective modes - the TSR.2 was a strike aircraft, the B-1B is a long-range bomber.

Found some numbers on the Rolls-Royce website (http://www.rolls-royce.com/media/showPR.jsp?PR_ID=1721) that say that the Bristol Olympus R28 mk. 360 had a thrust output of 42,733 lb(force) and was a heavily modified 320 (the type tha tpowered the prototype TSR.2) that was designed specifically for the aircraft. Only one of these engines was built and it underwent some testing at Rolls-Royce Barnoldswick, but was cancelled with the TSR.2. 194.80.32.8 17:48, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

As for the super-cruise reference - did the TSR.2 actually demonstrate super cruise (sustained supersonic flight without the use of afterburners)? I've been looking and haven't found a reference for that assertion.

In the end, comparing the TSR.2 to the F-111, Panavia Tornado, and Su-24 "Fencer" would make a lot more sense.

Hatcat 04:28, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree that there is a tendency to wishful thinking where the TSR-2 is concerned - and since it never fulfilled its potential, it's quite easy to project all sorts of performance accolades on it since it never was called upon to prove them in practice. I recently cleaned up one or two such wishful "facts". However, the low-level performance you're talking about is actually way better than the B-1 (if indeed the B1 is limited to Mach 0.95 low level; I don't know very much about the B1). TSR-2 was designed for supersonic low level attack, with a rated speed at sea level of Mach 1.2, according to the various books I've read on the subject. Of course, such performance was never actually demonstrated. I'm not even sure what the max speed actually obtained in testing reached - the first supersonic flight reached Mach 1.2 with one afterburner non functional. It's hard to come by data on further test flights. It's possible that supersonic testing didn't progress much beyond this. I would agree that comparison with the B1 is probably not all that sensible, I think someone just wants to say the TSR-2 was "ahead of its time". Fair enough, though TSR-2 is big for a strike aircraft (compare with the Tornado for example), yet on the small side for a pure bomber. No doubt it would have ended up in a half-and-half role, so it might stand some comparison with the B1. Graham 06:07, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

The aircraft only made the one supersonic flight. Why was the "pull away from the lightning" removed? I believe the chase pilot himself described this occuring. As far as low-level performance was concerned, the prototype was flown at 500kts IAS on 84% power (with the lower rated engines). DB. 13:32, 04 May 2006

The reason it was removed is that it doesn't make any sense. A Lightning was ALWAYS faster than TSR-2, by design. So even a fully-developed TSR-2 could not have outrun a Lightning in any conditions. On that particular flight, one afterburner could not be engaged due to a fault and the top speed attained was Mach 1.2, which for a Lightning was a stroll in the park. The only reason that the TSR-2 might have "pulled away" was because the chase pilot was simply cruising and didn't follow. However, in a drag race, Lightning would win every time. Graham 06:05, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
ACTUALLY, the invitation to tender for the TSR.2 stated that she should be able to out-run any interceptor in service, including the Lightning, and the ITT was surpassed in every test. The TSR.2 was designed to be capable of many roles, including the Soviet-style supersonic dash accross air-defences. It is CLEARLY stated in the Department of Testing & Observational Records at RAF... err, well, the base name escapes me for the moment, that the TSR. 2 did, infact, match the same top-speed as the Lightning did. It was only the verbal descriptions of the chase by the pilots who stated that the TSR.2 was faster. According to the RAF Logistical and Tactical Analysis reports, if the TSR.2 had been upgraded to "TSR.2 B.mk.1" specs., she was estimated at a top-speed between 1,650 mph (the maximum recorded speed attained by a Lightning (F.mk.6 Lightning) and 1,875 mph.
As for the "Better" than the B-1B argument, I'd have to say it depends on what you define as better. The B-1B has superior range, weapon-load, PRICE-TAG and, of course, it's gorgeous. The TSR.2 was superior in speed, maneuverability, potential targetting and Electronic Warfare systems and upgradability (the fighter variant, which was only developed for a matter of months, was over 85% compatible with the earlier bomber prototype). Unfortunately, as it was never finished (damned politics) we'll never know for certain194.80.32.9 17:01, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I was under the impression that it was mainly compared to the F-111 Aardvark more than any other aircraft, which it was (supposedly) superior to. 194.80.32.8 14:47, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cancellation 2

I think you should expand a bit on why a project, which had reached this advanced stage was cancelled.

The public accounts committee reviewed the project after cancellation and from that we know in December 1959 the estimated cost of development was £80-90m with an in service date of in 1966. By January 1964 this figure had increased to £240-£260m with an in service date of 1968 or later. Faced with ever increasing costs and that cancelling the TSR 2 and substituting the TFX would save about £250m the decision was inevitable...

Source Chapter 28 - RAF Nuclear Deterrent Forces - Humphrey Wynn

According to another source I've read, the vast majority of the dev costs of TSR-2 had already been paid by the time of cancellation, with something like 70m outstanding. So to go and spend the same amount again on TFX as a cost saving measure is, well, silly. Th eproject got the chop for political reasons, the cost was just an excuse. Graham 06:08, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 1980s resurrection?

Could someone cite a source for the section claiming that the Thatcher government considered resurrecting the project? This would have been remarkable in many ways, especially as the Tornado was nearing service entry at the time. If it cannot be sourced it should be removed- it does sound like wishful thinking on someone's part. Colin Johnston 19:48, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

No, it definitely was the case, I remember it well. One of the magazines (possibly Aircraft illustrated, but I'm not very sure) at the time did an extensive article on it, even featuring a number of TSR-2 "Mk II" artists' impressions. (These speculations included Tornado-like air intakes in place of the half shock-cones). It should be easy enough to did up a reference to that at the very least, and probably to government papers on the subject too. Graham 06:01, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] B-1 Comparison?

