Thanks for watching everyone. Please give the video a thumbs-up as it tells youtube that you like this type of video and helps support the channel. I've got more British videos coming including the Valiant, BAC 1-11, Trident, Vickers Viscount, Monarch and more.
As a Buccaneer nav, 1974 to 1989, with over 2000 hrs on the aircraft I always look at the TSR2 on the aircraft I should have flown. At least in the Bucc I could see where I was going. And I have 125 cats and traps in my logbook which I wouldn’t have got on TSR 2 ! Chris.
I worked at a customers house many years ago. The neighbour had the front end of a Buccaneer in his back garden. He had converted the cockpit to a flight simulator games console.
@@well-blazeredman6187 We got the Sea Eagle anti-ship missile, which was outstanding, and an Inertial Nav system - Plus a modern ESM and defensive aids suite in about 1984. But we were only in the maritime role then (I was the weapons leader on 208 Sqn). We didn’t get the updated radar presentation, with a freeze frame facility, nor the tie-in between the Pavespike pod which would have been so useful in Gulf 1.
I live 10 mins away from RAF Cosford. The TSR2 has been one of the main attractions for years. Bravo November is there now which has an awesome back story
Fascinating, and coincidentally, the current edition of Aeroplane magazine has an extended article on TSR2 which details the cabinet meeting discussing the cancellation of the project. I recommend it if you are interested in our aviation history.
Everybody forgets the human side of this, my Grandad worked on Canberra, Lightning and TSR2 on Radio and Radar electronics. When it was cancelled a bunch of them left for the US and there he stayed, Boeing, Lockheed, TI. Back then it made the local paper for my Dad to ring him after getting married, I only met him a handful of times and sooner or later I'll see him on a photo hopefully.
@@69waveydavey, I remember there were some Super Techs who were originally trained to work on the TSR2 (essentially all trades), but the project was cancelled. My old boss trained as one back in the day although he retired in the early 2000’s.
The 2nd human here! I've seen the Duxford TSR-2 many times and also visited RAF Hendon several times. This video has motivated me to visit RAF Cosford because I'm only 2 hours away!
Cheers human! haha yes I seem to attract a few bots and I'm not sure what they have to gain by commenting. Yes you definitely need to visit RAF Cosford, it's brilliant! I've got a few more videos coming from there. You'll need a full day so get there early.
I attended a TSR2 talk at Duxford this year (2024). The speaker mentioned that the TSR2 could have performed as well as the Buccaneer, Phantom II, Vulcan and the Tornado. So it was capable of having saved the cost of all of those programmes. Also of interest (if I recall correctly) Some of the electronic systems were using valves, hence the need for cooling of the electronics bays. If it were put in service, subsequent development would have miniturised these systems, saving weight and space, thereby further improving performance. I understand that the TSR2 was, for its time, a truly revolutionary and very advanced bit of engineering.
The TSR2 was an amazing idea and great looking aircraft, but you are right that given its complexity, it would’ve sucked up even more money had it not been cancelled.
This aircraft at the time was so far ahead of anything else technologically,, it was a world beater. The Russians and the USA didn't like it, ( they were afraid it would affect sales of the F111. That is probably, almost certainly why the RAAF subsequently bought the F111, they had no choice, ) It was criminal that Harold Wilson, Labour prime minister of the UK ordered that the project should be cancelled immediately. He even ordered that all technical drawings, jigs and fixtures should be completely destroyed to prevent the project from ever being revived. When Barnes Wallis died, MI5 went through all his personal papers in the loft at his house and confiscated them to prevent them falling into foreign hands. It is not known whether these were destroyed or still exist in secure storage somewhere. We will probably never know. Remember, there are still rumours that Wilson was actually working for the Russians!
My Dad was manufacturing parts for the TSR 2. When they cancelled it, he decided to emigrate to South Africa, where he made parts for the Mirage, Impala, Buccaneer and whatever else they were working on. They had a whole factory full of UK and European Immigrants!
A few comments - the Olympus in Concorde and Vulcans was most definitely not the same engine, though obviously related. Top speed would never have been 2.35; 1.8 was the agreement by the time the project was cancelled, and BAC were dubious about even getting to that. The 'trim tabs' on the tailplanes are not tabs, they are flaps that were geared to operate with the tailplane itself to give additional authority, particularly at take-off and landing speeds. Flight testing found the tailplane response to be much more powerful than expected, so the flaps (and nose leg extension) would have been unnecessary - production examples would have had these features deleted and simpler tailerons (as on the Tornado). You refer to prototypes, but technically there weren't any, they were all development batch aircraft. The nuke was the WE177, not WE117 (which is the weapon to satisfy OR 177 you also mention), and Red Beard was long gone by that time. Recce pod including linescan was cancelled before the project's end. Cancellation was inevitable given that it was failing to meet so many parts of the spec, and costs out of control. Sadly much on TH-cam about this aircraft is nonsense so it's refreshing to see a video that's largely correct and not hysterical about the cancellation.
Thanks Paul for the video, i visited the UK for the first time this past September and was lucky enough to visit Cosford and see the TSR-2 and many other British aircraft I had never seen! Keep up the great work!
allways love your videos, gives me the opportunity to oogle some planes id never get to lay my eyes on. also love your style of narration. please keep up your great work!
Thank you for an excellent and informative look at this magnificent aircraft. I remember when the TSR2 cancellation was announced and I took it quite personally, even though I was still a kid. It's still one of the most elegant aircraft ever built.
Of course Australia considered buying the TSR-2 but went with the F-111 instead which had a fine record of service for almost four decades until 2011. I doubt that the British would have supported the TSR-2 for such a long period. My father was a member of the Canberra replacement team in the Dept of Air in Canberra in the early 60s where he strongly backed the TSR-2 as an anglophile PR expert. He was forced out after a personality clash with the civilian team leader. There were strong vested interests in Canberra at the time amongst those who recognised that the USA had been Australia's most important ally since 1942. Possibly others remembered the difficulty the RAAF had had in getting modern British aircraft in WWII that various Australian historians have written about.
Not having a serious interest in aviation, I was quite surprised to clap eyes on this beauty when I visited Cosford last year. I remember it being described as years ahead of its time. Next thing I knew it had been scrapped, and then the prototypes were scrapped with suspicious haste... Delighted to stumble over this. I shall study it carefully before my next visit!
I first saw XR220 in ‘77 at Cosford when I went through trade training. Even then, I remember the curator getting visibly emotional when he explained the government’s decision to cancel. We trainee instrument mechanics were in awe of the TSR’s avionic capabilities when compared to the equipment we were being trained on in the 70s modern Air Force
Yep,went through a little later and there were a lot of questions along the same lines, got to do some cleaning of avionics bay prior to it being open for display
@@RickGill-p8hlol We were on one of the last ‘Insty’ courses. We were re titled ‘Flight Systems’ towards the end of our course in about Nov 77. I was looking forward to a career as a ‘glass tapper’
The drooped outer wings of the XB-70 were also for stability and not for lift as is often suggested. The vast majority of the lift from the shock wave was actually applied to the bottom of the large , flat under-fueselage engine and bomb bay. There was a very small amount of lift from the wingtips, but the tips allowed the vertical stablizers to be much smaller and shorter, and like the TSR-2, the main purpose of the drooped wingtips was for stability. Great video. Thank you!
The original design for the Su.24 used a similar wing planform as the TSR2. But they discovered its weaknesses and went with a swing-wing like the F111.
This aircraft and the F-108 Rapier were two of the most amazing looking aircraft. To this day they still look like they are flying at mach 2 even while sitting still.
If you think this looks good you should look up the American A5C Vigilante. It was similar in scope to the TSR2 but it was both Carrier and Nuclear capable
@@sandervanderkammen9230 Where are you getting that from? Jimmy Dell - TSR 2 Test Pilot: "Once cleaned up, the immediate impression was of an exceptionally good handling aircraft and one was not conscious of the lack of autostabilisation." "It handled and felt like a heavy Lightning (due to higher stick forces) and it was a great temptation to treat it like a fighter and throw it around. The high speed low-level ride qualities in the primary operational zone were outstanding."
That is not what the test Pilot said look that up on TH-cam. He was disgusted when it was cancelled. Look it up get it straight from the people who were there. They lit one Afterburner up on one engine and the English Electric Lightning had to light both to keep up.
@anthonywilson4873 TSR.2 struggled to fly supersonic and suffered from serious engine and aerodynamic issues... it was so unstable in flight that it was grounded, and the test program was suspended until the aircraft underwent major redesign work. Many people lost their jobs as a result of the TSR.2 fiasco. Shame, humiliation, denial and conspiracy theories abound among those who were reluctant to accept that the program was an unmitigated failure.
A great video!!! I had the honour of being an exchange Navigator from the RAAF F111 to the RAF Buccaneer in the early 80's. The layout of the cockpit was interesting and challenging for the crew, but the aircraft was a beaut! I am very glad NATO did not go to war during my time there, but if it had, the Bucc would have been my weapon of choice.
