Retired now from both the British Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force, the Buccaneer holds the title of the Last Holy British made bomber. In service till the 1990s, this aircraft has a long history that traces its way back to the early Cold War when the Royal Navy was threatened by an advanced Soviet warship. The Buccaneer would later inherit the role of another legend in British aviation, the English Electric Canberra. A very hard act to follow. In 1952, one of the Royal Navy's biggest problems came in the form of new Soviet cruisers, including those of the Speedlock class. These speedy pocket battleships could potentially ferry lethal nuclear weapons to the doorstep of Britain. A question foremost in the minds of Royal Navy leadership was how to counter a sea flooded with these floating nuclear platforms. The Royal Navy looked to the lessons of the past to forge a solution. World War Two had proven that a large Navy could effectively be neutralized by a relatively small number of the right aircraft. At the Battle of Taranto in November of 1941, Swordfish torpedo bombers were able to devastate the Italian Navy in a deadly night. Strike. A month later, the Imperial Japanese Navy followed suit with an aerial assault against the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. The British Fleet Air Arm was looking for a high speed low flying attack bomber that could similarly counter any Soviets Sverdlov threat. We were concerned about the maritime threats and the Sverdlov came out as a like a German pocket battleship. So we had to come up with a solution to that and they thought instead of building another capital ship which were attending to go out of fashion, the Buccaneer would be the answer in that it could attack the ship at a low level under the radar low. In August of 1952, the Ministry of Supply asked for submissions for A2 seat carrier based aircraft capable of flying at well over 600 miles an hour and down to 200 feet above sea level. Also, if required, this same aircraft was able to carry an atomic bomb. The Royal Navy was joining the nuclear club. Initially the idea was you would take it out with a small nuclear weapon, so. The Buccaneer would be up to 580 knots. Typically in the attack it's more like 550 knots, but it'd be running in at 100 feet and then lobbing the nuclear weapon at the Sverdlov. Inherently quite an inaccurate attack, but you used a huge weapon to take out the threat. Blackburn Aircraft was one contender for the contract to build the Royal Navy's bomber. The company had a long tradition in making naval aircraft, but some of their earlier designs had not been particularly successful. Blackburn perhaps a bit unlucky firm. They had some aircraft designs, for example in the Second World War, which really were not very good at all for one reason. Another they had an aeroplane called the firebrand, which was a very difficult development program. Regardless of these earlier failures, Blackburn persevered and won a contract by submitting a proposal for a potent new bomber. The company continued to develop their advanced aircraft, then simply named the N.A.-39 under the utmost secrecy. And in April of 1958, the prototype was finally airborne. Nearly everyone who grew the Buccaneer had various nicknames from it. Probably unrepeatable over here with brick and something in house or the springs to mind, but enable the aircraft to fly very fast at low level. Not many aircraft could stay in low level turbulence at the sort of speeds at the Buccaneer could achieve, and therefore it made it difficult for the opposition to get a handle on you. While the Royal Navy was searching for an answer to the Soviet nuclear arm, the vessels, the Royal Air Force was looking for a new strike and reconnaissance aircraft. In November 1956, more than two years before the N.A:-39's maiden flight, general operating requirements 339 was issued to the aircraft industry for replacement of the RAF, Canberra. Though the Canberra was an excellent tactical bomber and reconnaissance aircraft, the RAF needed to look forward and keep one step ahead of Soviet technology. The issue of requirement 339 was followed closely by the release of Duncan Sandys Defense White Paper foretelling the demise of expensive fighter aircraft in what was said to be the missile age. Military budgets were under tight scrutiny, and there was a suggestion that a more advanced version of the Navy's N.A-39 might fulfill the RAF's needs. The Buccaneer was Navy design, which really wasn't that popular with the RAF, possibly because of course it was a Navy aircraft. And if you look in the National Archives at queue the British National Archives, you will find that several times the RAF or the air staff the Administry looked at versions of the Buccaneer for the RAF through the late 1950s and into the 1960s and regularly rejected it for all manner of reasons. But as to say I'm sure the fact it was a Navy aircraft in part was the problem. Certainly the Air Force decided that the Buccaneer was a bit behind the times for them electronically. This is probably true, and they wanted the much vaunted and promised TSR-2. For its time, the TSR-2 was one of the most sophisticated aircraft available anywhere. It was the product of two companies, English Electric and Vickers, who later came together to form BAC. In June 1958, despite strong objections from the Treasury and the Navy, the RAF was told it could have the TSR-2. This only days after the NA -39, now known as the Buccaneer, made its first flight. The TSR-2 was just about everything the RAF was looking for. It was a fast, low level computerized aircraft with the ability to avoid Soviet defenses and deliver nuclear strikes against high value targets. However, after seven years of development, it also became increasingly expensive, and too much so for the New Labour government of 1965. With ten pre production models all but finished and just one