New Here
Hello, I've 'lurked' here for some time.
Being interested in aviation, also a source of employment (airline engineering including the last 7 years of a certain supersonic airliner!), I could not resist this subject.
Typhoon is essentially, a BAe design, with particular German input in areas like the positioning of the intakes-see BAe's P.110 then how collaborative projects looked afterwards.
(P.110 got no further than mock up since in 1981, the Government decreed that any new combat type had to be multinational).
The massive array of cancelled projects through the 50's and 60's ingrained in government, the Treasury for sure, that multi national was the only way to go.
I also think it saved the UK industry, it allowed design and construction to carry on, the alternative was just licence building US types.
P.1154 most likely would not have worked, four poster nozzle config was the practical way to go for subsonic VSTOL, not for supersonic.
(Hot gas re-ingestion, heat/ascoustic damage to the airframe, likely needing special surfaces for land operation-rather losing the whole point of VSTOL).
Only now, with the (Rolls Royce) lift fan in the modern technology package of the F-35, are we seeing practical supersonic VSTOL.
(Do not underestimate the UK contribution here, while not at the level of a Eurofighter partner, BAE, R/R and others are well above just a minor contractor/licenced builder).
I wrote the following on another site, to a question on TSR-2;
In 1957, a Defence Review foresaw the near end of manned military aircraft.
Missiles would provide defence, others provide deterrence.
The RN, still then with an 'East Of Suez' role, would be unscathed, (apart from most projects in the UK being axed by the review).
The RAF would retain a residual role, as part of the then smaller conventional 'tripwire' in Europe, and for 'out of area' too.
For the RAF though, this meant far fewer combat aircraft. Hardly any 'fighters' as such.
So when a new Air Staff Target, for a low level strike bomber was requested, they made sure they would pack in as much capability as possible.
At the same time, the forced merger of UK aerospace companies, arguably long overdue, one merger, between the innovative builders of the Canberra, then the Mach 2 Lightning fighter (which only just escaped the '57 review, but had further developments to greatly increase it's capability beyond fast climbing, short range interception, cancelled too), with the long established Vickers, produced BAC.
BAC, won the requirement, to produce a strike aircraft with up to 1000 miles range, Mach 2 at high level, supersonic at low level, in all weathers, with automatic terrain following, short airfield capability, stuffed also with side looking recce radar, countermeasures, to penetrate the most heavily defended airspace, delivering nuclear or conventional weapons with great accuracy.
It would serve in Germany and 'out of area'.
A pure bomber, but BAC drew versions with swing wings too, much in vogue then, for perhaps a more multi role version later?
When I say Vickers and EE merged, I meant in the all too often botched way UK companies did this (you should have seen what BA was like for a few years after BOAC and BEA merged in 1974).
The result was a much delayed project, with lack of communication, duplication, costs soaring.
If this was not enough, the project itself was a massive technological challenge, a whole slew of new techniques, concepts, would be needed, especially in the avionic field.
In the faster changing, shorter aircraft service life era of the time, the '57 review had effectively deprived UK industry of a generation of types, at least flying/in service.
At this stage, early on (1959/60), an in service date of 1966 mas mooted. A bit like expecting to get Concorde into pax service in 1972!
Costs rose inexorably, the first flight date slipped and slipped.
In the press, in politics, TSR.2 was a lot like V-22 Osprey has been in the US for a long time.
Finally, in 1964, the first prototype flew, for the next few months, it would demonstrate fantastic performance.
By now, 1968 was the earliest in service date, but without much of the advanced avionics at that stage.
In October 1964, a new Labour government was in power, they opened the financial books and got a fright.
Then, the UK was still economically aided by the US, the long shadow of wartime bankruptcy, major security commitments since, had blunted the UK's post war economic performance, though improved since the mid 50's, badly lagged compared to France or West Germany.
The defence procurement was in a total mess too, the previous administration, had cancelled so many projects in the previous 13 years, they had in effect p****d defence funds away.
And that review 7 years before, depriving UK industry of making exportable products, when they still had major market share from the transonic Hawker Hunter/Canberra generation.
The RAF's fast jet inventory, had only the limited BAC Lightning as a modern supersonic type, their flagship V-Bombers were now on borrowed time, as Polaris missile carrying submarines took shape in shipyards in Barrow In Furness and Liverpool.
Now, NATO's conventional forces were increasing, since the 'Tripwire' strategy was replaced by the nuclear threshold raising 'Flexible Response'.
But RAF Germany, only had the obsolete Hunters and Canberra's to offer, aside from two Lightning AD units.
When the new Defence Secretary Dennis Healey, asked the RAF what they wanted to change this situation, they were only too keen to tell him.
