by Damien Burke
Ground support
Servicing and readiness vehicle and turn-round and readiness vehicle
The creation of a dedicated TSR2 servicing and readiness vehicle (SRV) was proposed by BAC in late 1960, and this was finally approved by the Air Staff in July 1961, but the MoA saw no need for it and blocked any progress. The RAF restated its requirement for it in June 1962, but a brick wall was still put up by the MoA. This became an increasingly unsatisfactory situation, as items relating to the functionality of the vehicle (such as the provision of air conditioning to keep the aircraft’s electronics cool on the ground while it was being worked on) were going to be required during development-batch flying. Instead of permitting the vehicle to go ahead, the MoA placed individual contracts for these items as the need for them became ever more urgent.
Things came to a head at the end of 1963, with the RAF insisting that the Ministry had to allow development to begin or the aircraft would be entering service without appropriate ground support. To enable the SRV to be of any use at dispersed sites it needed to be air-transportable by Argosy, and light enough (less than 17,000lb (7,700kg)) to enable an Argosy to carry it at least 750nm (860 miles; 1,380km). The SRV had to encompass the majority of support services needed by a TSR2, both at dispersed sites and at normal bases. The SRV would not provide all the services a TSR2 needed, but it was to provide LP air for air-conditioning of the cockpits and equipment bays, air for engine starting, electrical power, hydraulic power and a refuelling pump. A towing capability was also envisaged. It had to be capable of starting both of the TSR2’s engines within one minute to meet the tactical requirement (a requirement later relaxed). Use of the SRV within hangars was not felt to be practical owing to noise and space requirements, so the RAF also expected to have to duplicate most of the services provided by the SRV in separate pieces of equipment.
The SRV fell foul of cost cutting as the overall programme cost rose ever higher. BAE Systems via Brooklands Museum
A TSR2 at standby in the proverbial ‘cabbage patch’, with an SRV in attendance. BAE Systems via Brooklands Museum
By April 1964 the Air Staff had completed their studies on the subject, and decided that the SRV was a step too far, and that development time and costs would be excessive. A simpler turn-round and readiness vehicle (TRRV) would be a cheaper option, deleting the engine-starting assistance (the TSR2, after all, had an onboard Cumulus AAPP for this purpose) and hydraulic supply (again, with engines running, the TSR2 could provide its own hydraulic power for testing purposes). All of the remaining required components could be mounted on a standard 3-ton fourby-four Bedford lorry, already approved for Argosy carriage and cross-country driving. As a bonus, the various separate items could be removed from the vehicle for in-hangar use at main bases as required, so there would be no need to buy two of everything.
The final make-up of the proposed TRVV was as follows:
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Oil replenishment – redesigned ‘Juniper’ rig
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Air conditioning – vapour cycle unit operated by Rover APU
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Electrical services – 15/20 KVickers generator
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Liquid oxygen – 75L or 185L LOX unit redesigned to reduce weight
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High-pressure nitrogen – standard cylinder
•
Hydraulic fluid replenishment – special-to-type dispenser
Space was also to be provided for containers and replenishment equipment for helium, demineralized water, lissapol detergent and defrosting fluid, plus brake-parachute drying equipment, a tyre inflation kit and a towing arm. No records of actual development of the TRRV have come to light, and it is thought that the RAF was deferring specific procurement actions on this score until nearer the time the TSR2 would have entered service.
Automatic test equipment
The expected complexity of the TSR2’s electronics suite would have created maintenance and fault-diagnosis problems beyond any the RAF had already experienced. The level of expertise and knowledge required would have been far beyond the RAF’s own personnel, and, even had the expertise been available, the amount of maintenance hours per flight hour would have made operating the type prohibitively expensive. One solution to assist with this was the provision of automatic test equipment (ATE), which could be plugged into the aircraft’s various systems to make sure everything was working as it should, or to assist with diagnosis of problems. Discussions on this began early in the project, during 1959, but it was not added to the requirement until March 1961. Progress from that point was stiflingly slow, with no agreed specification for the equipment until early 1963, at which point submissions were invited from various firms including BAC itself (in co-operation with Honeywell), de Havilland and Hawker Siddeley, the last-named being awarded the contract.