Serious question, what does the bot have to gain by commenting in these videos? I'm not complaining as they help with user engagement with my videos but I don't understand what they get out of it?
Thank you Paul for all of the work that goes into your videos. You must have a lot of respect from the museums as your access to the exhibits is unparalleled
Wow !!!!! I did not know that there was a TSR on exhibit anywhere, I was under the impression that they had been scrapped, maybe I’m confusing the Avro Arrow with thE TSR , anyways awesome video so nice to get to look at one in detail !!
There are 2. Some part completed airframes went to a firing range as targets to test weapons. Tragic. Unfortunately, correct about the Arrow but there is a replica mock up of it. Would love to see a TSR2 restored to airworthy condition - could never happen though.
The North American B-70 Valkryie developed at the same time completely destroys that false notion. TSR.2 was obsolete on arrival and decades behind what the Americans and the Soviets were doing at the time..
Very cool, I've seen the example in the UK but I wasn't aware of a second aircraft, I always believed there was only one and everything else had been destroyed.
I love how you glossed over the decision to cancel. There was a lot more to it and the subsequent F-111 cancellation. In October 1964, the newly elected Labour government announced the trade figures for the previous quarter (the announcement having been delayed by the election). These showed a deficit of £800 million and were double what had been expected. The new government also had a mini-budget in early November, which said in spite of the trade deficit and falling productivity that there was nothing fundamentally wrong with the British economy. The money markets disagreed, and they sold off a large chunk of their holdings in the Pound. This had been anticipated by the Conservative government, who had secured lines of credit during the summer of 1964. The Labour government also had to look for spending cuts with the railways (they didn't reverse the "Beeching" cuts) and defence taking the biggest hits. Over the next three years, there were more runs on the Pound, which only ended with tge Pound being devalued by 14% against the US$. This devaluation made the F-111K too expensive and so it too was cancelled.
@PaulStewartAviation and nearly all of those also ignore the reality of the circumstances in which the cancellation occurred. It didn't happen in a vacuum.
@@sandervanderkammen9230 Well of course they were - that much is obvious. But they were both highly advanced aircraft which were cancelled when they could have been world beaters ... or massive flops. Hence the 'what if' for both...
Many US aircraft were also cancelled due to improvements in Soviet SAMs including the XB-70 and B-58...the conspiracy theories on this are juvenile. High speed/ high altitude aircraft simply became obsolete.
@afterburner33 The Arrow was an aircraft without an engine, the Orenda Iroquois was a failure. The Canadian government could not afford to continue developing the Arrow without a foreign investment. The TSR.2 was doomed from inception, a hopeless failure across the board, it had engine problems, aerodynamic problems, it's was massively overweight and it's avionics and flight control systems needed major remedial engineering and redesign work. The TSR.2 was so unstable in flight that it was grounded for safety concerns. Faced with the reality that the TSR.2 would never be the aircraft it asked for, RAF quickly lost interest. Britain was completely bankrupt in 1965 and defaulted on it war debt payments to America and Canada, even with a foreign order, Britain had no money to continue operating the TSR.2 program or subsidizing BAC.
Paul, i think you got the terrain radar proposed for the TSR-2 mixed up with the F-111 radar as far as function is concerned. The F-111 had a switch with three positions - hard, medium and soft or words to that effect. Hard being ground hugging and soft being a flight path high enough to smooth out the ride. The F-111 flew completely automatically in all three modes. The TSR-2 did not have this capability, though something like it was proposed for later. Incidentally, RAAF pilots found they could only take hard mode for a very short time - less than a minute.
actually one of the test pilots of the TSR2 Roland Beaumont was later a project manager of the Tornado Project. He was also a test Pilot of the English Electric lightning
Nice video thanks, I thought I knew lots about it but still more to learn. I found out that a couple of design issues were the difficulty in removing/refitting the engine in event of servicing, & behaviour issues with the outer skin metal which has posed problems in early years of supersonic flight
Paul, I always watch your videos because of your excellent photography, and views we don't otherwise see. I think you put the reasons why the TSR-2 was cancelled very politely and fairly accurately. But you didn't mention an important if not the major factor:- The business case for the TSR-2 was based on selling to British Commonwealth countries, of which Australia's airforce (the RAAF) was the only feasible initial buyer. The plane was always going to be too expensive just to make the number required for the RAF. They needed to amortise the development cost over more airframes than the RAF could use. Australia then fanctioned as a leader/guide to other British Commonwealth countries: If Australia bought, others would, but if Australia didn't, they wouldn't. So Australia's decision was much more important than its numbers of aircraft might indicate. But the RAAF refused to buy it, as for them it could only serve as an expensive training aircraft. This put the per plane cost beyond what the RAF budget could absorb. The TSR-2 as far as the RAAF was concerned was useless, as it did not have the range to reach any possible enemy. It didn't even have enough range to allow the RAAF to fly it from any Australian bases to another Australian base. The British love to point out that the F-111 had its development issues and was delivered late. However it had about three times the range of the TSR-2, making it a credible aircraft for the RAAF.
There’s a report by a senior RAF officer that basically confirmed that the F-111 was superior and more capable than the TSR2 and they actually wanted to procure it, albeit with some changes/updates to the avionics.
@@AC_702 RAF did order 50 F-111K's, just after the TSR 2 cancelled, on the advice of the RAF Air Staff!!! The order was cancelled in 1968 for various reasons, Aircraft going to be at least 3 years late, Cost increases due to Devaluation of the pound against the dollar and a massive change in both UK and NATO defence policies between 1965 and 1968.
@@AC_702don't you mean that the F1-11 might have been superior to the TSR 2, because at the time the F1-11 was not in reality available, it was simply a troubled project which later became viable?
An interesting point, I know for a fact that there is a whole squadron of F111's in storage I believe at Davis Monthan air base in the US, that were paid for but never delivered. I got this information from a good friend of mine who is an ex senior RAF officer.
Good informative vid. Had a good look around the TSR-2 at Duxford in 1979. It was quite a bit weather beaten, and the finish of the paintwork was very matt, though I'm not sure if that was just age or factory.
If you read the CIA's early '80s assessments of Soviet air defences, we see mention of Soviet electronic warfare systems that could disrupt navigation and bombing radar. In other words, they could make terrain following radar go blind. Terrain following radar is also a strong emitter, so could be detected providing the Soviets had the equipment in place wherever it needed to be. The CIA said EW was a Soviet strong suit too. They also mentioned growing look down, shoot down abilities of the Soviets. The CIA thought the main Soviet weakness was the speed and coordination of intercepts once detection was achieved, i.e., NATO aimed for an aircraft to be past an air defense zone and into the next before an intercept could be arranged in a particular zone of responsibility (and then there would be a lag passing the detection data onto the next zone and so on -- they thought they could make the air defences chase their own tails pretty much, rather than relying on avoiding detection as the means of reaching the target, i.e., flying low to make detection as late as possible so as to reduce reaction time to the point of making interception very difficult). NATO sought to exploit gaps in Soviet coverage as a result (response to an aircraft detected infiltrating one of those gaps would be the slowest, so that type of attack run would have the highest chance of success for NATO). No wonder NATO preferred cruise missiles to TSR-2 and other similar aircraft. Cruise missiles can take on more risk. Low level infiltration solved the problem of high altitude bombers being shot down by SAMs, but the USSR was rapidly adjusting to terrain following tactics too. They developed means to counter cruise missiles too. NATO probably would have overwhelmed it with sheers numbers though. Not that it matters. By that stage the northern hemisphere would be radioactive ashes for the most part. Thankfully we wised up. They did a deal. P.S. The Soviets viewed such tactics aimed at achieving a first strike as disruptive to nuclear security, the balance of power, and deterrence etc. They countered with the SS-20 missiles. NATO countered with the Pershing II missiles in West Germany and cruise missile deployments to the UK. I remember the CND protests. RAF Greenham Common was not so far away. The base that was much closer though was RAF Upper Heyford where the USA based its F-111 tactical nuclear bomber force. They were noisy buggers flying over our school a few times a day. We knew full well that base would be nuked immediately if it all kicked off and we discussed among ourselves what yield nuke would put us in the blast zone. We moved to NZ when I was 15. It felt a million times safer being nuclear free and all that (back then getting nuked seemed a matter of when rather than if at times).
Another very informative video on a legendary plane, Paul! Even after all these years, its cancellation as well as that of Canadian Arrow still provoke strong reactions from people who wish they had been placed into production. At least the UK has 2 examples to display, while the Canadian government of the day tried to destroy all remnants of the Arrow's existence. The argument that ICBMs made such aircraft unneeded has definitely been proven wrong when the Arrow was cancelled it was said the UK tried to get 2 examples for research but the Canadian government facing huge backlash over the programs' cancellation just wanted the plane to disappear.