actually flying, the project was cancelled. TSR-2 became a very complex and a very expensive aeroplane when it started life in the late 50s as a Canberra replacement. It was really looked on as a more of uh a bomber capable of supersonic dash over the target. Maybe Mach 1.4. We're not a particularly great range, but as it became the lonely surviving combat aircraft program in this country following the year 1957 White Paper where manned fighter aircraft were officially going to be dispensed with in due course. It really grew in size and it grew complexity and also the requirements went up and up. I think it reached 1000 miles at 1000 miles an hour. It was very complex requirement that actually. Made the aircraft far more expensive just having that capability. Without the TSR-2, the RAF needed a stopgap solution for a new strike aircraft. Prime Minister Wilson looked to America to help re equip the RAF. At first the General Dynamics Swing Wing F-111 was considered and in February 1967 50 RAF versions were ordered. Like the TSR -2, the F-111 could fly low, avoid Soviet radar and carry nuclear weapons into the heart of the Soviet Union. Its swing wings in advanced terrain following radar gave it the ability to fly at treetop level. Although the 111s ultimately went into series production and became workhorse bombers of the USAF and Royal Australian Air Force, at that time they suffered a similar cost overrun as the TSR-2 and the RAF order was cancelled. Now the RAF was left with few places to shop and still a considerable need to fill. The multi role combat aircraft, the tornado was in the works but it was years away from its first flight. By 1968, a decade after the TSR two was ordered, the Royal Air Force had come to realize that the best available option at that time was the Buccaneer, then produced by BAC. The American F-111. Well, that proved too expensive. So the Air Force was then left having to make a last minute decision, and lo and behold, they came up with the trustee Buccaneer, the aircraft they could have had for all those years. The Buccaneer was finally installed in both services, but not for too long. Government cutbacks continued, resulting in the phasing out of all conventional carrier borne aircraft in 1978. Soon, the Royal Navy would have to rely exclusively on jump jet technology alone. Pocket Soviet cruisers, which created the original need for a Buccaneer, never became a serious threat. The type was just too vulnerable to Western maritime missiles. All of the Navy's complement of Buccaneers were transferred to the RAF, where they and their purpose built. Air Force counterparts remained in service until March of 1994. Production went on in the 1970s and incredibly this stopgap aeroplane, because it was so advanced, so capable, actually stayed in ref service right through until 1993, which is quite an incredible achievement. I think. Very, very superb aeroplane, the Buccaneer. The Royal Air Force, I think they became great fans with. During the Tornadoes development, they used the Buccaneer as a development vehicle for the tornado avionics and my intelligence tells me that they thought that the in the ground attack role Buccaneer equipped the Tornado weapon system was actually a better aircraft than the tornado. On the 17th of August 1966, the only prototype to have flown of Britain's most advanced aircraft project was towed down this road. It flew just 24 times and the £200 million pounds That had been spent on its research and development was eventually to be reduced to just £50,000 worth of scrap. This is an aircraft graveyard at Shoeburyness in Essex, where once proud aeroplanes are used as targets to test the effects of gunfire and shrapnel. Such was the fate of TSR-2. What remains today at the TSR 2 project can only be found in museums standing as testimony to the decisions that sealed its fate. Conceived in the 1950s, designed and flown in the early 60s, the story of TSR-2 is one of technological triumph and human endeavor. It was an aircraft years ahead of its time. The years 1950 to 1957 would be described as the post war Golden Age of the British aircraft industry. Shop floors were full of priority orders resulting from the Korean War Panic design offices were working flat out on a whole series of advanced operational requirements for the RAF and the Navy. The Farnborough Air Shows has revealed a procession of advanced prototypes and piloted scale models of shapes to come. Then in 1957, the Secretary of State for Defence, Duncan Sands, presented his defense White paper to Parliament, which called for the elimination of manned aircraft in favour of missile systems. This led Britain's aircraft industry and the Royal Air Force with just one key project to pursue the replacement of the highly successful and widely exported Canberra bomber. On the sort of aircraft we were looking at? We've already looked at the idea of a specialized low level bomber. And that was cancelled in early 56, I think for quite good reasons as it was. Such a narrow role for an aircraft. And we thought we still. Should go for low level, of course we saw it as the only means of penetrating Soviet air defences. but equally. We wanted it to be able to put on a reasonable performance doubt. Shoot. And I'm talking in the way between 40 and 60,000 feet. I say that because we visualize air. Operated engines, ordinary turbojets. In other words, we won't think of things like ramjets or anything. And. We we called it. Tactical strike reconaissance aircraft hoping that that would convey the. Idea of our operational technique. Meanwhile, the Royal Navy had not been idle in identifying its requirement for a low flying strike aircraft. In 1955, Blackburn Aircraft won the contract to develop the NA-39 Buccaneer, a twin seat carrier borne strike aircraft capable of flying under the enemy's surface vessel radar screen. The Navy had a powerful ally in Lord Louis Mountbatten, who is chief