TSR.2 Memories Project

Collecting recollections of an icon

TSR.2 – a personal view

The British Aircraft Corporation TSR.2 project was, and indeed still is, an icon, and in many ways.

It was a beautiful aircraft in a strong and powerful way, designed by what was then, I would argue, the world’s most advanced military aircraft design team. It was said to be way ahead of anything any other country could produce (a reason, some say, for its cancellation), and it showed how British technology still led the world. It was also the first collaborative project (forcibly bringing together English Electric and Vickers), heralding the international aircraft like Jaguar, Tornado and Typhoon that followed it through the aircraft factories of Lancashire (although these might never have happened if TSR.2 had not been cancelled). TSR.2’s cancellation, coupled with the ending of the (less advanced in terms of development but equally so technologically), HS.681 and P.1182 projects in February 1965, ended much of the UK’s ‘in-house’ high-tech aerospace capabilities.
And, of course, painted all-over white in its anti flash colour scheme, TSR.2 was very easy to identify and startling to see.

That’s for the lucky ones that actually saw it, for only one example, registration XR219, flew, and then only 24 times, 14 times from the Ministry of Defence’s Aircraft and Armament Experimental Establishment at Boscombe Down, near Salisbury, and ten (very nearly 11, for flight 25 was aborted just before take off) from the BAC test airfield at Warton, near Preston. The second aircraft was ready to fly when the cancellation news came through to Boscombe Down - a source tells me that the authorisation was withdrawn before the pilot could sign for it and take to the air - and the thrid, at Weybridge, was almost ready to move to Wisley where it was to fly: the fourth was very close behind.

I started my apprenticeship at Warton on September 27, 1965, one year to the day after XR219’s first flight, and just under six months after the sudden, cruel, catastrophic cancellation on April 6, 1965. And during my stint in the apprentice training school at Warton, XR219 was still to be seen, totally complete, unguarded and unscreened, in 3 Hangar - it was not until early August 1966 that it was dismantled and, a source says, taken through the Warton gates at the dead of night on the back of lorries to the test ranges at Shoeburyness – where it was joined by XR221 and XR223 - to be shot to destruction.

Despite the edict that everything should be destroyed, two airframes did survive. The second TSR.2, XR220, remarkably survived - it remained at Boscombe Down for some time undertaking engine-related ground tests in the support of the Concorde programme. Then, after spending several years in a hangar at RAF Henlow it was moved to what is now in the RAF museum at Cosford. XR222 also survives. It was originally moved from Weybridge (where it was in final assembly) to the College of Aeronautics at Cranfield, and it is now on public display, having been restored in 2005, at the Imperial War Museum at Duxford.

No other metal of significance remains. Unless you know otherwise!! (And of course, someone did. In July 2010 a reader sent me a link to an e-bay site, where Olympus 320 engine serial number 11 was advertsied for sale, at £2 million. The advert included a photo of the engine mounted on the standard transportation trestle.....)

So, I did see the one that flew, (and I saw '222 at Cranfield in 1968) and, had things stayed as they were the day I was interviewed for that apprenticeship, Warton would have been very different, I would doubtless have worked on the project rather than Jaguar and MRCA, as Tornado then was. (Pictured above: two shots of XR222 at the Coillege of Aeronautics, Cranfield, 16 September 1968. The lads of Loughborough Uni, Aero Eng, Final Year, on a flight test course - students with ties!! I'm second from left in the top photo.)

Much has been written about the TSR.2 project, in books, magazines and on the web. The politics are well known and recorded, and there has been a lot of speculation as to why, and a lot of conspiracy theories. But not a lot is in print about the challenges such an advanced project brought, and the human side of the story, so many skilled and highly-dedicated people thrown out of work by the decision to scrap the project, and so much devoted effort literally, and almost immediately, cut up or burnt in front of the very workforce who had designed, developed, tested and constructed the aircraft that were in production on the fateful April 6.

But the above is more than tinged with my own personal view of the world, which is not what the TSR.2 Memories Project is about! Now, over 45 years on, many of the senior figures of the early 60s have sadly passed away, not least the first flight crew of XR219, Roland “Bee” Beamont and Don Bowen, and others I knew personally at Warton such as Bee's successor as Cheif Test pilot, Jimmy Dell, Chief Flight Test Engineer Dickie Dickinson and deputy Mike Henney, flight line crew chief Len Dean and aerodynamics wizard Sandy Burns...

But many former TSR.2 workers are still in the circuit, I know, and I hope to trace as many as possible and hopefully they will all contribute to this project, so their experiences can be recorded for posterity. If you can help (or know someone who might), please click here for more information.

There is undoubtedly still huge interest in the great white bird: this will not be a tale of what might have been, but what was, in all the spectrum.

In early-2007 the good people at the BAE Systems Pensioners' magazine gave me almost a whole page about my project and I was snowed under with replies - over 100 in all, and as of August 2007, over 50 actual Memories, all of which are posted here.

My view, haivng learned a lot more about the aircraft through these Memories, remians as described above, if not more so. A real eye-opener was the description of Flights 2 and 16 in Bee's book "Flying to the Limit". On Flight 2 so severe were the problems that Bee offered navigator Don Bowen the chance to eject, a move which may well have led to the even earlier cancellaltion of the project. On Flight 16 Bee took the aircraft at 2000ft altitude and 490kts serenely through the Pennine and Lakeland Hills, and this in a very basic aircarft, with no radar or auto-pilot, nor even auto-stabilisation. High technology and high and brave endeavour, well over 40 years ago, that will never be seen again in the UK. And in between, a whole lot of problems with the undercarriage, and a brief supersonic experience! That really sums up why TSR.2 Memories started, because the TSR.2 endeavour that took place in so many UK locations between, say, 1958 and April 1965 was simply a one-off, historically and technically, a challenge to which so many talented and dedicated people rose. And Bee sums it all up admirably, if controversially, and his personal feelings come through, with which I beg to concur, in the chapter "The Decline of an industry" in "Flying to the Limit".