In my view there were three reasons TSR2 failed, Britain was broke by 1960 and no longer a World power, the rivalry between the armed services was ridiculous by today's standards and the influence of Lord Mountbatten, our then naval Chief of Defence staff. His involvement in military procurement would not be accepted today. Nowadays though the Ministry of Defence could be seen to have a similar influence. In all a great aircraft though and like millions of others I shed the odd tear when it was so brutally cancelled. Thank you for posting.
Paul stated that the undercarriage had the same resonant frequency of the human eyeball and thereby caused pilots to go blind when landing. This is an old story told in other videos on the TSR-2 that strains credibility. The USAF did a lot of testing to discover what humans could and couldn't take as part of preparing for space flight. They found that the resonant frequency of the eyeball is about 19Hz and 3 G's of oscillation are required at that frequency to obtain blindness. 3 G's at 19 Hz is a hell of a shake. One would have all manner of medical issues. The plane might well fail as well.
The resonant frequency of the human eye isn't an exact figure, it's actually a pretty wide range. (18Hz to 800Hz) "Blindness" hasn't been shown, but artifacts, such as phosphenes, *have* been shown. G force and frequency are orthogonal to each other. They are completely independent variables.
@@andyb.1026 If it ever got to production. It was not a surprise that the government cancelled it. What is suprising is how long the Government took to realise it was dud that could never complete a mission it was supposedly design for.
@@karlchilders5420 Two things: 1. The wide frequency range indicates that resonance is well damped, though it is not as wide as you suggest. 2. it does matter how many G's are applied in conjunction with the frequency. Obviously, even if the resonance frequency is sharply defined (high Q as engineers say) if the amplitude (strength) of the vibration is very low, the resonance is not excited and nothing will happen. If the vibration amplitude is high, then the resonance is excited. But not if the vibration frequency is not at the resonant frequency. Off-resonance you need a lot higher vibration amplitude. Give a tuning fork a good hearty bang against you hand - you can clearly hear its tone. Give a tuning fork a very light touch - you don't hear any tone. Hold a tuning fork near you mouth and whistle or sing. The fork will respond and sing too. But only if you whistle or sing on the same pitch as the fork.
@@richardvernon317 Of course without doubt it is correct to note that the TSR-2 was completely capable of performing all it's design specifications & more. Indeed it goes without saying that sub launched ballistic missiles carrying nukes became one of the preferred methods of delivery of course.
I always wondered why Vickers Armstrong, a commercial aircraft specialist, were made 'lead contractor' and not English Electric who built the Canberra and the Lightning. Then I read that E.E. were a 'northern based company' whereas V.A. 'understood government'. (ie "we went to the same school"). Best walk-round I've seen on this plane. A1.
The silliest thing the British Government did, after such stupidity as the Brabazon (a huge piston engine luxury airliner that no airline could use), was to force their manufacturers to amalgamate, instead on leaving them alone in which survival of the fittest would come into effect. There would be bankruptcies and much unemployment, but the surviving firms would have done good work. The amalgamation and retention of everyone's jobs resulted in a culture within that it didn't matter to the engineers if an aircraft wasn't going to be much good, just make something and then say "give us more money" and the next variant will be a good one. Rinse and repeat. Competition is a powerful force in making people do their absolute best; lack of competition leads to just keeping seats warm. The British Government had to scrap the TSR-2 and order prototypes destroyed in order to give BAC a good whack on the ears and make them realise that performance jolly well did matter.
@keithammleter3824 many of the aircraft builders were already in groups. Hawker Siddeley had Armstrong Whitworth, Gloster, Avro, and Hawker. Vicekershas Vickers and Supermarine. But inspite of common ownership they all operated asindividual companies and often competed with their sister companies.
@@neiloflongbeck5705 Which is the proper business way to do things: Test one division against another, but swap resources or use another division as a subcontractor when it is clearly advantagous to do so. Spread the development risk by cross-cash flow when one division has problems. But British Government policy over-rode all that. Supermarine was already out of existence by 1960 though - before the TSR-2 was anything but concept drawings. Supermarine is the classic example of how some firms could not survive into the jet age. They were most certainly up to it when the best of the best were simple piston engine aircraft like the Spitfire (which owes its greatness to the aerodynamicist Shenstone who had a lot of experience in the 1930's German aircraft industry - in other words pure luck), but were left behind without any appropriate expertise in the jet age, as not only did aircraft then have a different engine and flew faster, they had all sorts of onboard complexity, and large but simple wind tunnels with a dirty great fan at one end simply didn't cut it.
I have a photo of XR219 taking off taken by (I believe) my late brother in law who was a photographer for BAC! It is the one shown at 27:48. though the print does not have the stamp on the back.
I have actually touched this aircraft .....magic ! its not just aerospace engineering , it's sculpture ! cancelled due to high cost 2M £ per aircraft....seems good value now doesn't it ?
TSR.2 and the Arrow are similar stories only because neither country could afford to build them, and the country that could afford them already had better aircraft.
Thank you for this very comprehensive tour of the TSR-2. Also, it was pleasant that your voiceover is natural, and without any unnecessary (annoying) musak. Just spend a little time learning how to correctly use the word "unique", as it is a superlative and saying "very unique" is a linguistic nonsense. Overall, a most informative video about an aircraft I've often seen and marvelled at when visiting the superb RAF Cosford aerospace museum.
Yes, there is a crashed F-105 next to China Lake NWS you can reach by dirtbike. Story was he got out safe. The wreckage had a telescoping piston to get the Nuke away from the jet to deploy going supersonic. They had a tumbling issue with the bomb going so fast. In the end they reshaped the bomb so no piston was ever used. Per what I've read on the internet.
Great video, love the content you put out. I have a great idea for you, when videoing from underneath, which was fantastic, would it be possible to put your camera gear, phone etc, onto a long stick and maybe video some segments from above the aircraft, a 6ft stick would be ideal, could of sneaked a glimpse of the cockpit too. I've visited RAF Cosford on numerous occasions and the TSR2 is my favourite aircraft, so thanks for making the best and most detailed video in 4k that I've seen anywhere. Great Job. subscribed.
Thanks mate. I did buy a stick for my gopro but I've since changed to a DJI pocket 3 which works much better but no stick. Thankfully most museums are more accomodating in letting my sit inside the cockpits, or at least, filming over the barriers. Sadly this museum was not one of them.
For me the most beautiful aircraft... Sharing 1st place with the Concorde 👍 Front Cockpit Design was the older brother of the Tornado Cockpits Design.😉
As part of research for a Polytechnic project @ 1982, I visited the Cosford TSR2 when the museum was closed to the public and briefly met a gentleman who had delivered papers to do with the cancellation to Harold Treason Wilson in Downing Street. A great privilege to meet someone involved in the design and see it close up. Goerring would have been proud of Wilson achieving what Der Dikke had tried to do in 1940 to the British aviation industry. Concorde, Arrow, Vulcan & TSR2 - all beautiful designs.
It was cancelled because the electronics didn't work and it would have cost s fortune to rectify, rather like Nimrod AEW. There was was no treason. Involved just economics.
@percyprune7548 Abosulte Hogwash!!! The People who cannned this aircraft were the RAF Air Staff!!! They had found out that the aircraft was a complete pile of Poo!
@Ettrick8 TSR.2 was cancelled because nothing worked as specified by the design requirements, the plane struggled to fly supersonic without any military payload. It's stability was so poor the flight test program was suspended and the prototype grounded
Great video Paul.. thank you for doing this on what I consider the second most beautiful aircraft.. the first of course the Spitfire..❤ Anyway.. anything leading edge creates problems that require solutions that are usually costly, complex and ahead of their time. I would imagine the spin-offs were valuable and the only question I have is what was the "dole" costing the UK vs the costs incurred building TSR-2? ... As an avid RC and freeflight modeler, eventually I must build a TSR-2 so I can have one to drool over.. 😊 Blessings to all..
Defianatly a key stone aircraft in British Aerospace. If it was not for the TSR2 we might not of had Concorde. Its a real shame you did not get chance to look in the cockpit. Did they give a reason to why you could not have a look?
The need for an all moving tail plane control system is a requirement of all supersonic aircraft to prevent control reversal at transonic speed and above.