of the Defence Staff and a lifelong naval officer, tried to persuade the RAF to opt for a modified version of the Buccaneer as the Canberra replacement. Whilst this would have helped to reduce the costs for the Navy and ultimately the Air Force, the RAF felt that the Buccaneer would not fulfill their requirements. Now the Buccaneer was an extraordinary successful airplane. It was built for mainly for low level work. And but the point was that the RAF didn't think it was at that stage was fast enough or good enough up there was nothing wrong with the budget and contrary to popular belief and you may be being sitting here this that in 1956. I asked Barry Laight, who was then the chief designer of Blackburns. If he would break, kindly produce a brochure for me on the NA-39 of the Royal Air Force. And he did that, and we did consider it. It was very seriously considered. Mountbatten used to rather lie about that and say we never took any interests, but it was very seriously considered by the airforce. Yeah, I think the real tragedy is that the Tories should have had the sense to develop the Buccaneer into a strike reconnaissance aircraft for the Air Force, but the Air Force wouldn't agree to that. And Badel Begledger to told me that he thought that the decision to go to the TSR-2 was in a sense compensation to the Air Force for the government's decision to give the nuclear deterrent to the Navy. And Badel Begledger was head of the Navy. By March 1957, the area began to circulate its basic requirement under the Title general operational Requirement 339. The industry would report back with designs and comments by January 1958. But in September 1957, the government dropped another bombshell on the industry. At Shell-Mex house. The permanent secretary of the Ministry of Supply called a meeting of the heads of all the major aircraft companies and told them that following the 57 defence White paper there was no certainty of further aircraft projects except Gor-339. He also told them that proposals would only be accepted from those firms who were prepared to collaborate together on the project. The government had effectively aimed a pistol at the industry's head. The message was amalgamate or die. The companies spent hundreds of thousands of man hours developing their concepts, amongst them Vickers- Armstrong who came up with a single and twin engined version of their Type 571 which was to be based on the new concept of a fully integrated airframe, engine, equipment and weapons system. English Electric was the only British company to have built an operational supersonic aircraft in the Lightning. They proposed their P-17, provided with a vital capability by the P-17D from shots who'd been gaining valuable experience in vertical takeoff with their SC-1. The P-17 concept was a very, very good one, and if you look at the the general arrangement drawings of it superimposed on a picture of the TSR-2, you'll find that output there's very little difference. The P-17 was to ride piggyback on the P-17D to give it a full vertical takeoff capability. The P-17D, which was powered by no fewer than 70 engines, was to enable the P-17 to take off and land back on the platform in the air. English Electric had got the measure of the supersonic bomber aspect absolutely right, but the their solution to providing the short field takeoff and landing capability with this lifting platform I think would have been immensely difficult to do. Very costly and I had some doubts as to its practicability. I didn't think it would work. The P-17D was dropped after the RAF redefined their requirement as OR-343 based solely on the vicars English electric submissions. Initially, the enforced amalgamation of the two companies was not welcomed. Well, frankly, we thought it was absolutely wrong. We thought it was um, um. A misjudgment which would lead to cost overrun, delays unnecessarily. Complications in working out the this very complex design which could much easier easily have been done, much more easily have been done by one firm as a main contractor. And if it did, if that one firm didn't have the the total manufacturing capacity to cope with the whole program, then they should have subcontracted it out to the other parts of the industry that could take it, take it on. English Electric had already 10 years experience in building supersonic military aircraft. No other firm in this country had. They had the Canberra behind them and they had a design known as the P-17. Which was very close indeed to the specification which was put down subsequently for TSR-2, and nevertheless the prime contract was given to to victors. It's true to say that they they are experience lain subsonic aircraft. And in civil aircraft, the only military plane I think that they built was the Valiant bomb. Which had, um, manifest structural. Uh. thoughts in design and was in fact withdrawn after five years, so you could say it was a failure and yet in spite of the contrast between the two firms, experience and capability, they were told to amalgamate and the prime contract was given to because I think it was mistaken. English electric were regarded by the rest of the industry. As newcomers, the great names Hawkers de Havilland's Vickers Bristols have been companies existing till way back to World War One and even earlier. English electric, the name English Electric only came into the the the general public view after World War Two. They built very successfully a range of Hamden and Halifax bombers under licence from Andy page during the war, and then on the basis of that a new design team was formed in 1945, specifically the design and build for the RAF, its first jet bomber, the Canberra. We were English electric were regarded as newcomers by the rest of industry and I think slightly resented for that. By any standards at that time, TSR-2was to be the most advanced aircraft in the world. It was to be capable of around Mark 1.1 at 200 feet and