P.1154, a planned supersonic VSTOL, was too expensive, too risky, too uncertain now the navy had pulled out, (to buy F-4's). We'll have F-4's too please, Healey also made them take a much more practical VSTOL type, the Harrier as well.
AW.681, a planned VSTOL jet transport, would be so expensive, you could buy twice as many C-130's for the same price. A no brainer there then.
TSR-2, despite the hopes and support, if delays and costs got much worse, we'll have the F-111 please.
The financial situation may have had a hand, though PM Harold Wilson, resisted great pressure to send UK troops to Vietnam, he still supported the US diplomatically, he still got much trouble for that, but he replied 'you don't kick your creditor in the balls'.
It is not hard to think that pressure might have come from LBJ, for the RAF to take the F-111, built in his political backyard.
After P.1154 and AW.681 were axed, TSR.2 carried on for a few months more, as the first prototype performed more and more, the second prepared for flight, 20 others being constructed.
It seems there was a marked reluctance to cancel TSR.2, it was flying, so way beyond the stage the others had been cancelled at, it promised a real step change in RAF capability.
But, in April 1965, the axe finally fell. It seems a offer was made for F-111 that the cash strapped government could not refuse, as well as the in service date now slipping to the beginning of the 1970's, as the complex avionics created major challenges.
The RAF needed new aircraft much sooner.
It caused great anger, in my time in BA Concorde Engineering, I worked with some who had started out at BAC, before building Concordes, then coming to BA, they had worked on TSR.2, even 30, 35 years on, the bitterness was still apparent.
In service, TSR.2 would carry internally, a free fall nuclear weapon, in the same place, an extra fuel tank could be housed.
Four wing pylons could carry drop tanks, or free fall bombs, or Martel TV guided or anti radiation missiles, or rocket pods.
In all this, there was an existing British aircraft, that could perform as well as TSR-2 at low level, the RN's Buccaneer carrier based strike aircraft.
The RAF always rejected it though, even when the makers proposed putting avionics in for land attack, replacing the maritime strike orientated package, which would have given terrain following ability.
Further financial troubles, changes in strategy, killed the F-111K buy of 50 aircraft in 1968, it's own delays were a factor too.
So guess what? As the RN carriers were now not to be replaced directly, the RAF would progressively get their Buccaneers in place of TSR.2 and after that was gone, the F-111!
Before that, new build batches for the RAF would also come from the factory.
The RAF never got the new avionics packages on it, apart from some later in service upgrades, but they soon fell in love with the aircraft.
For the longer term, all the cancellations since the early 50's, the increasing cost and complexity of modern aircraft (meaning smaller numbers too), convinced the UK that European collaboration was the only way forward, unless we wanted to keep on repeating the panic buy of US types as had just happened, with all the technology base implications of that.
These major NATO air-forces, with all those relatively large fleets.
After a brief, abortive, Anglo French AFVG project, what became the Tornado project began with W.Germany and Italy in 1969.
In 1982, it would at last deliver automatic, all weather, terrain following attack to the RAF, with more besides in a much more affordable package.
The RAF eventually took around 400 of them, Germany and Italian plants built their own substantial fleets.
UK plants also produced 96 IDS and 24 ADV versions for Saudi Arabia.
The RAF had originally wanted up to 150 TSR.2's, the size of the F-111 planned buy gave an indication of what numbers the TSR.2 would have been in reality.
It was not easily exportable either.
Australia might have brought some TSR.2's, but the then Chief of UK Defence staff, Lord Mountbatten, went there to tell them not to bother, it would never be built, this was in 1963.
So the RAAF brought F-111's, encountering cost escalations and long delays, though in the end, they liked the product!
An Aussie TSR.2 buy could have also involved their industry, to spread the risk around, help out generally with the somewhat overwhelmed BAC too.
This is what he wanted too, since he saw the TSR.2 as a funding threat to the planned new big aircraft carriers the RN, which Mountbatten was a senior member of, were planning.
He was aided by Sir Solly Zuckerman, then the Chief Scientific Adviser to the Ministry Of Defence, who saw TSR.2 as a waste of resources too.
In the UK media, Mountbatten himself would put down four pictures of real Buccaneers, then a drawing of the proposed TSR.2, saying 'four of these, or one of those, for the same cost'.
When we discuss inevitably, 'who killed TSR.2', the real answers are 'delay, over ambition, costs, hostility from some high ups in the defence establishment and the whole navy, possibly pressure from Washington too'.
The RAF should have adopted Buccaneer in the early 60's, then incrementally getting that all weather, automatic terrain following in time.
However, not building TSR.2, great as it looked, as it could well have eventually been, but going down the route of what became Harrier, Jaguar, Tornado with possibly funds free for what became the Hawk trainer, was in the end, the wiser step for both British industry and RAF combat aircraft numbers.
(This is of course, considered sacrilege by many!)