G'day, Great work mate ! Subscribed... This is the best treatment of the TSR-2 I've encountered, & I absolutely loved the Fairey Stringbag "connection". If you feel like a bit of a giggle, then please do feel free to backtrack me.., to my "Personal Aeroplanology..." Playlist...(!). I sort of grew up thinking that I'd been line-bred to be Biggles (mum's father & dad's uncle were both Pilots in the Oz Flying Corps..., and a cousin of dad's was a RAAF WingCo ; kinda thing...) ; and then I started reading Richard Bach at 15, and then Nevil Shute's collected works at 16... So by 17 when I had a chance to scrape Paint off a Tiger Moth's Wing, in return for unofficial ab-initio Flying Lessons in a Piper Cub & a Hornet Moth - I didn't say "No" , and thus I was Rouseabout on the Radial-engined Sopwith Pup & Fokker Triplane Replicas, at Olde Bowral Airfield... Last time I was in Inverell I made the pilgrimage, and a new video of, "National Transportation Museum ; Visiting My First Aeroplane...!" Which they keep there, chained up to the ceiling. When I began that Playlist, I began it with what amounted to being a Video Slide-Show, using a Potato-Grade Nokia 2160 classic Phone-camera - and nailing down the Timeline with old photos & magazine articles..., about, "The 8-Hp, 1975, Red Baron Skycraft Scout ; World's 1st Legal Minimum-Aircraft...!" From 1978 to '82 it was mine, having taken me for my first Solo in November '78 ; I was it's 3rd owner..., and I turned out to be the last person who ever sat in it while it was flying..., and every other Aeroplane which I ever flew was pretty easy, by comparison. I even survived the maiden Fright on a New Prototype Ultralight Motorglider - after 10 years totally groundbound...! Apparently if one begins by flying a Lawnmower, then the rest comes easy...(?) ! Anyway, have fun. (?). Your choice ! Such is life, Haveva good one Stay safe. ;-p Ciao !
Have u done a video on the B-57? If not I know ud be able to get inside the one at the Glenn L Martin aviation museum at Martin State Airport, MD cuz they let me go in it.
Hi mate, great suggestion and I'm afraid not. I tried to film the Canberra in Australia but hit barriers with paperwork. So I am on the look out for a Canberra to film.
@@PaulStewartAviationthey have 2 at the Martin museum. Im sure they would like the attention since its never really busy there. Hell I live 30 mins from the place and if I didnt have to go to MTN for a faa physical I wouldnt have even known the place existed
I had a lecturer at college who'd been a cub engineer himself on the TSR2s avionics, and that was one way to waste a lecture you didn't particularly fancy; ask him about TSR2 and let him go! He was adamant that it would've succeeded eventually (although he was realistic that it wouldn't have been cheap or quick) and cancelling it was a travesty.
It's very difficult for those involved in the TSr.2 program to admit that their work was an epic failure of colossal proportions This was a very shameful chapter in death of the UK aircraft industry.
@@sandervanderkammen9230 I'd disagree about it being such a failure: certainly the technology developed wasn't getting to a mature state quickly enough for some; it's probably more true that broadly, they ran before they could walk in trying to knit the whole system together. It certainly wasn't a dead end, put it that way. But yes, it was the British aircraft industry's Icarus. The sun it flew too close to was political though, with in particular, Duncan Sandys' determination that unmanned and automated was everything worth chasing. Commercial pressure from the US didn't help either, as the mentioned F111 debacle illustrated. The same is largely true of NATO countries like France and Germany at that time too.
@creepingjesus5106 BAC never produced a single successful aircraft on its own and went tits-up after the Concorde flopped. Germany is the largest manufacturer of jet aircraft in Europe today with France a close second, I can't name a single British company that still makes British jet aircraft in the UK
@sandervanderkammen9230 Again I'll disagree - the BAC 1-11 was hardly a failure. Sure, it didn't sell in the numbers the DC-9 did, but it was a solid, reliable, trustworthy plane that sold worldwide, and enjoyed a long life. It's about the only plane you can really call a BAC creation. Everything else was collaborative (Concorde, Jaguar etc) and after turbulent times, it was merged with Hawker Siddeley (themselves no failures) to form BAE, which is equally hard to justify calling a failure. Financially, Concorde was a failure yes, but it met the remit it was set, and the circumstances changed while it was in development. After all, the Russians went after a SST in a big way, as did the Americans, so the idea, at the outset, was sound. It's only with the benefit of hindsight we see its' problems. And the bulk of the French and German aviation industry is similar to Britain, in that 'other projects' are put in the shade by the collective contribution to Airbus. Although, you can still buy a brand new Britten-Norman if you like...!
@@sandervanderkammen9230 We feel we can clear up some commonly held myths, misunderstandings & misconceptions. It's always very important to note the relevant facts obviously. Many thanks to Karzeestan, Von Krappenz, Diktorbumner, Diktorbaturjerkzoffenzische, AnewAOownley etc & the team, for that very informative comment. Regarding the UK Aerospace Sector. Indeed, Brazil makes very good airliners & Brazil is 100th down list along with Indonesia for wealth per capita. *Norway Holland Denmark Ireland Belgium - Top 20 wealth per capita - Don't make airliners - its as simple as that.* Indeed, there aren't any German companies making German jet aircraft in Germany. There is no German company making German gas turbine aero engines suitable for widebody airliners. Of course, the Typhoon & Tornado for example are British design aircraft with British design engines which are built by an international consortium. Germany being a minor partner. BAe Systems & Rolls Royce combined now do more Airbus work than Germany on an absolute basis & significantly more work than that on a per capita basis. Per capita for the home nation BAe Systems is the world's largest defence contractor. _BAe systems announced the recent £4 Billion takeover of Colorado based US based Ball Aerospace._ *Clearly BAE systems now does a significantly higher value of work for Airbus than it did when it was a major Airbus shareholder before 2005.* *_RR now owns US Engine maker Allison for example which does classified Aerospace work for the US Govt._* *Obviously anybody currently flying on a widebody airliner stands a good chance of being on an aircraft powered by RR gas turbine aero engines built in England.* *_A typical but small glimpse of what goes on in the very internationally orientated British aerospace sector._* - Boeing Apache Attack Helicopter. AH-64: *75 UK suppliers,* 7% UK content, global fleet of 1280+ aircraft. *F35B more than 130 UK Suppliers, more than 30% UK content.* *_F35A & F35C more than 130 UK Suppliers, more than 15% UK content._* *An airline has just ordered* *60 RR England Trent XWB Engines* Obviously the UK has the *World's Highest Combined Per Capita* *Nuclear / Defence / Aerospace Sector Activity.* We hope this helps of course. Cheers indeed. . ..... ..... .. ..
Thanks for watching everyone. Please give the video a thumbs-up as it tells youtube that you like this type of video and helps support the channel. I've got more British videos coming including the Valiant, BAC 1-11, Trident, Vickers Viscount, Monarch and more.
I’m so late to the party shaggers! ❤❤
As a Buccaneer nav, 1974 to 1989, with over 2000 hrs on the aircraft I always look at the TSR2 on the aircraft I should have flown. At least in the Bucc I could see where I was going. And I have 125 cats and traps in my logbook which I wouldn’t have got on TSR 2 ! Chris.
so low even a seagull couldn't spend time under it ....all hail the Buccaneer.✌️
I worked at a customers house many years ago. The neighbour had the front end of a Buccaneer in his back garden. He had converted the cockpit to a flight simulator games console.
@markrainford1219 Brilliant
@@well-blazeredman6187 We got the Sea Eagle anti-ship missile, which was outstanding, and an Inertial Nav system - Plus a modern ESM and defensive aids suite in about 1984. But we were only in the maritime role then (I was the weapons leader on 208 Sqn). We didn’t get the updated radar presentation, with a freeze frame facility, nor the tie-in between the Pavespike pod which would have been so useful in Gulf 1.
@@christopherfinn7986 Thank you.
I live 10 mins away from RAF Cosford. The TSR2 has been one of the main attractions for years. Bravo November is there now which has an awesome back story
That is a beautiful airplane, not only in design, but also its upkeep. 👏
Fascinating, and coincidentally, the current edition of Aeroplane magazine has an extended article on TSR2 which details the cabinet meeting discussing the cancellation of the project. I recommend it if you are interested in our aviation history.
Everybody forgets the human side of this, my Grandad worked on Canberra, Lightning and TSR2 on Radio and Radar electronics. When it was cancelled a bunch of them left for the US and there he stayed, Boeing, Lockheed, TI. Back then it made the local paper for my Dad to ring him after getting married, I only met him a handful of times and sooner or later I'll see him on a photo hopefully.
Yes a terrible “brain drain”
@@69waveydavey, I remember there were some Super Techs who were originally trained to work on the TSR2 (essentially all trades), but the project was cancelled.
My old boss trained as one back in the day although he retired in the early 2000’s.
The 2nd human here!
I've seen the Duxford TSR-2 many times and also visited RAF Hendon several times. This video has motivated me to visit RAF Cosford because I'm only 2 hours away!
@@Lensman864, you won’t regret going to Cosford there are some fantastic aircraft. Just make sure you give yourself plenty of time to visit.
Cheers human! haha yes I seem to attract a few bots and I'm not sure what they have to gain by commenting. Yes you definitely need to visit RAF Cosford, it's brilliant! I've got a few more videos coming from there. You'll need a full day so get there early.
I attended a TSR2 talk at Duxford this year (2024). The speaker mentioned that the TSR2 could have performed as well as the Buccaneer, Phantom II, Vulcan and the Tornado. So it was capable of having saved the cost of all of those programmes.
Also of interest (if I recall correctly) Some of the electronic systems were using valves, hence the need for cooling of the electronics bays. If it were put in service, subsequent development would have miniturised these systems, saving weight and space, thereby further improving performance.
I understand that the TSR2 was, for its time, a truly revolutionary and very advanced bit of engineering.