mark two at medium and high altitudes with a radius of action of 1000 nautical miles. The aircraft would need a completely new fully automatic radar system, more advanced than anything else in existence, including terrain following and sideways looking radar with automatic updating of data. It was to be capable of taking a full reconnaissance fit operate from short strips in all weather. And provide everything from long range nuclear strike to battlefield support. No self-defense weapons were initially proposed, although there was a provision to carry 4 air to surface rockets. The government's choice of the Bristol Sidley Olympus engine was a controversial decision and was to lead to delays and massive cost overruns. We were strongly in favour of a Rolls Royce engine, not least because we we considered that the Bristol Olympus development wasn't far ahead and that we would end up with a in the classic situation, which should be avoided. In aircraft development, that's a new a new design of aeroplane with a new design of engine right from flight, one that complicates the issues. Wherever you can, you should combine a new airplane with it, a. Well proven engine. Rolls as always at that day. They didn't want all these aircrafts succeed with Bristol engines. And this is before Rolls Royce brought up this storm. The TSR-2 was going to have the Bristol Olympus. The 1154 was going to have a form of the Bristol Pegasus. And this really didn't suit Rolls Royce at all, at the time. Undoubtedly, the development costs of the Olympus were a big factor. In the escalating costs of the program, but much worse than that in my view was was the unreliability of the engine. We we did actually, as to use the phrase I have just used, arrive at a classic situation where we had a brand new untried airplane with an engine which was not only unproved, it hadn't passed its airworthiness typed this, but it actually had a known catastrophic failure on it, which put put the TSR-2 prototype at risk. Then we started flying. Problems with the engine would prove difficult to resolve and were not identified until after the first flight. The Vulcan Olympus flying test bed would later blow up whilst taxiing. The government placed the contract for 9 pre production aircrafts with the Vickers English Electric Consortium in October 1960, more than 18 months after the contract had first been announced. In spite of mounting opposition from the Navy and the Treasury's, Britain's most ambitious aircraft project yet devised had been given the go ahead. Vickers, under Sir George Edwards, was to be the prime contractor and responsible for the front fuselage section, which included the cockpit weapon systems and budget control. The English electric, led by its chief designer Freddie Page, was to concentrate on the aerodynamics, wings, tail and rear fuselage. From an early stage, the consortium responded to the project's critics in Whitehall by illustrating their design philosophy, as seen in this film extract presented by their chief project engineer, Ollie Heath. With a tail plane. So designed as to release the whole of the wing for flap blowing. They provision of adequate threats to weight ratio secured by. Powerful Olympus 22-R engines giving a thrust to weight ratio of .6. The requirement for rudimentary operation rudimentary field operation by large wheels, which despite the requirements for low cross-sectional area, are stowed within the aeroplane without drag penalty. The crosswind requirements met by the large parachute. Which of course, also confers the short landing facility. The reason the advanced technology of the aircraft was mirrored in the complexity of the manufacturing, which was to employ new working practices and advanced materials. Other problems relating to project management control would lead to delays. One of the most delaying aspects of the program was that many of the subcontractors were working directly with the ministry and not not under the control of of the Central management organization. That's BAC and this this aid to complications, misunderstandings and inevitable delays. I remember 1 famous occasion when I one of the committees that I attended. Of industry and the ministry officials and civil servants from the establishments and elsewhere. The the chairman took a look around the room when we started in Sir Giles Court, long room full of cigarette smoke and and and battered cups of tea, and he took a look around the room. He said I want to count tape and there was a head count taken at this meeting and there were 58 people. In the room. And the chairman quite recently said this is quite ridiculous that nobody could control the program with meetings this size. I want you all to go away and the next meeting is convened for such a such and such a date and I want to see a significant reduction in the numbers at that meeting. In due course. We all came back to the reconvened meeting and there were 61 in the room. The Ministry, for instance, Annex control of the cockpit layout I think arbitrarily in at some point. And there was a civil servant in the ministry who was in charge and I quote "as far as the government was concerned", but there a lot more to it than that. I think that the contractor had to seat him on his committee but that didn't represent control either. In my own experience, we had cockpit committee meetings which spent days not only just trying to decide where one particular switch should go. But what the caption should be under the switch? And then they they decided, against the advice of the operators and in that case me, to put a caption under a vital switch which made no sense to the aircrew at all. And eventually, before we flew, it had to be changed. And this is a typical example of the very simple silly delays that occurred in the program. In the United States, the advanced technology and potential of TSR-2 had been a source of concern and progress of the project had