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The Mach-2 Bomber That Never Was
From the first flight test of the TSR-2 XR219 bomber at Boscombe Down, Wiltshire, England, in September 1964, engineers of the British Aircraft Corporation shot (silent) footage from all angles, in both black and white and color. For the first takeoff, pilot Roland Beamont, with navigator Donald Bowen in the second seat, pitched the TSR-2 into a steep climb with afterburner, buzzed the English countryside, then circled for approach-to-landing maneuvers. During initial tests, the TSR-2 engineers could not perfect the sequence in which the gear retracted into the fuselage after takeoff or descended before landing; the footage shows the first success, on test flight number 10. In his first landings, Beamont flew at a rate of descent too steep and fast to avoid a perilous, embarrassing bounce at touchdown. He smoothed out subsequent landings and deployed a parachute to brake the aircraft to a stop on a short field. After each flight, Beamont and Bowen are met by a white-coated ground crew for debriefing. (01:21)
Footage Courtesy of: Imperial War Museum, Duxford, England.
Related Article
Cancelled: Britain’s High-Mach Heartbreak
The TSR-2 bomber was a case of aeronautical genius foiled by political foolishness.
By David Noland
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Comments (5)
If the Royal Australian Airforce had exercised their option to purchase the TSR-2 rather than the F1-11, and if the UK government had had confidence in a superb example of aeronautical design and engineering, Britain could (and should) have had a world-beater. Instead, and not for the first time, it was the politicians' cold feet that won.
Posted by Alan Lyne on March 22,2013 | 05:31 PM
I remember this prototype and lived in Wiltshire England and saw it fly. It also had prototype low-fly radar controls and in a video I saw in the MoD it flew at a mountain at close to Mach 2 and climbed over it without the pilot touching controls. All this in 1964. The British Labour govt scrapped it and chose to buy F111 swing wing fighter bombers - good planes as the whole swing wing technology was British designed by Barnes Wallis of dambuster fame
Posted by Mr Jonathan M Hudson on March 22,2013 | 08:48 PM
Mighty disappointed that the video is "unavailable".
EDITORS' NOTE: DO YOU HAVE THE MOST RECENT FLASH ON YOUR COMPUTER? THE VIDEO SEEMS TO BE WORKING FINE WHEN WE TRY IT.
Posted by Rick Murray on April 6,2013 | 04:03 AM
An excellent aircraft, I saw the shell of the only example at the RAF museum a while ago, I loved this aircraft when I was a boy and saw some pictures.
As another commented above, as usual it was the politicians that killed of a very promising aircraft. What gets me is the suddenness of the cancellation and how quickly they had the examples virtually destroyed, the only remaining one had everything, including wiring, gutted from it within months, this from a Defence/War ministry/department that has other projects like ships sitting around years before breaking them up. Something suspicious was going on I'm pretty sure.
Similar story with the Blue Streak missile, we could have had a successful space industry as well, but again the politicians killed it off.
We have the most short-sighted politicians in the world in the UK.
Posted by Gari on April 18,2013 | 08:37 PM
I was in college in California in the early and mid Sixties, and thought the aircraft was a beautiful and impressive piece of engineering. However, as a student of world affairs, I was not surprised that Labour killed the project.
Posted by Terry on May 3,2013 | 01:10 AM