A magnificent piece of British engineering, how the mighty have fallen .
YAP...now the govt needs the GERMANS and ITALIANS to make the Tornado and Eurofighter! SYDNEY CAMM must be rolling in his grave!!!!!!!!!!
Fabtastic video, Paul.
I had the pleasure of walking around one of these at Duxford, many years ago.
Thanks!
Thank you! :)
The TSR2 was an amazing idea and great looking aircraft, but you are right that given its complexity, it would’ve sucked up even more money had it not been cancelled.
This aircraft at the time was so far ahead of anything else technologically,, it was a world beater. The Russians and the USA didn't like it, ( they were afraid it would affect sales of the F111. That is probably, almost certainly why the RAAF subsequently bought the F111, they had no choice, ) It was criminal that Harold Wilson, Labour prime minister of the UK ordered that the project should be cancelled immediately. He even ordered that all technical drawings, jigs and fixtures should be completely destroyed to prevent the project from ever being revived. When Barnes Wallis died, MI5 went through all his personal papers in the loft at his house and confiscated them to prevent them falling into foreign hands. It is not known whether these were destroyed or still exist in secure storage somewhere. We will probably never know. Remember, there are still rumours that Wilson was actually working for the Russians!
My Dad was manufacturing parts for the TSR 2. When they cancelled it, he decided to emigrate to South Africa, where he made parts for the Mirage, Impala, Buccaneer and whatever else they were working on. They had a whole factory full of UK and European Immigrants!
Awesome! I live down the road from Cosford. This place will give you enough content for years! 😉
The huge american XB Valkerie had similar turned down wing tips..wouldve been fantastic seeing them in the air together
A few comments - the Olympus in Concorde and Vulcans was most definitely not the same engine, though obviously related. Top speed would never have been 2.35; 1.8 was the agreement by the time the project was cancelled, and BAC were dubious about even getting to that. The 'trim tabs' on the tailplanes are not tabs, they are flaps that were geared to operate with the tailplane itself to give additional authority, particularly at take-off and landing speeds. Flight testing found the tailplane response to be much more powerful than expected, so the flaps (and nose leg extension) would have been unnecessary - production examples would have had these features deleted and simpler tailerons (as on the Tornado). You refer to prototypes, but technically there weren't any, they were all development batch aircraft. The nuke was the WE177, not WE117 (which is the weapon to satisfy OR 177 you also mention), and Red Beard was long gone by that time. Recce pod including linescan was cancelled before the project's end. Cancellation was inevitable given that it was failing to meet so many parts of the spec, and costs out of control. Sadly much on TH-cam about this aircraft is nonsense so it's refreshing to see a video that's largely correct and not hysterical about the cancellation.
Great information, thanks!
Thanks Paul for the video, i visited the UK for the first time this past September and was lucky enough to visit Cosford and see the TSR-2 and many other British aircraft I had never seen! Keep up the great work!
allways love your videos, gives me the opportunity to oogle some planes id never get to lay my eyes on. also love your style of narration. please keep up your great work!
These videos are the absolute best. Hoping for a Fairey Delta 2 sometime!
Thank you for an excellent and informative look at this magnificent aircraft. I remember when the TSR2 cancellation was announced and I took it quite personally, even though I was still a kid. It's still one of the most elegant aircraft ever built.
I sympathize. I'll never forget my disappointment when the XB-70 was canceled.
Sweet. I spent a good half hour just walking around and staring at this beast when i visited Cosford.
Looks like RAF Cosford, superb museum. Took my boys there a couple they loved it.
Of course Australia considered buying the TSR-2 but went with the F-111 instead which had a fine record of service for almost four decades until 2011. I doubt that the British would have supported the TSR-2 for such a long period.
My father was a member of the Canberra replacement team in the Dept of Air in Canberra in the early 60s where he strongly backed the TSR-2 as an anglophile PR expert. He was forced out after a personality clash with the civilian team leader.
There were strong vested interests in Canberra at the time amongst those who recognised that the USA had been Australia's most important ally since 1942. Possibly others remembered the difficulty the RAAF had had in getting modern British aircraft in WWII that various Australian historians have written about.
Not having a serious interest in aviation, I was quite surprised to clap eyes on this beauty when I visited Cosford last year.
I remember it being described as years ahead of its time. Next thing I knew it had been scrapped, and then the prototypes were scrapped with suspicious haste...
Delighted to stumble over this. I shall study it carefully before my next visit!
I first saw XR220 in ‘77 at Cosford when I went through trade training. Even then, I remember the curator getting visibly emotional when he explained the government’s decision to cancel. We trainee instrument mechanics were in awe of the TSR’s avionic capabilities when compared to the equipment we were being trained on in the 70s modern Air Force
Yep,went through a little later and there were a lot of questions along the same lines, got to do some cleaning of avionics bay prior to it being open for display
Lol blooming insties lol I went thru late 78
@@RickGill-p8hlol We were on one of the last ‘Insty’ courses. We were re titled ‘Flight Systems’ towards the end of our course in about Nov 77. I was looking forward to a career as a ‘glass tapper’
@@dmi60 four for bridge?
@@RickGill-p8h👍
The drooped outer wings of the XB-70 were also for stability and not for lift as is often suggested. The vast majority of the lift from the shock wave was actually applied to the bottom of the large , flat under-fueselage engine and bomb bay. There was a very small amount of lift from the wingtips, but the tips allowed the vertical stablizers to be much smaller and shorter, and like the TSR-2, the main purpose of the drooped wingtips was for stability. Great video. Thank you!
The original design for the Su.24 used a similar wing planform as the TSR2. But they discovered its weaknesses and went with a swing-wing like the F111.
The TSR-2 is the British "what if" counterpart to the Canadian CF-105 Arrow.
Yes, just as the Blue Streak rocket was the 'what if' of the UK space industry, murdered by Tony Benn.
This aircraft and the F-108 Rapier were two of the most amazing looking aircraft. To this day they still look like they are flying at mach 2 even while sitting still.
And the legendary XB-70. Aviation perfection at its best moment
@quattro4s compared to the B-70 the TSR.2 looks like a turd...
If you think this looks good you should look up the American A5C Vigilante. It was similar in scope to the TSR2 but it was both Carrier and Nuclear capable
Kind of an odd looking old bird. Thanks for the tour! Best to you in the new year!
It's no coincidence that it looks odd, it didn't fly well either.
@@sandervanderkammen9230
Where are you getting that from?
Jimmy Dell - TSR 2 Test Pilot:
"Once cleaned up, the immediate impression was of an exceptionally good handling aircraft and one was not conscious of the lack of autostabilisation."
"It handled and felt like a heavy Lightning (due to higher stick forces) and it was a great temptation to treat it like a fighter and throw it around. The high speed low-level ride qualities in the primary operational zone were outstanding."
@@sandervanderkammen9230Broke the sound barrier on one engine 🤡
That is not what the test Pilot said look that up on TH-cam. He was disgusted when it was cancelled. Look it up get it straight from the people who were there. They lit one Afterburner up on one engine and the English Electric Lightning had to light both to keep up.
@anthonywilson4873 TSR.2 struggled to fly supersonic and suffered from serious engine and aerodynamic issues... it was so unstable in flight that it was grounded, and the test program was suspended until the aircraft underwent major redesign work.
Many people lost their jobs as a result of the TSR.2 fiasco.
Shame, humiliation, denial and conspiracy theories abound among those who were reluctant to accept that the program was an unmitigated failure.
Sneaky Aussie Canberra there at the start. Great Video. Paul. 👍
Afterburner sounds awesome. Reheat sounds like a dull TV dinner.
A great video!!! I had the honour of being an exchange Navigator from the RAAF F111 to the RAF Buccaneer in the early 80's. The layout of the cockpit was interesting and challenging for the crew, but the aircraft was a beaut! I am very glad NATO did not go to war during my time there, but if it had, the Bucc would have been my weapon of choice.
One of the first human commenters here, please everyone report the bots so TH-cam finally notices this problem
Something a bot would say 😳
@@RobertCraft-re5sf bahhh baaaaah 🐑
They notice but just don't care as long as they are making money.
What does the bot say?
Serious question, what does the bot have to gain by commenting in these videos? I'm not complaining as they help with user engagement with my videos but I don't understand what they get out of it?
Great video love watching them keep up the good work :D
Thanks, will do!
Thank you Paul for all of the work that goes into your videos. You must have a lot of respect from the museums as your access to the exhibits is unparalleled
Cheers!
Love this plane.
It’s like the Avro Arrow and the F-104 had a baby!
Wow !!!!! I did not know that there was a TSR on exhibit anywhere, I was under the impression that they had been scrapped, maybe I’m confusing the Avro Arrow with thE TSR , anyways awesome video so nice to get to look at one in detail !!
There are 2. Some part completed airframes went to a firing range as targets to test weapons. Tragic.
Unfortunately, correct about the Arrow but there is a replica mock up of it.
Would love to see a TSR2 restored to airworthy condition - could never happen though.