Surely it would be more appropriate to compare the TSR-2 with the the Tornado IDS, Mirage IV, F-111, SU-24 or Vigilante than the inter-continental ranged B-1 ? Colin Johnston 19:46, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Valid point, why are we comparing a 1960s tactical bomber with a 70s (and later) strategic bomber in the opening paragraph? GraemeLeggett 09:34, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Anime aircraft

Is it not pointless including material, including an illustration, on a fictional aircraft which looks like TSR-2 (but is different in role and performance) from anime in this interesting article? Colin Johnston 19:50, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I'd say it doesn't really belong here, but I left it in since I'm fed up with defending articles against this sort of amateurishness. A separate article about it that links back here would seem more appropriate, and that can them be categorised with other anime articles making it easier to find. Graham 05:56, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Seconded, and done. Letdorf 15:41, 8 September 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Total Cost

Can anyone hazard a total cost for the project, from design to cancellation, please? Vernon White 13:01, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

very, very difficult to estimate. The method of accounting will vary the costs tremendously e.g. do you attribute all costs to TSR-2 or share them across a number of programs? Some systems were procured under a separate contract and had other uses, do you include these? I think the way the project was run (and destroyed) noone will ever know the true cost. The real cost was the damage to the UK aviation industry from the cancellation Cirrus75 16:38, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] MiG-25 Foxbat

In section headed comparable aircraft I feel there is an important aircraft missing, the MIG-25 Foxbat. This aircraft's roles would have overlapped signifcantly with the TSR-2's intented roles. Not to mention they are of the same disign and time period. Nick Hayward 17:34, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

The MiG-25 doesn't have air-to-ground attack capabilities (not even a gun, IIRC). It is about 8 meters shorter, too, and is almost 50% faster in terms of max speed at altitude (Mach ~3 vs. Mach ~2 for the TSR-2). --Henrickson 19:02, 5 June 2006 (UTC)


If the TSR-2 were developed into a long, range, high-speed intercepter then you could have a case for saying that, there is very little data on that though. An interesting note is that with the power available, TSR-2 would potentially have been Mach-3 capable (material issues preventing any excursions much about Mach2.35 aside). Cirrus75 21:14, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Specs

"The envisioned "standard mission" for the TSR-2 was to carry a 2,000 lb (900 kg) weapon internally" - Is this an error (900 kg seems a small payload, especially compared with the table on the right: 6 X 450 kg)?--Laur2ro 15:58, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

The planned standard mission was for a nuclear strike on a single target with a single weapon weighing 900 kg carried internally. In the original specification that the TSR.2 was built to, there was a requirement to be able to carry 6 x 1000 lb conventional internally with 4 more under the wings. Bill Gunston has written quite well about the TSR.2, it's mission, development, and the politics notably in "Attack Aircraft of the West", Scribners 1974, ISBN 0-684-14049-7. Hatcat 04:20, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edit 121484352

I'm confused - Edit 121484352 has just changed the article to say the exact opposite of what it previously did. Can anyone reference this and clarify if the TSR-2 did or didn't outrun a Lightning chase plane. I don't have a reliable source to turn to. Emoscopes Talk 19:10, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it did indeed outrun the Lightning, it's in one of Bee Beamonts books (think it was 'testing military Jets') which includes a few flight reports of the TSR-2. I think it has been referenced in quite a few other books such as 'Phoenix or Folly' Cirrus75 16:33, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I dispute this. I have read all of the books on the TSR-2, though unfortunately don't have any to hand to quote chapter and verse. This is an oft-repeated story but it has become something of a myth. On that flight, the TSR-2 reached Mach 1.2, which is obviously well below the Lightning's capability. Now it's possible that the TSR-2 might have momentarily out-accelerated the Lightning (especially a T5, which is less clean than a single seater) but the Lightning would have caught up easily. Given the realities of testing, surely what's more likely is that simply the two aircraft were not in a race - the TSR-2 may have shot ahead and the chase pilot was either not ready for it or decided not to keep up. If the "both afterburners lit" in the T5 are true, this is probably shortly afterwards when he cut them in to make up the opening distance. Even test pilots recollections' are not inherently reliable - it makes a good story and there's no doubt a certain amount of boys-own exaggeration takes place at the officers' mess after such occasions. Over time this story has been repeated so often it's become "fact", but there's no consensus in the properly researched literature as to what really happened. One has to remember that the Lightning had phenomenal performance, not just in its day, but to this day. The TSR-2 is a much larger, heavier aircraft - physically, how could it seriously outrun a Lightning? (And I'm old enough to remember seeing Lightning's demonstrating their "vertical" takeoff capabilities at shows in the 70s - lift the wheels off the runway, immediately haul up into a vertical position, and shoot up like a rocket! Great as the TSR-2 was it could never have done that!) 203.87.74.230 04:56, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New image

Is it just me or are the last two photographs essentially the same? Shouldn't one be removed? IMHO Bzuk 02:44, 5 June 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Public Records

Someone should really go and have a dig through this lot - it might shed a lot of new light on the politics, now that the 30 year secret period is up: National Archives 203.87.74.230 01:11, 13 November 2007 (UTC)