The British Aircraft Corporation TSR-2 was a cancelled Cold War strike and reconnaissance aircraft developed by the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC) for the Royal Air Force (RAF) in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The TSR-2 was designed to penetrate a well-defended forward battle area at low altitudes and very high speeds, and then attack high-value targets in the rear with nuclear or conventional weapons. Another aspect of its combat role was to provide high-altitude, high-speed photo reconnaissance, requirements that necessitated incorporating "state-of-the-art" aviation technology that would make it the highest-performing aircraft in these roles. Although only one prototype was completed, test flights indicated that the aircraft would be able to meet its stringent design specifications. These specifications were however reduced as the results of flight testing became available.
The TSR-2 was the most visible victim of the 1957 Defence "White Paper" that, along with inter-service squabbling over Britain's future defence needs, led to the controversial decision to scrap the programme in 1965. With the election of a new government, the TSR-2 was ostensibly cancelled due to rising costs, in favour of purchasing the General Dynamics F-111, an "off-the-shelf" decision that itself was later rescinded as costs and development times skyrocketed. The interim replacements included the Blackburn Buccaneer and McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II, both types being previously considered and rejected early in the TSR-2 procurement process. Eventually, the smaller swing-wing Panavia Tornado was developed and adopted by a European consortium to fulfill broadly similar requirements that the TSR-2 was already meeting during tests in 1965.
General characteristics
- Crew: 2
- Length: 89 ft (27.13 m)
- Wingspan: 37.14 ft (11.32 m)
- Height: 23.77 ft (7.25 m)
- Wing area: 702.9 ft² (65.3 m²)
- Empty weight: 54,750 lb (24,834 kg)
- Loaded weight: 79,573 lb (36,169 kg)
- Max takeoff weight: 103,500 lb (46,980 kg)
- Powerplant: 2 × Bristol Siddeley Olympus B.Ol.22R (Mk. 320) turbojet
- Dry thrust: 22,000 lb (97.87 kN) each
- Thrust with afterburner: 30,610 lb (136.7 kN) each
Performance
- Maximum speed: Mach 2.35 at 40,000 ft/12,000 m (Mach 0.9 at sea level) ; final specification data
- Range: 2,500 nmi (2,880, mi, 4,630 km)
- Combat radius: 650 nmi (750 mi, 1,200 km)
- Ferry range: 3,690 nmi (4,250 mi, 6,840 km)
- Service ceiling: 50,000 ft (final specification) (12,000 m)
- Rate of climb: 15,000 ft/min (4,575 m/min)
- Thrust/weight: 0.59
Armament
Total weapons load of 10,000 lb (4,500 kg); 6,000 lb (2,700 kg) internal and 4,000 lb (1,800 kg) external
- Internal weapons bay, 20 ft (6 m) long, with (initially) 1 Red Beard 15 kt nuclear weapon or as intended 2 x OR.1177 300 kt nuclear weapons or 6 x 1,000 lb (450 kg) HE bombs. Final designed normal load in nuclear role of up to 4 x WE.177 nuclear weapons, two side-by-side or in tandem in weapons bay, two on external underwing stores pylons, Or
- 4 x 37-inch (0.94 m) rocket pods or nuclear weaponry on inner pylons only.
Avionics
- Autonetics Verdan autopilot modified by Elliot Automation
- Ferranti (terrain following radar and navigation/attack systems)
- EMI (sideways looking radar)
- Marconi (general avionics)
- Cossor (IFF)
- Plessey (Radio)
Throughout 1959, English Electric (EE) and Vickers worked on combining the best of both designs in order to put forward a joint design with a view to having an aircraft flying by 1963, while also working on merging the companies under the umbrella of the British Aircraft Corporation (along with Bristol Aircraft). EE had put forward a delta winged design and Vickers, a swept wing on a long fuselage. The EE wing, born of their greater supersonic experience, was judged superior to Vickers, while the Vickers fuselage was preferred. In effect, the aircraft would be built 50/50: Vickers the front half, EE the rear.
The TSR-2 was to be powered by two Bristol-Siddeley Olympus reheated turbojets, advanced variants of those used in the Avro Vulcan. The Olympus would go on to be further developed and power the supersonic Concorde. The design featured a small shoulder-mounted delta wing with down-turned tips, an all-moving swept tailplane and a large all-moving fin. Blown flaps were fitted across the entire trailing edge of the wing to achieve the short takeoff and landing requirement, something that later designs would achieve with the technically more complex swing-wing approach. The wing loading was high for its time, enabling the aircraft to fly at very high speed and low level with great stability without being constantly upset by thermals and other ground-related weather phenomena. The EE Chief Test Pilot, Wing Commander Roland Beamont, favourably compared the TSR-2's supersonic flying characteristics to the Canberra's own subsonic flight characteristics, stating that the Canberra was more troublesome.
The aircraft featured some extremely sophisticated avionics for navigation and mission delivery, which would also prove to be one of the reasons for the spiralling costs of the project. Some features, such as forward looking radar (FLR), side-looking radar for navigational fixing, only became commonplace on military aircraft later. These features allowed for an innovative autopilot system which, in turn, enabled long distance terrain-following sorties as crew workload and pilot input had been greatly reduced.
There were considerable problems with realising the design. Some contributing manufacturers were employed directly by the Ministry rather than through BAC, leading to communication difficulties and further cost overruns. Equipment, an area in which BAC had automony, would be supplied by the Ministry from "associate contractors", although the equipment would be designed and provided by BAC, subject to ministry approval. The overall outlay of funds made it the largest aircraft project in Britain to date.
Unlike most previous projects, there were to be no prototypes. Under the "development batch" procedure pioneered by the Americans (and also used by English Electric for the Lightning), there would instead be a development batch of nine airframes, to be built using production jigs. The choice of proceeding to production tooling turned out to be another source of delay, with the first aircraft having to adhere to strict production standards or deal with the bureaucracy of attaining concessions to allow them to exhibit differences from later airframes. Four years into the project, the first few airframes had effectively become prototypes in all but name, exhibiting a succession of omissions from the specification and differences from the intended pre-production and production batches.
