One of my daydreams is to imagine a drastic modification to the Tornado, starting in around 2000 (i.e. following on from the adoption of the BAE P.1216 STOVL fighter instead of Typhoon ). The idea being to greatly increase the internal fuel capacity as well as provide an internal weapons bay so that most missions could be flown "clean". It goes like this:
- remove the nose including the cockpit
- split the fuselage down the centre line and move the two engine bays apart, creating a central bay to carry weapons in the bottom half and fuel in the top
- plug in a forward-fuselage extension just behind the cockpit to add more fuel capacity
- to compensate the shift in CG, add F-18 type LERX which could house sensors and a targeting laser
- fit a multi-function radar etc so the plane could carry out long-range bomber interceptions, land strike and naval strike.
Once tested and debugged, make the new centre fuselage (and maybe other parts) in carbon fibre to get the weight back down again.
The result, all being well, should be a multi-purpose plane with a much greater combat radius than anything else in the West (short of the USAF's bombers), which would probably make it very attractive to Canada and Australia.
Re: TSR-2 (Cancelled Project)
Posted: 20 Nov 2015, 15:25
by shark bait
I hope you aren't seriously suggesting we start chopping up tornados and adding bits!
If you are using it on a more conceptual level, I think long range and big internal stores are definitely advantageous, but the 70's form factor just isn't going to fly anymore.
Re: TSR-2 (Cancelled Project)
Posted: 20 Nov 2015, 23:51
by Little J
Tony Williams wrote:One of my daydreams is to imagine a drastic modification to the Tornado.
One my daydreams was tsr in service, v-force replaced by B-1's (around early 80's) and maybe UK equal partners on F-22 including two seat E version to replace tsr...
Re: TSR-2 (Cancelled Project)
Posted: 21 Nov 2015, 08:48
by Tony Williams
shark bait wrote:I hope you aren't seriously suggesting we start chopping up tornados and adding bits!
No - I said starting in around 2000. Far too late now...
Re: TSR-2 (Cancelled Project)
Posted: 21 Nov 2015, 09:37
by ArmChairCivvy
From c.1990 onwards there were a lot of ideas for radical performance improvements through remanufacture (in the link, step 3 for Super Tomcat): http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/ima ... xchgvr.jpg
and that was as peace dividend started to bite into future R&D programmes, but at the same time the AF/ Navy in the US still wanted bespoke designs each.
- look what that brought them: the JSF! A turkey compared to the ST and AST development steps
Re: TSR-2 (Cancelled Project)
Posted: 30 Jan 2016, 17:18
by CarrierFan2006
My grandfather was a tool maker on the TSR2 programme for BAC. After the programme was cancelled we ended up with bits of sheet metal in the shed with which my father later repaired the car. The metal repairs never rusted, unlike the rest of the 70s built car, and had to be riveted into place because it wouldn't weld...
There was talk in the early 1980s of resurrecting the TSR2 programme which came to nothing. I can't remember where I read it. I seem to remember that it was posted Falklands, when Mrs T asked for a review of the programme to see whether it was feasible to bring it to completion. The scrapping of the tooling, destruction of drawings and the decimation of the Aircraft industry by that stage aborted the idea soon afterwards.
Sent...
Re: TSR-2 (Cancelled Project)
Posted: 30 Jan 2016, 17:39
by cockneyjock1974
CarrierFan2006 wrote:My grandfather was a tool maker on the TSR2 programme for BAC. After the programme was cancelled we ended up with bits of sheet metal in the shed with which my father later repaired the car. The metal repairs never rusted, unlike the rest of the 70s built car, and had to be riveted into place because it wouldn't weld...
There was talk in the early 1980s of resurrecting the TSR2 programme which came to nothing. I can't remember where I read it. I seem to remember that it was posted Falklands, when Mrs T asked for a review of the programme to see whether it was feasible to bring it to completion. The scrapping of the tooling, destruction of drawings and the decimation of the Aircraft industry by that stage aborted the idea soon afterwards.
The Plane that saw the end of the leadership of British aviation, the BAC TSR.2 was a world beater at the time but couldn't survive a government that no longer wanted it.
Re: TSR-2 (Cancelled Project)
Posted: 13 Jan 2018, 15:43
by Lord Jim
My uncle was one of the RAF pilots earmarked for the further testing of the TSR2 and never forgave the politicians for canning the programme.
Re: TSR-2 (Cancelled Project)
Posted: 22 Jan 2018, 14:51
by Lord Jim
Trivia question, What was the TSR 1 and what became of it.
Re: BAC TSR-2 (Cancelled Project)
Posted: 22 Jan 2018, 14:57
by SKB
There was no actual TSR 1 plane, as the original TSR stood for Torpedo Spotter Reconnaissance. A fleet of Fairey Swordfish biplanes fulfilled the T.S.R. role.
The TSR-2 initials differ, as it stood for Tactical Strike Reconnaissance.
Re: TSR-2 (Cancelled Project)
Posted: 22 Jan 2018, 14:59
by Caribbean
There was a prototype torpedo bomber of that name in the 1930 - is that the one you mean?
Re: TSR-2 (Cancelled Project)
Posted: 22 Jan 2018, 18:59
by Lord Jim
Yep that the one, it was mentioned in the book I was reading as the TSR-1 as the designation Fairy gave the self funded prototype that became the Swordfish, but that is only book, but regardless given the threat title I thought it was interesting.
Re: TSR-2 (Cancelled Project)
Posted: 22 Jan 2018, 23:04
by Caribbean
Didn't know the Swordfish link, but it seems obvious when you mention it. Nice one!