@ some truly beautiful aircraft came out of this era it’s a shame none were saved for flying examples!
Great video. Alot of good info as always.
Glad you enjoyed it
Very good and interesting tour. Many thanks for your work.
If they had gone for TSR-2, they would never join the Panavia Tornado program. The Tornado was a far more adaptable and successful design than TSR--2.
great vid thanks
Such a well done video Paul! Happy new year to you and family 🎉
It is an enormous aircraft. It was way ahead of its time.
The North American B-70 Valkryie developed at the same time completely destroys that false notion. TSR.2 was obsolete on arrival and decades behind what the Americans and the Soviets were doing at the time..
@@DoktorBayerischeMotorenWerke Which vanquished nation do you hail from :)
@@ATomRileyA The United Kingdom of course! Surrendered to the Americans in September 1940.
Still occupied by American military forces today..
What a beautiful craft 🤩🤩🤩
Such a well done video ! Happy new year to you and family 🥂
Very cool, I've seen the example in the UK but I wasn't aware of a second aircraft, I always believed there was only one and everything else had been destroyed.
I love how you glossed over the decision to cancel. There was a lot more to it and the subsequent F-111 cancellation. In October 1964, the newly elected Labour government announced the trade figures for the previous quarter (the announcement having been delayed by the election). These showed a deficit of £800 million and were double what had been expected. The new government also had a mini-budget in early November, which said in spite of the trade deficit and falling productivity that there was nothing fundamentally wrong with the British economy. The money markets disagreed, and they sold off a large chunk of their holdings in the Pound. This had been anticipated by the Conservative government, who had secured lines of credit during the summer of 1964. The Labour government also had to look for spending cuts with the railways (they didn't reverse the "Beeching" cuts) and defence taking the biggest hits. Over the next three years, there were more runs on the Pound, which only ended with tge Pound being devalued by 14% against the US$. This devaluation made the F-111K too expensive and so it too was cancelled.
My focus was to talk about the aircraft rather than the politics. There’s plenty of other videos that rehash the rehash about it’s demise.
@PaulStewartAviation and nearly all of those also ignore the reality of the circumstances in which the cancellation occurred. It didn't happen in a vacuum.
One of the great aviation 'what ifs', along with the CF-105 Arrow.
@@afterburner33 two very different aircraft... canceled for very different reasons
@@sandervanderkammen9230 Well of course they were - that much is obvious. But they were both highly advanced aircraft which were cancelled when they could have been world beaters ... or massive flops. Hence the 'what if' for both...
"what if" much more money was wasted. The UK was bankrupt and it was cheaper for them to buy something from the Americans than develop itself.
Many US aircraft were also cancelled due to improvements in Soviet SAMs including the XB-70 and B-58...the conspiracy theories on this are juvenile. High speed/ high altitude aircraft simply became obsolete.
@afterburner33 The Arrow was an aircraft without an engine, the Orenda Iroquois was a failure.
The Canadian government could not afford to continue developing the Arrow without a foreign investment.
The TSR.2 was doomed from inception, a hopeless failure across the board, it had engine problems, aerodynamic problems, it's was massively overweight and it's avionics and flight control systems needed major remedial engineering and redesign work.
The TSR.2 was so unstable in flight that it was grounded for safety concerns.
Faced with the reality that the TSR.2 would never be the aircraft it asked for, RAF quickly lost interest.
Britain was completely bankrupt in 1965 and defaulted on it war debt payments to America and Canada, even with a foreign order, Britain had no money to continue operating the TSR.2 program or subsidizing BAC.
Nice one! Keep up the great work. Thank u!
Great show thanks for your hard work
British Military Procurement has always been an absolutely Fiasco, This Aircraft was no different.
Don't you mean "turned into a fiasco by British politicians"?
Thank you for the awesome video
Peter Ustinov narrated some great Wings episodes. Paul Stewart researches, films, writes, narrates, and probably finances the whole production.
Paul, i think you got the terrain radar proposed for the TSR-2 mixed up with the F-111 radar as far as function is concerned. The F-111 had a switch with three positions - hard, medium and soft or words to that effect. Hard being ground hugging and soft being a flight path high enough to smooth out the ride. The F-111 flew completely automatically in all three modes. The TSR-2 did not have this capability, though something like it was proposed for later.
Incidentally, RAAF pilots found they could only take hard mode for a very short time - less than a minute.
The Tornado was an incredible aircraft and still one of my favourites.
actually one of the test pilots of the TSR2 Roland Beaumont was later a project manager of the Tornado Project. He was also a test Pilot of the English Electric lightning
Nice video thanks, I thought I knew lots about it but still more to learn. I found out that a couple of design issues were the difficulty in removing/refitting the engine in event of servicing, & behaviour issues with the outer skin metal which has posed problems in early years of supersonic flight
Paul, I always watch your videos because of your excellent photography, and views we don't otherwise see.
I think you put the reasons why the TSR-2 was cancelled very politely and fairly accurately. But you didn't mention an important if not the major factor:-
The business case for the TSR-2 was based on selling to British Commonwealth countries, of which Australia's airforce (the RAAF) was the only feasible initial buyer. The plane was always going to be too expensive just to make the number required for the RAF. They needed to amortise the development cost over more airframes than the RAF could use.
Australia then fanctioned as a leader/guide to other British Commonwealth countries: If Australia bought, others would, but if Australia didn't, they wouldn't. So Australia's decision was much more important than its numbers of aircraft might indicate.
But the RAAF refused to buy it, as for them it could only serve as an expensive training aircraft. This put the per plane cost beyond what the RAF budget could absorb.
The TSR-2 as far as the RAAF was concerned was useless, as it did not have the range to reach any possible enemy. It didn't even have enough range to allow the RAAF to fly it from any Australian bases to another Australian base.
The British love to point out that the F-111 had its development issues and was delivered late. However it had about three times the range of the TSR-2, making it a credible aircraft for the RAAF.
There’s a report by a senior RAF officer that basically confirmed that the F-111 was superior and more capable than the TSR2 and they actually wanted to procure it, albeit with some changes/updates to the avionics.
@@AC_702 RAF did order 50 F-111K's, just after the TSR 2 cancelled, on the advice of the RAF Air Staff!!! The order was cancelled in 1968 for various reasons, Aircraft going to be at least 3 years late, Cost increases due to Devaluation of the pound against the dollar and a massive change in both UK and NATO defence policies between 1965 and 1968.
@@AC_702don't you mean that the F1-11 might have been superior to the TSR 2, because at the time the F1-11 was not in reality available, it was simply a troubled project which later became viable?
Nasa are still drooling how good there Canberra is ,insanely beautiful place love's climbing 😊
Well put together video and great commentary.😊
A beautiful aircraft
An interesting point, I know for a fact that there is a whole squadron of F111's in storage I believe at Davis Monthan air base in the US, that were paid for but never delivered. I got this information from a good friend of mine who is an ex senior RAF officer.
Thanks for Uploading.
You're welcome
Excellent informative video. Such a terrible shame the project was cancelled. 😢
Glad you enjoyed it!
Good informative vid.
Had a good look around the TSR-2 at Duxford in 1979.
It was quite a bit weather beaten, and the finish of the paintwork was very matt, though I'm not sure if that was just age or factory.
If you read the CIA's early '80s assessments of Soviet air defences, we see mention of Soviet electronic warfare systems that could disrupt navigation and bombing radar. In other words, they could make terrain following radar go blind. Terrain following radar is also a strong emitter, so could be detected providing the Soviets had the equipment in place wherever it needed to be. The CIA said EW was a Soviet strong suit too. They also mentioned growing look down, shoot down abilities of the Soviets.
The CIA thought the main Soviet weakness was the speed and coordination of intercepts once detection was achieved, i.e., NATO aimed for an aircraft to be past an air defense zone and into the next before an intercept could be arranged in a particular zone of responsibility (and then there would be a lag passing the detection data onto the next zone and so on -- they thought they could make the air defences chase their own tails pretty much, rather than relying on avoiding detection as the means of reaching the target, i.e., flying low to make detection as late as possible so as to reduce reaction time to the point of making interception very difficult).
NATO sought to exploit gaps in Soviet coverage as a result (response to an aircraft detected infiltrating one of those gaps would be the slowest, so that type of attack run would have the highest chance of success for NATO).
No wonder NATO preferred cruise missiles to TSR-2 and other similar aircraft. Cruise missiles can take on more risk. Low level infiltration solved the problem of high altitude bombers being shot down by SAMs, but the USSR was rapidly adjusting to terrain following tactics too. They developed means to counter cruise missiles too. NATO probably would have overwhelmed it with sheers numbers though. Not that it matters. By that stage the northern hemisphere would be radioactive ashes for the most part. Thankfully we wised up. They did a deal.
