antarmike Posted September 27, 2008 Share Posted September 27, 2008 (edited) First flight of TSR-2. Edited September 27, 2008 by antarmike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marmite!! Posted September 27, 2008 Share Posted September 27, 2008 First flight of TSR-2. Polite reminder... I think the board needs to be used correctly, whilst some may post stuff on it, the stuff needs to be informative and not just "lifted" from somewhere else that has a date, give it some beef, some meaning not just on this date blah, blah !!! I vote keep it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
antarmike Posted September 27, 2008 Author Share Posted September 27, 2008 (edited) Although the aircraft flew well enough, its short life was a troubled one. The first problem encountered on prototype 1 was the engines would not actually fit in the Aircraft. This led to delays for a re-design and TSR-2 embarrasingly missed the Farnborough airshow that year, The Landing gear gave trouble, and it was not until the tenth flight that the crew actually amnaged to retract the gear. The nosewheel suffered harmonic vibration on landing and resonated at the same frequency as the human eyeball, resulting in the crew suffering blurred/ double vision on landing. Adding dampers complicated an already complex design, and it wasn't lond before dampers had to be fitted to the main gear. TSR-2 went supersonic on its 14th Flight, when it moved from Boscombe Down to Warton. this was acheived without reheat. When reheat was used , it had to be on one engine only. The Fuel pump to the afterburners having failed on the second engine, but even so the plane accelerated to Mach 1.2 leaving behind a chase Lightening running full reheat on both engines. None of the projected electronics were fitted in the first prototype, so test flying investigated its basic flying which was concidered to be excellent. Only 3 TSR-2 aircraft were built before the project cancellation (in favour of the American F111) was announced in the April 1965 Budget. Of these only one XR219 ever flew. TSR-2 had proved to be horrendously expensive but one of the biggest problems for it was Macmillan,s decision to limit British Tactical Nuclear bomb to 10 Kiloton. This left TSR-2 without a weapon to deliver. This yield being too low for any of the planes designated targets. XR219 was taken to Shoeburyness where it was used as a target to see how a modern airframe would stand up to gunfire. The two other complete airframes survive, although gutted. One is at Duxford, the other at RAF Cosford. All the other incomplete airframes and the associated tooling were broken up quickly after the cancellation. Edited September 30, 2008 by antarmike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
antarmike Posted September 27, 2008 Author Share Posted September 27, 2008 (edited) give us a chance, I am working on that!!! I find it easier to post in small chunks. I hate getting a big post ready only to crash, so I do it bit by bit. I was three quarters of the way through preparing the next chunk...when you posted your gentle reminder. I have tried to put some substance in all my recent posts.... but if I am uploading to photobucket and the like, I like to get a bit on the board while i am waiting.... Edited September 27, 2008 by antarmike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
antarmike Posted September 27, 2008 Author Share Posted September 27, 2008 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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