been closely monitored. They sent him a team over from the Pentagon in 1960 under an official called Cortland Perkins, and they expressed. They went all over the TSR- 2 building. They expressed enormous enthusiasm. They let the British Aircraft Corporation. They let them to let them understand that they would be interested in purchasing. They were nothing of the kind they were interested in finding out. What was going on. In order to adapt it into their own version, which came much later and much less successfully, the F-111 now I don't blame the Americans. Well, I think it's been, it's become very clear since those days that the Americans were primarily very worried about the emergence of TSR- 2 because they saw it as a direct challenge. To the military air supremacy that they were aiming to establish with their F-111 swing wing low level attack aeroplane, which was designed for a very similar role to TSR-2. Early in 1960, American industry was asked what the time seemed impossible. It was asked to design an airplane that would fly faster at any altitude than any existing fighter. It was behind it in time, it ran into enormous technical problems and it overrun, overrun its cost predictions very, very greatly. But we know that the Americans thought that the TSR-2 was a threat, that if we had been as successful with TSR-2 as we had been with its predecessor of the Canberra. Which was so good, if you remember, that the Americans themselves bought the Canberra. I think they saw the TSR as a threat to their potential worldwide interest in exporting military airplanes, and they were very anxious to get rid of it. The Australians who had also purchased the Canberra bomber found themselves in a similar position to the RAF in looking for a suitable replacement. I think the Australians needed to replace their Canberras and therefore. As they used to, they looked a bit and they said, what are you doing? You must be a placing yours. I made two visits to Canberra with teams from British Aerospace to make presentations on the TSR 2 program, during which we understand that they were planning to acquire 30, 30 airplanes. Royal Air Force was planning to have 150 and this 30 would have made a nice addition to and made the production run really stable. During the early part of 1964 was the year in which the aeroplane first flew. We understood that the Australian government had virtually signed up. For a complete TSR- 2. After more than five years work, the first prototype XR-219 was transported in sections to the aircraft and Armament experimental establishment at Boscombe Down in Wiltshire, where it would take three months to assemble. The choice of Boscombe Down as the site of the flight test program was a compromise solution. English electric space at Wharton and Lancashire would have been an ideal support and maintenance base. Vickers had wanted the first flight to take place from their airfield at Wisley. Roland Beamont argued that the Wisly runway was too short. Working from Boscombe Down would create more problems. Nobody really wanted us there, or they did their very best to help us, I must say. We didn't want to be there. We had the worst of both communication boards. We were 150 miles from Morton and 60 miles from Weybridge, where we ought to have been doing all that work on one base with all the experts just around the block. The sum total of delays and resultant cost increases that were plaguing the project meant the planned in service date had to be put back. This news poured further fuel on the fire of mounting opposition from the project's critics. Mountbatten, perhaps TSR 2's most determined critic, was still pushing hard for the Buccaneer. He visited Australia and met their defence minister, Sir Frederick Scherger. He said that it would. He went around the players saying that it was absolutely what the Air Force wanted and everybody knew this. And he used to go around with a briefcase with model with, with, with, with, with one model of the TSR-2 and five of the Buccaneers and put them on the table in front of people like Scherger in Australia and say you can have five of these for one of those, so why do you bother? About the best of my knowledge, tell them. It wouldn't be coming into service. Or certainly poured cold water on it. The Australians listened to this and by the time we started flying in August. We had been given to understand that the the Australians were almost certainly shifting and going for the F-111. I'm sure they would have bought the SR2. but It hadn't gone ahead. The newly assembled and freshly painted TSR-2 was wheeled out in September 1964 to commence its engine runs and taxi trials. Roland Beamont and other members of his flight test team still had nagging concerns about the unresolved engine and undercarriage problems. The continuing buildup of political pressure and adverse media criticism was heightened by the looming general election, with the ruling Conservative government looking set to lose. Meanwhile, a meeting was convened at Boscombe Dawn in view of the October election and the Labour Party's uncertain support for the project. The question on everybody's lips was when could TSR-2 make its first flight? A successful flight before the election might prove critical to the project survival. The Chief Project test pilot was faced with a very difficult decision. He was well aware of the dangers of an engine failure and of the consequences of cancellation. Don Bowen, my observer, backseater, and I were the people on whom the total responsibility of this enormous pyramidal organization we're going to fall on Flight 1. But it wasn't a sudden precipice to go over. We'd been doing taxi trials on the aeroplane, testing all its systems. Out on the ground we texted it up to take off speed, tested the parachute, brakes and all the rest of it. By the time we were ready to fly on that day, I had any doubts about the the the capability of the aeroplane had long since gone. I was very confident that it was going to fly well. With the extraordinarily good moment when you turn onto the runway, you call for clearance to go. You get clearance from the tower. 