The ATE was to be plugged in to various test sockets provided on the aircraft (around forty of them), and could check various subsystems of the nav/attack system, either separately or as part of the overall system. These included the air data system, attitude monitor, AFCS, CCS, compass system, Doppler radar, FLR, head-down instrument display, HUD, moving map, radio altimeter and SLR. Three operators were to run the ATE, which was to be installed in a mobile trailer or vehicle suitable for air transportation. One operator would run the ATE directly, with the other two seated in the TSR2 to operate systems from the cockpits as required. Each circuit tested would have a range of acceptable outputs, and if the ATE picked up any out of the acceptable range a ‘NO GO’ signal would be flagged and the ATE would either stop and await operator attention, or go into an automatic diagnosis subroutine. All readings, as well as being displayed visually, could be printed out on paper tape for maintenance records and historical defect analysis.
This Hawker Siddeley Dynamics advertisement of January 1965 included a sketch of their ATE vehicle, designed to be parked underneath a TSR2 and enabling ready access to the equipment bays on each side, using the vehicle itself as an access platform. via Brooklands Museum
Hawker Siddeley’s brochure for its proposed ATE described a four-wheel trolley approximately 10ft long, 5ft wide and 5ft high (3m × 1.5m × 1.5m), weighing around 3,000lb (1,400kg). Construction would be of steel, making it sufficiently robust to carry the weight of two men on top and thus double as a servicing platform, an access ladder being built into the end of the trolley. The major electronic units built into the trolley were to be mounted on telescopic runners enabling easy access for servicing or replacement, and normally covered by lockable doors. At one side of the trolley would be the control panel and display unit, along with warning lamps, with the printer and tape recorder mounted below. A remote control unit attached to the unit by a retracting cable would enable the operator to control the trolley’s various test functions while some distance away, while seated in one of the TSR2’s cockpits, for example.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Cancellation
The TSR2 had been experiencing a rocky ride since before its birth, and plenty of people predicted that its cost would rise beyond those of all previous projects. An informal discussion between Vickers-Armstrongs/ English Electric personnel and the Army’s Tactical Intelligence Steering Committee (TISC) in June 1959 even revealed that, at this early point, the TISC believed that the RAF had ‘pulled a fast one’ by getting the project pushed through with Army help on the basis of a 500nm reconnaissance sortie, when the RAF was really interested in nothing other than the 1,000nm strike sortie. Now the Army recognised that ‘the TSR2 was going to be available in too small quantities and would be too expensive for battlefield surveillance or close support’. What it really wanted was a small, cheap drone for reconnaissance tasks. The Deputy Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Lieutenant-General Sir Harold Pyman, wrote in 1960: ‘I do not believe we can afford to develop an aircraft as expensive as TSR2 to carry out these tasks. We must somehow find a cheaper solution’, and went on to suggest the NA.39 as an alternative. The RAF
pointed out that the Army wanted to spend similar sums of money on warheads for the Davy Crockett nuclear recoilless rifle (a weapon of such dubious utility and high cost that it was no surprise when cooler heads prevailed and the UK’s requirement for it was cancelled in 1962, before any had entered service).
The really vehement opposition to the aircraft arose during 1960, when the first hints of its rising costs and ‘outmoded’ design hit the press. The two most high-profile opponents were Earl Mountbatten of Burma, Admiral of the Fleet and Chief of the Defence Staff, and Mary Goldring, a journalist working for The Economist. Each attacked the programme continually, one privately, the other publicly. Goldring was a particularly effective public voice against the project, as she was not only an excellent writer but also an incisive and confident broadcaster. BAC personnel would come to hate ‘that vile bloody woman’ for what seemed at times to be an almost weekly onslaught on TV (on Division, for example) or radio broadcasts.
In September 1960 Prime Minister Harold Macmillan asked his Minister of Defence, Harold Watkinson, three questions:
1.
Was a replacement needed for the Canberra?
2.
Did the operational requirement – OR.339 – still stand?
3.