P.S. The Soviets viewed such tactics aimed at achieving a first strike as disruptive to nuclear security, the balance of power, and deterrence etc. They countered with the SS-20 missiles. NATO countered with the Pershing II missiles in West Germany and cruise missile deployments to the UK. I remember the CND protests. RAF Greenham Common was not so far away. The base that was much closer though was RAF Upper Heyford where the USA based its F-111 tactical nuclear bomber force. They were noisy buggers flying over our school a few times a day. We knew full well that base would be nuked immediately if it all kicked off and we discussed among ourselves what yield nuke would put us in the blast zone. We moved to NZ when I was 15. It felt a million times safer being nuclear free and all that (back then getting nuked seemed a matter of when rather than if at times).
Another very informative video on a legendary plane, Paul! Even after all these years, its cancellation as well as that of Canadian Arrow still provoke strong reactions from people who wish they had been placed into production. At least the UK has 2 examples to display, while the Canadian government of the day tried to destroy all remnants of the Arrow's existence. The argument that ICBMs made such aircraft unneeded has definitely been proven wrong when the Arrow was cancelled it was said the UK tried to get 2 examples for research but the Canadian government facing huge backlash over the programs' cancellation just wanted the plane to disappear.
In my view there were three reasons TSR2 failed, Britain was broke by 1960 and no longer a World power, the rivalry between the armed services was ridiculous by today's standards and the influence of Lord Mountbatten, our then naval Chief of Defence staff. His involvement in military procurement would not be accepted today. Nowadays though the Ministry of Defence could be seen to have a similar influence. In all a great aircraft though and like millions of others I shed the odd tear when it was so brutally cancelled. Thank you for posting.
Thanks.
Paul stated that the undercarriage had the same resonant frequency of the human eyeball and thereby caused pilots to go blind when landing. This is an old story told in other videos on the TSR-2 that strains credibility.
The USAF did a lot of testing to discover what humans could and couldn't take as part of preparing for space flight. They found that the resonant frequency of the eyeball is about 19Hz and 3 G's of oscillation are required at that frequency to obtain blindness.
3 G's at 19 Hz is a hell of a shake. One would have all manner of medical issues. The plane might well fail as well.
The resonant frequency of the human eye isn't an exact figure, it's actually a pretty wide range. (18Hz to 800Hz) "Blindness" hasn't been shown, but artifacts, such as phosphenes, *have* been shown. G force and frequency are orthogonal to each other. They are completely independent variables.
That was only on Development Aircraft, would have been fixed for production 😅
The claims were made by the flight test crews themselves so can be considered reliable.
@@andyb.1026 If it ever got to production. It was not a surprise that the government cancelled it. What is suprising is how long the Government took to realise it was dud that could never complete a mission it was supposedly design for.
@@karlchilders5420 Two things: 1. The wide frequency range indicates that resonance is well damped, though it is not as wide as you suggest.
2. it does matter how many G's are applied in conjunction with the frequency. Obviously, even if the resonance frequency is sharply defined (high Q as engineers say) if the amplitude (strength) of the vibration is very low, the resonance is not excited and nothing will happen.
If the vibration amplitude is high, then the resonance is excited. But not if the vibration frequency is not at the resonant frequency. Off-resonance you need a lot higher vibration amplitude.
Give a tuning fork a good hearty bang against you hand - you can clearly hear its tone.
Give a tuning fork a very light touch - you don't hear any tone.
Hold a tuning fork near you mouth and whistle or sing. The fork will respond and sing too. But only if you whistle or sing on the same pitch as the fork.
Happy New Year Paul. One of the best British aircraft that never made it
Wishful thinking... there were some very good reasons why this aircraft was canceled.
@@DoktorBayerischeMotorenWerke Yes, like it was totally incapable of meeting any of its operational requirements!!
@@richardvernon317
Of course without doubt it is correct to note that the TSR-2 was completely capable of performing all it's design specifications & more.
Indeed it goes without saying that sub launched ballistic missiles carrying nukes became one of the preferred methods of delivery of course.
@@richardvernon317 Indeed, in a nutshell that is exactly what happened..
I always wondered why Vickers Armstrong, a commercial aircraft specialist, were made 'lead contractor' and not English Electric who built the Canberra and the Lightning. Then I read that E.E. were a 'northern based company' whereas V.A. 'understood government'. (ie "we went to the same school").
Best walk-round I've seen on this plane. A1.
The silliest thing the British Government did, after such stupidity as the Brabazon (a huge piston engine luxury airliner that no airline could use), was to force their manufacturers to amalgamate, instead on leaving them alone in which survival of the fittest would come into effect. There would be bankruptcies and much unemployment, but the surviving firms would have done good work.
The amalgamation and retention of everyone's jobs resulted in a culture within that it didn't matter to the engineers if an aircraft wasn't going to be much good, just make something and then say "give us more money" and the next variant will be a good one. Rinse and repeat.
Competition is a powerful force in making people do their absolute best; lack of competition leads to just keeping seats warm.
The British Government had to scrap the TSR-2 and order prototypes destroyed in order to give BAC a good whack on the ears and make them realise that performance jolly well did matter.
@keithammleter3824 many of the aircraft builders were already in groups. Hawker Siddeley had Armstrong Whitworth, Gloster, Avro, and Hawker. Vicekershas Vickers and Supermarine. But inspite of common ownership they all operated asindividual companies and often competed with their sister companies.
@@neiloflongbeck5705 Which is the proper business way to do things: Test one division against another, but swap resources or use another division as a subcontractor when it is clearly advantagous to do so. Spread the development risk by cross-cash flow when one division has problems. But British Government policy over-rode all that.
Supermarine was already out of existence by 1960 though - before the TSR-2 was anything but concept drawings.
Supermarine is the classic example of how some firms could not survive into the jet age. They were most certainly up to it when the best of the best were simple piston engine aircraft like the Spitfire (which owes its greatness to the aerodynamicist Shenstone who had a lot of experience in the 1930's German aircraft industry - in other words pure luck), but were left behind without any appropriate expertise in the jet age, as not only did aircraft then have a different engine and flew faster, they had all sorts of onboard complexity, and large but simple wind tunnels with a dirty great fan at one end simply didn't cut it.
Interesting that the chose a spike similar tot he SR71 but cut in half to sort out the engine air intake requirements.
I have a photo of XR219 taking off taken by (I believe) my late brother in law who was a photographer for BAC! It is the one shown at 27:48. though the print does not have the stamp on the back.
👍👍👍👍Thanks Paul.🍺
Cheers!
I have actually touched this aircraft .....magic ! its not just aerospace engineering , it's sculpture ! cancelled due to high cost 2M £ per aircraft....seems good value now doesn't it ?
Nice to see you have one to look at they scrapped all of the Aro arrows just a few pieces left now 😭
Nice one, Paul!
Glad you enjoyed it
Thanks for tour of the TSR 2, an interesting aircraft and like its stable mate the avro arrow . A controversial subject.
TSR.2 and the Arrow are similar stories only because neither country could afford to build them, and the country that could afford them already had better aircraft.
A subject filled with shame, denial and conspiracy theories... because the real story is too difficult to listen to
Thank you for this very comprehensive tour of the TSR-2. Also, it was pleasant that your voiceover is natural, and without any unnecessary (annoying) musak. Just spend a little time learning how to correctly use the word "unique", as it is a superlative and saying "very unique" is a linguistic nonsense. Overall, a most informative video about an aircraft I've often seen and marvelled at when visiting the superb RAF Cosford aerospace museum.
Nothing is trivial in Aviation.
🇦🇺👍👍👍
Yes, there is a crashed F-105 next to China Lake NWS you can reach by dirtbike. Story was he got out safe. The wreckage had a telescoping piston to get the Nuke away from the jet to deploy going supersonic. They had a tumbling issue with the bomb going so fast. In the end they reshaped the bomb so no piston was ever used. Per what I've read on the internet.
Great video, love the content you put out. I have a great idea for you, when videoing from underneath, which was fantastic, would it be possible to put your camera gear, phone etc, onto a long stick and maybe video some segments from above the aircraft, a 6ft stick would be ideal, could of sneaked a glimpse of the cockpit too. I've visited RAF Cosford on numerous occasions and the TSR2 is my favourite aircraft, so thanks for making the best and most detailed video in 4k that I've seen anywhere. Great Job. subscribed.
Thanks mate. I did buy a stick for my gopro but I've since changed to a DJI pocket 3 which works much better but no stick. Thankfully most museums are more accomodating in letting my sit inside the cockpits, or at least, filming over the barriers. Sadly this museum was not one of them.
i bet you wish a couple of the Avro Arrows had been similarly preserved.
For me the most beautiful aircraft... Sharing 1st place with the Concorde 👍
Front Cockpit Design was the older brother of the Tornado Cockpits Design.😉
I like to think the development contributed to what came later
very true. I should have made a comment about that.
Here come the “blame the US for our sorrows” comments……
It has many things in common with the American F-111. I think McNamara was also trying to save money by combining a fighter and bomber.
As part of research for a Polytechnic project @ 1982, I visited the Cosford TSR2 when the museum was closed to the public and briefly met a gentleman who had delivered papers to do with the cancellation to Harold Treason Wilson in Downing Street.