54321 breaks off. You like to reheat and go, and from then on you'll know exactly what it's supposed to do, and your task is just to be totally alert to see if it doesn't do what it's supposed to do. It's a fascinating moment. It's a professionally enormously satisfying. And then when you become airborne and you'll find this new device actually performs as well as predicted, or even in the case of TSR 2, better. We scheduled to fly the TSR two first flight for 30 minutes. We in fact flew for 27 minutes. Halfway through that, at the end of the First Circuit round Boscombe, I had formed the opinion that this was far more than a questionable airplane. This was a brilliant first attempt at getting this complex airplane right. It was so good and so right on Flight 1, after 10 minutes, that I was enjoying the sensation of just relaxing and feeling this is a marvelous airplane. I thought I'd been there before. Question. Looking. The first flight had demonstrated the potential of the aircraft, but for technical reasons it was not to fly again until the very last day of the year. In the meantime, there had been a change of government. On the 16th of October, the results of the polls confirmed the predicted Labour win outweighed the Tories and with them went government backing for TSR- 2. The fate of TSR -2 was now in the hands of the New Labour administration. I'm certain they were evasive and I looked at the Labour Party manifesto, see whether it said anything about it just the other day and it's pretty uninformative. Contact the government, of course, for the way in which the aviation industry been handled in the previous 10-13 years, that standard stuff, but he didn't contain any real commitments to theTSR 2 in particular. And I think in Preston there was some. Promise put about in the campaign that TSR will be so kind of Labor, but I don't think there was any other indication that they were committed to it and they and they were as I say, I think pretty evasive. Yes, what? We ran into a number of unexpected problems in Boston down. First of all, it was planned that I should fly it for the first four or five flights until I was satisfied with its handling qualities because you you have continuity of experience. The more you fly a new type of airplane, obviously the safer the fly becomes because you're on a learning curve. On Flight 2 we had a very severe vibration problem. We had it again on Flight 3. These were injured, associated problem or engine system associated problem. And then on Flight 5 we had a major undercarriage malfunction which could have lost us the prototype. It was actually an abandoned aircraft case had we chosen to take that road, but in consultation with the. Don Bowen in the back, I said, OK, Don, this is here's your opportunity to try out Martin Baker. That was the ejection seat. And he said, what are you gonna do B? And I said, I think I'm gonna try and get it. And it was a long pause from the back. And he said, you're not going to get rid of me that easily. I'm staying. And so we. But we landed it with the undercarriage of the wrong place. There are a number of problems with the undercarriage. The first one we encountered was sequencing. The undercarriage was not carrying out the correct sequencing in lower in raising and lowering, and that took some time to get right. The next one was that it was a long, it wasn't known as a long stroke undercarriage to absorb this great shock. This in fact resulted in it being quite flexible. Fore and. oft and wet from the first landing onwards, we found when we touched down with this aeroplane, the undercarriage literally twanged. It swung back as we as we touched the ground. It caused vibrations to run right through the airframe and to reach the crew, the crew area, the cockpit in the nose of the airplane as a very powerful lateral lateral oscillation. You had an oscillation which was about the same rate as the natural frequency of the human eyeball. So that we at the moment you touched, I do stop being able to see the runway for for a fraction of a second. The very nature of test flying will invariably throw up the occasional dramatic moment. That was a one off. It was a pilot on his first flight on the aeroplane. He hadn't quite understood the dynamics of the aeroplane. And he'd got his approach slightly wrong. And he he touched down at a very high rate of descent. When we got to flight. 20 I think it was up at Wharton we we were clear of all the minor snags on the airplane and we thought now's the time to get on to curing this or investigating this undercarriage problem. The first thing to do was to measure the difference between touching down on a dry runway and touching down on a very reduced coefficient of friction numbers low mule that was obtained by getting the fire brigade to spread firm on the runway and Jimmy down touchdown on the firm. Of the on on board vibration sensors measuring the vibration set up at that point and they were then directly compared with the similar that vibrations caused on sitting down on a dry runway. That was all part of the research to get that one right. It became apparent that the next and vital stage of the flight development of the aeroplane. Was going to need expertise, knowledge and facilities which didn't exist at the weighbridge end of the consortium. They existed in large measure of Walton. And this type of airplane was right within Wharton's expertise. So it gradually became apparent in the management of the program that thinking changed towards moving the first prototype and the subsequent flight development, which was going to be at least three years and 3500 hours of testing in Toto up to Wharton under the charge of Freddie Page, who was the chief designer. Flight 