Would it be possible to compromise by accepting an aircraft that did not meet OR.339, e.g. the NA.39?
The Blackburn NA.39, or Buccaneer, dogged the TSR2 throughout its brief life, being pushed time and again as a suitable aircraft for the RAF. Damien Burke
These were put to a meeting of the Chiefs of the Defence Staff, who fought off this early threat. The answers boiled down to ‘Yes’, ‘Yes’ and ‘No, absolutely not!’, though behind the scenes the Chief of the Defence Staff himself (Mountbatten) and the Chief of the Imperial General Staff (Field Marshal Sir Francis Festing) had confided to the government’s Scientific Advisor, Sir Solly Zuckerman, that they were both opposed to continuing with TSR2. In fact, Mountbatten had bumped into Blackburn Aircraft’s managing director, Captain Duncan Lewin, at the Farnborough Air Show, and suggested to him that the time was ripe to put NA.39 up for assessment once again. Lewin pointed out that TSR2’s major differences to the NA.39 were that it had Mach 2 capability at altitude, and could operate from rough strips. However, Mach 2 at altitude was a recipe for getting yourself shot down, and TSR2 was likely to be staying subsonic at low level for most of its life, just like the NA.39, and if supersonic burst was that important, this could be added to the NA.39 relatively easily. Lewin also considered rough-strip operation unrealistic for such a technologically complex aircraft. His prediction was that TSR2 would not enter service until 1967 (a very good guess for the time), and that it would be better either to go with the cheaper and simpler NA.39 (or rather B.111/113, with RB.168 engines with reheat, which could carry out 90 per cent of the task), or to go all-out to make TSR2 even more advanced, and accept that this would delay the in-service date until 1970. Both of these were excellent suggestions, and both were ignored. The RAF had also quietly admitted to the fact that an aircraft of the size of the TSR2 was no longer really a viable closeair-support vehicle, and was looking at the much smaller, cheaper and less-sophisticated Hawker P.1127 as the means of fulfilling this role.
The year 1961 was fairly quiet as far as TSR2 critics were concerned, and it was not until March 1962 that rising costs and delays really began to cause trouble. An examination was made of possible economies, with little practical result, and the project rolled onwards through the summer with the MoA and the RAF increasingly frustrated by matters, but seemingly unable to do anything about it. The Cuban missile crisis in October focused minds on the reality of nuclear war, and afterwards the TSR2 was given an unexpected boost from, of all people, the Americans. Kennedy’s administration had unilaterally cancelled the Skybolt missile programme, and the TSR2 was suddenly in a position to fill a limited stop-gap strategic nuclear deterrent role. The RAF was put in a stronger position than had previously been the case. While the Treasury refused to extend further funding until the project had been fully investigated (again), there was now little choice but to continue, and the RAF knew it.
In March 1963 the RAF was once again forced to take another look at possible economy measures on the project, in response to the Treasury’s point-blank refusal to authorize the expenditure required to cover the eleven pre-production aircraft. Its study assigned costs to particular items of equipment or developments, and spelled out the effect of each kind of cost reduction on the aircraft’s capability. This was a pretty laughable and transparent exercise in keeping the government off its back, with no intention of losing any aspect of the project. For instance, nearly £43 million could be saved if they did not bother having engines, nearly £10 million could be saved by having no means of navigating the aircraft, and so on.
A study was also begun into the possibility of buying seventy-eight fewer TSR2s and purchasing Buccaneer Mk 2s to plug the resulting gap. The attentive reader can probably guess by this point what the conclusion of this study was: the Buccaneer was no good and the idea could not be recommended. A meeting of the Chiefs of Staff on 26 March then unanimously concluded that the TSR2 should proceed as planned, and that the essential commitments in UK strategy would be harmed by the replacement of TSR2 with any alternative. With an estimated project cost of between £175 and £200 million (excluding the cost of the production aircraft at £2.3 million each), TSR2 development costs were now approaching six times the price of the original Ministry estimates (about twice that of the collected firms’ estimates once a firm specification was in place).
Exasperated, the Prime Minister sent a terse memo to the Minister of Aviation on 24 April: ‘Can you give me the latest position on the T.S.R.2? What will it cost? Will it ever fly?’ The answers boiled down to ‘around £500 million all in’ and ‘some time next year, but we’re not entirely sure when’, and cannot have reassured him. The project, however, once again escaped the axe and continued funding was reluctantly authorized.
The Hawker P.1127, the basis for the highly successful Harrier, met the RAF’s needs for a close-air-support type, whereas the TSR2 was considered too expensive and inflexible. BAE Systems
Australia and the TFX
Confidence in the project was badly shaken later in 1963 by events in Australia. The RAAF had been interested in TSR2 since 1959, to meet its Air Staff Requirement AIR/36 (which read like a near carbon copy of OR.339), and had been kept regularly appraised of developments, with BAC delegations visiting from time to time to present the latest sales brochures. Substantial effort went into this sales drive, with almost no support from the UK government. In mid-1963 BAC was fully expecting to sell around twenty-four TSR2s to the Australians. By August, however, the RAAF had found out that, even at this late stage, the RAF was continuing to evaluate alternatives, such as the Buccaneer Mk 2, and no firm production order had been placed for the RAF. The government was urged to place a firm order to give the Australians the confidence to proceed, but initially refused to do so, and as a compromise only leaked news that an order for long-dated raw materials had been placed. While the politicians and public in Australia knew what TFX was going to look like, nobody had seen so much as a single photo of the TSR2, despite the first airframe being very nearly complete. Those in BAC’s publicity department could bite their tongues no longer, and begged for permission to publish, at the very least, an artist’s impression so that the press and public in Australia (and, indeed, in the UK) would have some idea that the aircraft actually existed and was not just a ‘paper aeroplane’. In the words of Charles Gardner, BAC’s publicity manager, ‘… the image of TSR-2 in both the UK and the USA is a ghost-like one, in which there is a tendency to disbelieve. We want to give the ghost a bit more substance.’ Incredibly, even with an export order at stake, no such permission was forthcoming from the MoA.
Meanwhile, the RAAF had been evaluating the aircraft types it could possibly buy, looking at the Phantom II, Dassault Mirage IV, Vig
ilante, TSR2 and TFX. None of the immediately available types could fully meet its needs, though the Vigilante came close. The TSR2 would do the job, but was several years away. The TFX was even better, and cheaper, but again lay in the future.
The RAAF’s Air Marshal Sir Frederick Scherger had always preferred the TSR2, though he pointed out that his boss, Air Marshal Hancock, Australia’s Chief of the Air Staff, would have the final say. On a visit to the UK Scherger had a meeting with Earl Mountbatten, who took the opportunity to press the case for the Buccaneer. After this, Scherger’s preference changed, and he now favoured the TFX over the TSR2, as did his boss. The mixed messages coming from the UK’s government and the Chief of the Defence Staff had been a disaster for Australian confidence in the TSR2, and therefore its export prospects.
BAE Systems via Brooklands Museum
The final RAAF recommendation came as a surprise to many; it recommended buying the Vigilante, as it was immediately available, whereas the really capable aircraft would not be realistically available until the next decade. This was a ‘cunning plan’, plumping for second best (or indeed third best), knowing full well that it would look like poor value for money to the politicians to order an aircraft that would be superseded in less than a decade. By this point TSR2 was firmly out of the running. The UK government belatedly realized the seriousness of the situation, and there was a last-minute flurry of effort to put together a good deal for the Australians, while they also finally announced a firm RAF production order. An offer was put together to sell the aircraft as part of a government-to-government deal at cost price only; BAC and BSEL both agreed to waive their normal commissions on such deals, and Prime Minister Harold Macmillan put this offer forward on 3 October. There was no immediate response. The Australians were now weighing up the relative benefits of going with TFX or spending the extra and going with TSR2. The Americans offered all manner of inducements, including the loan of Boeing B-47s or F-4 Phantoms as an interim measure. Despite urging, the UK government was slow to make any similar offer. It did not help that Macmillan had been taken seriously ill (he resigned on the 18th after an emergency operation), and the Treasury also interfered, making sure that the Australians would be charged for any training required.