I always loved the TSR-2. I once got to (literally) clamber all over a nearly complete one (only some avionics stuff missing, which they hoped to recover from another partial hull elsewhere) in the workshop hangars at RAF Henlow, as a reward for helping them unload a Bleriot monoplane that had been flown in for restoration work. Unfortunately the Bleriot was still in its transport crate, so we never got to see that, but the TSR-2 made up for it!. The funny thing is that I had known for years that here was a rumour that there was a TSR-2 in a hangar at the end of the airfield - the rumour was right about the TSR-2, just wrong about which hangar (and which end of the airfield!).
Re: TSR-2 (Cancelled Project)
Posted: 24 Jan 2018, 13:44
by Lord Jim
Does RAF Cosford still have the TSR-2 prototype in its museum? Saw it when I visited there on work over a decade ago. Great place with a Belfast and quite a few unique planes on display, or at least did back then.
Re: TSR-2 (Cancelled Project)
Posted: 24 Jan 2018, 14:14
by RetroSicotte
Lord Jim wrote:Does RAF Cosford still have the TSR-2 prototype in its museum? Saw it when I visited there on work over a decade ago. Great place with a Belfast and quite a few unique planes on display, or at least did back then.
Dunno about them, but Duxford has one on very close display that is well worth checking out.
Re: BAC TSR-2 (Cancelled Project)
Posted: 24 Jan 2018, 14:17
by SKB
XR220 is at the RAF Museum, Cosford near Wolverhampton, and the much less complete XR222 at the Imperial War Museum Duxford.
The only airframe ever to fly, XR219, along with the completed XR221 and part completed XR223 were taken to Shoeburyness and used as targets to test the vulnerability of a modern airframe and systems to gunfire and shrapnel. Four additional completed airframes, XR224, XR225, XR226 and one incomplete airframe XR227 (X-06,07,08 and 09) were scrapped by R J Coley and Son, Hounslow Middlesex.
Re: TSR-2 (Cancelled Project)
Posted: 24 Jan 2018, 22:53
by Little J
She was still there on 17th September last year.
Re: TSR-2 (Cancelled Project)
Posted: 24 Jan 2018, 23:08
by S M H
There were several parts of a TSR 2 in b flight hanger used as instructional aids wiring looms and avionic boxes Taken from avionics bays The.large access panels forward of the air intakes. A long with a cockpit canopy at Halton. They were destined for the skip Most of which was sent to Duxford for xr222 through the efforts of Peter Agate who was a carpenter. He made wooden tool cabinets ( Mobile shadow boards used by the trainees) . He had previously been posted to museum at Hendon . Most trainees and apprentices would have seen unaware of what they were working on pervious history. The canopy was by the sea vixens (instructional airframes).
Re: TSR-2 (Cancelled Project)
Posted: 01 Feb 2018, 20:49
by Digger22
I had always thought that the Canberra was the original TSR. Albeit needing a couple of different models.. B(I)8 and PR9?
Re: BAC TSR-2 (Cancelled Project)
Posted: 27 Sep 2018, 12:53
by SKB
TSR-2 made its maiden flight exactly 54 years ago today, on 27th September 1964.
Re: TSR-2 (Cancelled Project)
Posted: 27 Sep 2018, 13:49
by Timmymagic
SKB wrote:ago today.
Genuinely beautiful plane. You can buy bits of it (titanium fasteners) from the RAF Museum Hendon's shop.
But as much as I love it it was a colossal waste of funds. If only we'd put some of the avionics in the Super Buccaneer that was proposed. It would have outperformed the Tornado. We may have just started to retire them now...the implications for UK military aircraft programmes in the 70's to date in terms of timelines would have been huge.
Re: TSR-2 (Cancelled Project)
Posted: 27 Sep 2018, 14:35
by Lord Jim
Whilst the investment of funds was huge for the TSR-2, it was way ahead of anything else either in service or in development at the time. IF we had been more positive in the management of the programme without the mixed signals form Government it could have been a major success, both for the RAF and for exports. In fact the Tornado would probably have never need built which than asks the question what sort of platform would have replaced the Phantom in the Air Defence Role. As for the TSR-2, I have a wonderful print of a TSR-2 of 617 Sqn flying low in the Lake District in wrap around camo and carrying a TIALD, 2x Paveway II, under wing tanks and Sky Shadow ECM pods. Fictional of course but a wonderful "What if".
Re: TSR-2 (Cancelled Project)
Posted: 27 Sep 2018, 15:06
by Little J
Lord Jim wrote:Whilst the investment of funds was huge for the TSR-2, it was way ahead of anything else either in service or in development at the time. IF we had been more positive in the management of the programme without the mixed signals form Government it could have been a major success, both for the RAF and for exports.
Have to wonder what might have been had Mountbatten not stuck his nose in with the Aussies... Once saw a video (some flight sim) of TSR.2 in USAF colours
In fact the Tornado would probably have never need built which than asks the question what sort of platform would have replaced the Phantom in the Air Defence Role.
I always thought if MRCA had never happened, we'd probably have got in with the Yanks on the F-15.
As for the TSR-2, I have a wonderful print of a TSR-2 of 617 Sqn flying low in the Lake District in wrap around camo and carrying a TIALD, 2x Paveway II, under wing tanks and Sky Shadow ECM pods. Fictional of course but a wonderful "What if".
Me too, "Return to the Future" (print 357/1000) by Roland Wong
). The idea being to greatly increase the internal fuel capacity as well as provide an internal weapons bay so that most missions could be flown "clean". It goes like this:
