Ah, the TSR2! Thank you for that, Theo - in my opinion the most beautiful aircraft we ever produced, possibly the most effective (in it's day) but destroyed (along with the Brit aircraft industry) by a Labour Government. Now excuse me while I go quiet and drool.
saw it flying over Salisbury, still quite vivid in my memory.... hairs on back of the neck stuff ! could outrun a Lightning..... as they say these days Respec !
I wonder what extra word they'll precede their name with next time to convince people they're not the same sorry bunch of dangerously incompetent lefties who'll inevitably drive the country into the ground? It was 'New' last time. Maybe it'll be 'Original' this time. Or maybe they'll just compound words: Super New Labour, Neo-New Labour. Something like that. Here's some video of the TSR-2. The first comment is 'Harold Wilson was a traitor'. The TSR-2 looked advanced for the period. you can sort of understand why they cancelled it. It was designed to drop bombs on their friends, the commies.
Sort of like an upsized NAA A-5 Vigilante that worked properly. (ie no prolapsed fuel and weapon load on take-off). The nav-attack system that allowed the TSR2 to fly so fast and low was developed from the Vigilante's. But, just like the Avro Arrow, as it was so much better than any American competitor it had to be stopped.
PS. to compound their stupidity, the Labour Gvt. decided to buy the F111, also at Cosford, and were only partially redeemed when the RN made them scrap ideas of F111 ownership and made them buy the Phantom.
As Bill Gunston said of the F-4K & M, "The biggest, most powerful, most expensive and slowest Phantoms in the world." If only the RAF had bought the excellent Buccaneer much earlier as a Canberra replacement.
Bit late to comment on this Theo but it was the Americans along with KGB Wilson who screwed this project, so sad as it could have saved the English aircraft industry rather than being the end of it.
It's a pity it was canceled. There are two glaring problems I can see for a combat aircraft, though: incredibly smoky engines, and those wingtip contrails. Those two features sure would make getting a visual fix on it easier in combat. I assume they could be mitigated, though.
TSR-2 and the Arrow are two of the most interesting might-have-beens in Cold War aviation.
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11 comments:
Ah, the TSR2! Thank you for that, Theo - in my opinion the most beautiful aircraft we ever produced, possibly the most effective (in it's day) but destroyed (along with the Brit aircraft industry) by a Labour Government. Now excuse me while I go quiet and drool.
Labour criminally destroying a part of British industry, surely not...
saw it flying over Salisbury, still quite vivid in my memory.... hairs on back of the neck stuff !
could outrun a Lightning..... as they say these days Respec !
I wonder what extra word they'll precede their name with next time to convince people they're not the same sorry bunch of dangerously incompetent lefties who'll inevitably drive the country into the ground? It was 'New' last time. Maybe it'll be 'Original' this time. Or maybe they'll just compound words: Super New Labour, Neo-New Labour. Something like that.
Here's some video of the TSR-2. The first comment is 'Harold Wilson was a traitor'.
The TSR-2 looked advanced for the period. you can sort of understand why they cancelled it. It was designed to drop bombs on their friends, the commies.
Sort of like an upsized NAA A-5 Vigilante that worked properly. (ie no prolapsed fuel and weapon load on take-off). The nav-attack system that allowed the TSR2 to fly so fast and low was developed from the Vigilante's. But, just like the Avro Arrow, as it was so much better than any American competitor it had to be stopped.
Beutiful piece of kit ,shame you can't say that about the turds that ruin this country
See the real thing at the RAF Museum, Cosford.
PS. to compound their stupidity, the Labour Gvt. decided to buy the F111, also at Cosford, and were only partially redeemed when the RN made them scrap ideas of F111 ownership and made them buy the Phantom.
Labour defence policy is an oxymoron.
As Bill Gunston said of the F-4K & M, "The biggest, most powerful, most expensive and slowest Phantoms in the world." If only the RAF had bought the excellent Buccaneer much earlier as a Canberra replacement.
looks kind of like the US Valkyrie,
Or was ours a copy of yours?
Vmaximus
Bit late to comment on this Theo but it was the Americans along with KGB Wilson who screwed this project, so sad as it could have saved the English aircraft industry rather than being the end of it.
Beautiful video.
It's a pity it was canceled. There are two glaring problems I can see for a combat aircraft, though: incredibly smoky engines, and those wingtip contrails. Those two features sure would make getting a visual fix on it easier in combat. I assume they could be mitigated, though.
TSR-2 and the Arrow are two of the most interesting might-have-beens in Cold War aviation.
Larry
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