A great privilege to meet someone involved in the design and see it close up.
Goerring would have been proud of Wilson achieving what Der Dikke had tried to do in 1940 to the British aviation industry.
Concorde, Arrow, Vulcan & TSR2 - all beautiful designs.
It was cancelled because the electronics didn't work and it would have cost s fortune to rectify, rather like Nimrod AEW. There was was no treason. Involved just economics.
@percyprune7548 Abosulte Hogwash!!! The People who cannned this aircraft were the RAF Air Staff!!! They had found out that the aircraft was a complete pile of Poo!
*Concorde, Arrow, Vulcan and TSR.2 were all disappointing failures.*
@@sandervanderkammen9230 the Vulcan was hardly a failure
@Ettrick8 TSR.2 was cancelled because nothing worked as specified by the design requirements, the plane struggled to fly supersonic without any military payload.
It's stability was so poor the flight test program was suspended and the prototype grounded
Hey! Good ole XR220, that's the version I built!
Great video Paul.. thank you for doing this on what I consider the second most beautiful aircraft.. the first of course the Spitfire..❤ Anyway.. anything leading edge creates problems that require solutions that are usually costly, complex and ahead of their time. I would imagine the spin-offs were valuable and the only question I have is what was the "dole" costing the UK vs the costs incurred building TSR-2? ... As an avid RC and freeflight modeler, eventually I must build a TSR-2 so I can have one to drool over.. 😊 Blessings to all..
Defianatly a key stone aircraft in British Aerospace. If it was not for the TSR2 we might not of had Concorde. Its a real shame you did not get chance to look in the cockpit. Did they give a reason to why you could not have a look?
No reason, just said I couldn’t access it.
My favorite plane together with the F-108 and XB-70 would have been a great strike force
12:00 The Phantom also used blown flaps.
The need for an all moving tail plane control system is a requirement of all supersonic aircraft to prevent control reversal at transonic speed and above.
The best aircraft the RAF never had
Indeed, a wonderful pipedream... and completely disconnected from the truth about why this plane failed.
All-moving tails are also knows as "stabilators."
The greatest plane that never was.
G'day,
Great work mate !
Subscribed...
This is the best treatment of the TSR-2 I've encountered, & I absolutely loved the Fairey Stringbag "connection".
If you feel like a bit of a giggle, then please do feel free to backtrack me.., to my
"Personal Aeroplanology..."
Playlist...(!).
I sort of grew up thinking that I'd been line-bred to be Biggles (mum's father & dad's uncle were both Pilots in the Oz Flying Corps..., and a cousin of dad's was a RAAF WingCo ; kinda thing...) ; and then I started reading Richard Bach at 15, and then Nevil Shute's collected works at 16...
So by 17 when I had a chance to scrape Paint off a Tiger Moth's Wing, in return for unofficial ab-initio Flying Lessons in a Piper Cub & a Hornet Moth - I didn't say "No" , and thus I was Rouseabout on the Radial-engined Sopwith Pup & Fokker Triplane Replicas, at Olde Bowral Airfield...
Last time I was in Inverell I made the pilgrimage, and a new video of,
"National Transportation Museum ; Visiting My First Aeroplane...!"
Which they keep there, chained up to the ceiling.
When I began that Playlist, I began it with what amounted to being a Video Slide-Show, using a Potato-Grade Nokia 2160 classic Phone-camera - and nailing down the Timeline with old photos & magazine articles..., about,
"The 8-Hp, 1975, Red Baron Skycraft Scout ; World's 1st Legal Minimum-Aircraft...!"
From 1978 to '82 it was mine, having taken me for my first Solo in November '78 ; I was it's 3rd owner..., and I turned out to be the last person who ever sat in it while it was flying..., and every other Aeroplane which I ever flew was pretty easy, by comparison.
I even survived the maiden Fright on a New Prototype Ultralight Motorglider - after 10 years totally groundbound...!
Apparently if one begins by flying a Lawnmower, then the rest comes easy...(?) !
Anyway, have fun. (?).
Your choice !
Such is life,
Haveva good one
Stay safe.
;-p
Ciao !
Cheers mate!
Have u done a video on the B-57? If not I know ud be able to get inside the one at the Glenn L Martin aviation museum at Martin State Airport, MD cuz they let me go in it.
Hi mate, great suggestion and I'm afraid not. I tried to film the Canberra in Australia but hit barriers with paperwork. So I am on the look out for a Canberra to film.
@@PaulStewartAviationthey have 2 at the Martin museum. Im sure they would like the attention since its never really busy there. Hell I live 30 mins from the place and if I didnt have to go to MTN for a faa physical I wouldnt have even known the place existed
I had a lecturer at college who'd been a cub engineer himself on the TSR2s avionics, and that was one way to waste a lecture you didn't particularly fancy; ask him about TSR2 and let him go! He was adamant that it would've succeeded eventually (although he was realistic that it wouldn't have been cheap or quick) and cancelling it was a travesty.
It's very difficult for those involved in the TSr.2 program to admit that their work was an epic failure of colossal proportions
This was a very shameful chapter in death of the UK aircraft industry.
@@sandervanderkammen9230 I'd disagree about it being such a failure: certainly the technology developed wasn't getting to a mature state quickly enough for some; it's probably more true that broadly, they ran before they could walk in trying to knit the whole system together. It certainly wasn't a dead end, put it that way.
But yes, it was the British aircraft industry's Icarus. The sun it flew too close to was political though, with in particular, Duncan Sandys' determination that unmanned and automated was everything worth chasing. Commercial pressure from the US didn't help either, as the mentioned F111 debacle illustrated. The same is largely true of NATO countries like France and Germany at that time too.
@creepingjesus5106 BAC never produced a single successful aircraft on its own and went tits-up after the Concorde flopped.
Germany is the largest manufacturer of jet aircraft in Europe today with France a close second, I can't name a single British company that still makes British jet aircraft in the UK
@sandervanderkammen9230 Again I'll disagree - the BAC 1-11 was hardly a failure. Sure, it didn't sell in the numbers the DC-9 did, but it was a solid, reliable, trustworthy plane that sold worldwide, and enjoyed a long life. It's about the only plane you can really call a BAC creation. Everything else was collaborative (Concorde, Jaguar etc) and after turbulent times, it was merged with Hawker Siddeley (themselves no failures) to form BAE, which is equally hard to justify calling a failure. Financially, Concorde was a failure yes, but it met the remit it was set, and the circumstances changed while it was in development. After all, the Russians went after a SST in a big way, as did the Americans, so the idea, at the outset, was sound. It's only with the benefit of hindsight we see its' problems.
And the bulk of the French and German aviation industry is similar to Britain, in that 'other projects' are put in the shade by the collective contribution to Airbus. Although, you can still buy a brand new Britten-Norman if you like...!
@@sandervanderkammen9230
We feel we can clear up some commonly held myths, misunderstandings & misconceptions.
It's always very important to note the relevant facts obviously.
Many thanks to Karzeestan, Von Krappenz, Diktorbumner, Diktorbaturjerkzoffenzische, AnewAOownley etc & the team, for that very informative comment.
Regarding the UK Aerospace Sector.
Indeed, Brazil makes very good airliners & Brazil is 100th down list along with Indonesia for wealth per capita.
*Norway Holland Denmark Ireland Belgium - Top 20 wealth per capita - Don't make airliners - its as simple as that.*
Indeed, there aren't any German companies making German jet aircraft in Germany. There is no German company making German gas turbine aero engines suitable for widebody airliners.
Of course, the Typhoon & Tornado for example are British design aircraft with British design engines which are built by an international consortium. Germany being a minor partner.
BAe Systems & Rolls Royce combined now do more Airbus work than Germany on an absolute basis & significantly more work than that on a per capita basis.
Per capita for the home nation BAe Systems is the world's largest defence contractor.
_BAe systems announced the recent £4 Billion takeover of Colorado based US based Ball Aerospace._
*Clearly BAE systems now does a significantly higher value of work for Airbus than it did when it was a major Airbus shareholder before 2005.*
*_RR now owns US Engine maker Allison for example which does classified Aerospace work for the US Govt._*
*Obviously anybody currently flying on a widebody airliner stands a good chance of being on an aircraft powered by RR gas turbine aero engines built in England.*
*_A typical but small glimpse of what goes on in the very internationally orientated British aerospace sector._* -
Boeing Apache Attack Helicopter.
AH-64: *75 UK suppliers,* 7% UK content, global fleet of 1280+ aircraft.
*F35B more than 130 UK Suppliers, more than 30% UK content.*
*_F35A & F35C more than 130 UK Suppliers, more than 15% UK content._*
*An airline has just ordered*
*60 RR England Trent XWB Engines*
Obviously the UK has the
*World's Highest Combined Per Capita*
*Nuclear / Defence / Aerospace Sector Activity.*
We hope this helps of course.
Cheers indeed.
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So sensitive the radar could identify a high power 🔋 cable/cable car wire 😊