TSR2 Another British aviation disaster

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• Description : The requirements were made official...(more) in March 1957 with GOR (General Operational Requirement) 339. This specification was exceptionally ambitious for the technology of the day, requiring a supersonic all-weather aircraft that could deliver nuclear weapons over a long range, operate at high level at Mach 2+ or low level at Mach 1.2, with a short takeoff ability from rough and ready airstrips.
  
  Specifically the requirement included:
  
  * deliver tactical nuclear weapons at low level in all weathers.
  * photo-reconnaissance at medium and low levels day and night
  * electronic reconnaissance
  * deliver tactical nuclear weapons day and night at medium altitudes blind bombing if necessary
  * deliver conventional bombs and rockets
  
  Low level was stated to be under 1,000 ft (300 m) with an expected attack speed at sea-level of Mach 0.95. The operational range was to be 1,000 nautical miles (1,850 km) operating off runways of no more than 3,000 ft (900 m)
  Work on GOR 339 continued, with a deadline for submissions on 31 January 1958. A large number of proposals were entered; EE's P.17A along with designs from Avro, Hawker and Vickers-Armstrong (through their Supermarine division). Short Brothers also sent in the P.17D, a flying platform that was to be used in concert with the P.17A, lifting it into the air so that the P.17 did not have to have VTOL performance on its own. The Air Ministry eventually selected the EE P.17A and the Supermarine 571 for further development. The Ministry was particularly impressed with the Vickers submission, which included not only the aircraft design, but a "total systems concept" which outlined all the support facilities and logistics needed to support the aircraft in the field.
  
  GOR 339 was revealed to the public in December 1958 in a statement to the House of Commons. Under pressure by the recommendations of the Committee on Estimates, the Air Ministry examined ways that the various project proposals could be combined, and in January 1959 the Minister of Supply announced that the TSR-2 would be built by Vickers-Armstrong working with English Electric; the initials coming from "Tactical Strike and Reconnaissance 2"
  The envisioned "standard mission" for the TSR-2 was to carry a 2,000 lb (900 kg) weapon internally for a combat radius of 1,000 nautical miles (nm) (1,850 km). Of that mission 100 nm (185 km) was to be flown at higher altitudes at Mach 1.7 and the 200 nm (370 km) into and out of the target area was to be flown as low as 200 feet (60 m) at Mach 0.95. The rest of the mission was to be flown at Mach 0.92. If the entire mission were to be flown at the low 200-ft altitude, the mission radius was reduced to 700 nm (1,300 km). Heavier weapons loads could be carried with further reductions in range.
  
  Extensions to the TSR-2's range were planned to be made by fitting external tanks — one 450-Imperial gallon (2,000 L) tank under each wing or one 1,000 Imperial gallon (4,500 L) tank carried centrally below the fuselage. If no internal weapons were carried, a further 570 Imperial gallons (2,600 L) could be carried in a tank in the weapons bay.
  
  It was also planned to be able to equip the TSR-2 with a reconnaissance pack in the weapons bay which, coupled to the aircraft's capable sideways looking radar (SLAR), would have turned the aircraft into a formidable "recon" asset not unlike the contemporary North American RA-5C of the United States Navy.
  The design was a large aircraft to be powered by two Bristol-Siddeley Olympus afterburning turbojets, with a large shoulder-mounted slab-wing with down-turned tips, an all-moving swept tailplane and a large all-moving fin. The engines were a variant of those used in the Avro Vulcan, and would later be developed further for Concorde. It is often stated, incorrectly, that the leading designer of the TSR-2 was Vickers' Barnes Wallis, the legendary aeronautical engineer famous for his Wellington bomber design and contribution to the Damb (less)