14 was not simply a return home. Roland Beamont, having satisfied himself that the aircraft was performing as planned, took TSR 2 supersonic for the first and only time. Engaging reheat on just one engine. The acceleration was such that he left Jimmy Dell behind, even though he had engaged full reheat on both even engines of his lightning. This new airplane was despite its difficulties, despite its management problems, despite the rather. Unpleasant and hazardous thoughts that had occurred in some of the first few flights. It was now showing itself to be a tremendous thoroughly. It was going to be a wonderful airplane. It was always already extraordinarily satisfying to Flyers or professional. And I had been looking forward enormously to shaking the dust of Boscombe off my feet, figuratively, and flying this airplane back to my home base, where even the voice of the air traffic controllers were my friend. And we we flew back into that environment, we brought it home and now we were gonna get on with it. And no holds barred. It's a very good feeling. 17 aircraft that formed the development batch were in varying states of readiness at the factories. The second prototype, XR-220, was at Boscombe Down and programmed for its first flight on the 6th of April 1965, but the gathering momentum of opinion against the project had become unstoppable. I can't be sure when the decision was taken in cabinet, but the decision was taken in the relevant Cabinet committee on the same occasion as we decided to cancel the P-1154. 4. And the transport aircraft. But Wilson was very frightened because there was much more public interest in the TSR-2 than the other aircraft to put it in the same package. So he asked us to delay it until the budget in April, and that's when the formal decision was taken and announced. He called the contractors at midday to the ministry on the day in which cancellation was to be announced in the budget debate, and he told them that it was going to be cancelled. So immediately they did what any reasonable person would they requested permission to ring up their workforce, to ring up their factories and to warn everybody themselves rather than allow them to learn about this frightful blow in their lives over the radio or the newspaper. And Roy Jenkins refused. He said it was a budget secret. Quite extraordinary. And we never got a satisfactory explanation of why it was done that way. And I I still don't understand why it was done that way, because it was, it really was an insult of the House to make an announcement in that particular form where there was no possibility of questioning at all. Or it was just a feeling of inevitability. We've been struggling. We've put every possible effort and when I say we, I mean the whole workforce, the all the engineers, the Grand staff, the aircrew, of course, the flight developers, the airworthiness, people, administrators backing it all up. We've been working on a on all ours basis. There was no knock off time you worked on through the night. Leave was cancelled, family arrangements were disrupted. Tensions developed in families because husbands were overworked, overstressed. This had been going on for years. Well, I think there was a tremendous feeling of let down. Initially you know it, it was a a terrible disappointment to a lot of people who were thoroughly committed to the project which was just beginning to fly and and you know taking literally taking off. Everybody who was concerned with the efficiency of the Air Force thought that the TSR two would be too late in service to meet the air forces needs. That was the first thing. Secondly, it's cost had. Tripled in the four years before I got in. It's time of delivery had extended by three years and there was no guarantee they'd have kept to the cost. And timing as I was given it. Well, I think the nail in the coffin, the sort of trigger reason was when the Australians refused to buy it and opted for the American plan at the beginning of 1964. In order not to waste all the knowledge and the potential knowledge to be gained from these things and also, of course, with an eye on trying to keep people in employment. Not only in our factories but in the component factors that suppliers, we put forward a program to to the ministry within two weeks of cancellation proposing that the two predator types should be kept on I think a 100 hour. Test and development program. For research into the future Concorde test program because there is some of the types of airplane. Much valuable information could be gained and I think we put it forward on the basis of a fixed price contract. We were asking for one and a half million pounds to 100 hours of concentrated research. Uh. Mar Jenkins said that means it must cost at least 2 million. And in my experience you've got a double that and that means four million, and that's too much. So there there was a complete a complete chop. Following the cancellation came one of the most bizarre episodes in the history of British aviation. For some, it appeared that the cancellation of TSR-2 was not enough. Orders were given to destroy everything. The massive publicity was given. Obviously with official blessing. To operatives in our factories who had actually built these airframes, dragging them out onto the topic. Shoving oily rags and setting fire and picked particularly to the magnesium areas, which burned like a follicle. I think it's the most shameful aspect of this sad story. There is no. Sort of reason whatsoever, except her. What you could really describe as a selfish determination to ensure that that aeroplane would never be built under any other circumstances or in the future. I never heard anybody connected with this project. Uh, who? Was. Other than shocked by this decision. I can't tell you who took it, but it the finger must point to the government in some in in in one department or. Other well, it wasn't ordered by me, I can tell you that. Absolutely not. And I don't think it was ordered by Roy Jenkins, who was the only other minister who would have had to say. Now I know then that I just had the immense. Dramatic task of inviting. Some hundreds of my staff to consider the fact that they were going to be made redundant. And all these dedicated people of high skills. We're just showing that, showing their cards, and many of them went to America. In America in 1964, the F-111 was taking shape following meetings with Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. Dennis Healey had become convinced that the F-111 would fulfill the RAF's requirements while being cheaper and in service earlier than TSR 2. Events would prove him wrong as this project also ran into problems of delay and spiralling costs, a fact that the Australians would later come to pay dearly for. Whilst Dennis Healey was talking to McNamara, Prime Minister Wilson was meeting President Johnson to discuss a number of areas of mutual interest. Wilson wanted US backing for the pending loan from the IMF. The thinking back in Britain was that the Americans had extracted a heavy price for their support by demanding the cancellation of TSR 2. I don't think international diplomacy operates quite so crudely as that. We wanted good relations with the Americans, but there was never any suggestion in my mind that a condition for having IMF support. The Americans wanted a variety of things. They would. They wanted them. They wanted to sustain sterling as a sort of auxiliary currency to the dollar. IMF had already decided a week earlier to give us the loan we needed and we got the necessary loan from other governments. As well. So that didn't enter into the discussions in any way. They wanted us to maintain east of Suez rail as it were, to share a world rail with us and they were quite keen to. Not specifically that we should cancel the TSR 2, but they would like us by the F111 for exactly the same reason that we would like the Australians to to to buy the TSR 2. Britain did order the F -111, but ironically the deal would later fall victim to exactly the same problems that plagued TSR 2. In the interim, the RAF found themselves having to deal with the gap that TSR 2's cancellation had caused. But what we had to. Do when it removed from the program was to start innovating, improvising. And making good the shortfall and that's something which right our force historically always been extremely good at and of course what we did was to. Re plan and reprogram and retrain the V force so they could go lower level part of its attacks of one of the moves that we that we. Put on the board in order to make good the deficiency of the TSR 2. Well, I think TSR 2. Is probably an example and it's it's wrong to lay down the law on the matter. When you you know, when you don't know all the facts, you haven't got access to all the books and records. But I think it is an example and we've seen far too many of them before and since and even to this day our British governments. Not seeming to value the. Importance of a thriving aerospace industry. I think what was the case was that. Umm. Well, I and maybe and some other people too. Chancellor Jim Callaghan of George Barnard was first active state thought and I think thought, with some justification, that the aircraft industry was consuming too large a proportion of our research and development resources. And also that it was. It was too keen. For understandable reasons, not unworthy reasons, there was too keen on sort of breaching the frontiers of knowledge on aircraft design rather than concentrating on making and selling planes which it could make and sell. Well, nobody's in. It's 30 years now and nobody has ever in that time. Give me a clear and reasonable explanation of why it was cancelled. I called my book the murder of TSR 2 and that, I believe, is exactly what happened. Though to put your finger precisely on the murderer is less easy than with a good many. It was August the 17th, 1966 when the fuselage arrived. Previously to that, two or three days before that, we'd had a couple of TSR wings arrived here. Shoeburyness, White City. They all came in bit by bit and we then proceeded to build it up until the state that it is on that picture behind me on our apron. It was quite a showpiece. It was a beautiful aircraft. It was way ahead of its time so we was informed. And I personally think it was a criminal act to get rid of it as she as it was done, but it was our job in them days to disrupt the test, the vulnerability of fuselages systems. Wings, anything like that. That is our job. Unfortunately, the TSR was one of them and when she finally met her death here, there were several of us that was very, very sad and we remember very well. To this day we have got one or two little bits and pieces on us still remaining, but nothing of any size or bulk. The only one that flew, she was destroyed, which I feel very sad. In the end, TSR -2 fell victim to the many factors that conspired against it. Politics, both national and international, inter service rivalry and an unwieldy management structure all ensured the delays and escalating costs became inevitable. If the cancellation of the project was the result of a callous political decision, then TSR-2 was also a victim of its own ambition. I think it was a bridge too far. I think it was a very ambitious, expensive and at the same time extremely capable military airplane, which was perhaps too far advanced for. Our Air Force. And our Ministry of Procurement um to cope with the concept was probably too great for them. They hadn't grown up. They should have done, you know, it's all been done since and and we got a long way to doing it then. But this was actually fundamentally lack of faith in the ability of our aircraft industry to produce those sort of goods. We were in fact leading the world at the time, but the actions of the politicians made sure we would never do it again.
