UK/RAF buys British-only after the AFVG cancellation?
- Thread starter tomo pauk
- Start date
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I have indeed. I have a copy tucked away somewhere.
The sad and remarkable fact is that intentionally and unintentionally, the TSR.2 is the fulcrum around which post war British combat aircraft development revolves. It affected everything, including the Concorde. Had France decided to allow Britain to pull out then its likely TSR.2 would have gone ahead. It was either Concorde or TSR.2. Recently out of cancellation during the TSR.2's development was the Blue Streak ballistic missile, which consumed an unholy amount of money before its cancellation in 1960, which led, again, not surprisingly to European collaboration in 1961 as ELDO, the European Launcher Development Organisation and the Europa rocket, of which Blue Streak was the first stage. So Britain had three major expensive aerospace projects in the late 50s and early 60s that were chewing up money that they wanted out of, and arguably they kept the one they should have abandoned at the outset and cancelled the one they should have kept - Blue Streak was too ambitious, only natural it was cancelled.
Hindsight's a b*tch.
Hindsight's a b*tch.
Nae worries, done heaps of research into it, fascinating era. Enjoy the wine!
A.G. Williams
Airman 1st Class
- 182
- Oct 10, 2020
Really? I have read in a couple of places that the takeoff performance of a laden Jaguar was so bad that it relied on the curvature of the Earth to get off the ground...
buffnut453
Captain
I was told once that the Jaguar counted its take-off run as part of its combat radius...
SaparotRob
Unter Gemeine Geschwader Murmeltier XIII
Okay, how do you know?Like a hot summer's day at Incirlik. Ask me how I know.
- Thread starter
- #31
Please note the qualifiers - low engine power, small wing. Shoehorned to the Harrier 1 fuselage means it has 50% more power to do the job.
buffnut453
Captain
Rumour has it that the Jag is the only aircraft ever to be damaged by a rabbit strike...from behind.
swampyankee
Chief Master Sergeant
- 4,020
- Jun 25, 2013
Since the OP seemed to ask what would happen if the UK went strictly "buy British" for aircraft, one wonders what they would do for helicopters.
- Thread starter
- #35
Britain did have a burgeoning helicopter manufacturing base, in Saunders Roe, Bristol and Fairey all investigating rotorcraft outside of Sikorsky influence undertaken by Westland. Part of the reason Westland dominated was that helicopters were only a part of each of these other firms' repertoires, whereas Westland concentrated its efforts on helicopters.
That the other firms' aircraft were overshadowed by Sikorsky helicopters built by Westland was as much owing to merger of companies to ensure their financial survival as it was to the efficacy of the foreign designs. Westland became by default the most prolific helicopter provider in Britain owing to company mergers that were designed to rationalise the post-war manufacturing industry (here comes our TSR.2 again...). Before the mass mergers into the Hawker Siddeley Group and the British Aircraft Corporation (the latter to build the TSR.2) in the late 50s and early 60s, the British had 22 airframe manufacturing firms and nine aero-engine firms, far too many for the British market alone. This was at a time when surplus wartime military aircraft were going for cheap and the USA was building big in the midst of a Cold War power struggle.
Britain was also bankrupt; it was cheaper to build someone else's designs, especially if they offered quantitative advantages of being in service with other countries, which goes a long way in explaining the constant collabs with foreign companies.
Two British 1970s success stories that were not collaborations were the BAe Hawk trainer and the Harrier, the latter of which we've discussed at length here, but the Hawk began as a private venture trainer by Hawker Siddeley and has become one of the most successful fast jet trainers, seeing service around the world and undertaking licence production in India by Hindustan Aviation Limited and in the USA as the T-45 Goshawk. The Hawk is still being built and offered to foreign countries nearly fifty years after its first flight, with more than 1,000 of the type having been built and exported to 18 countries - and design wise not a foreign collab in sight...
RAAF Hawk 127.
DSC_4117
RAAF Hawk 127.
The former. At a push the Jag could be dived at supersonic speed but it wasn't a speed regime the aircraft operated in, it simply didn't need to as a low level strike platform. From what I've read and heard, it was quite sprightly at low level and the RAF certainly got a lot out of the airframe, but of course, when the French proposed the ECAT role, it was meant to be a supersonic trainer and it was the British that insisted on expanding its capabilities, wringing the original requirement out of it. This was largely political as loss of the joint AFVG meant that once again, the British had no advanced strike aircraft on the horizon, apart from the UKVG, which was also dependent on foreign participation and was going through its own uncertainties.
It's worth mentioning that French and British Jags differed considerably, the former were not as sophisticated as the British ones, the latter fitted with the INAS that was designed for the P.1154 and TSR.2; this was an inertial navigation system built by Ferranti that relied on pre-programmed data being inputted into a computer that produced information on a HUD, with a moving map display in the cockpit. The Harrier was fitted with INAS as well. The British Jags also had the LRMTS in the chisel nose (Laser Range-finder and Marked Target Seeker - as did the Harrier GR.3 in its lengthy proboscis), France fitting a less sophisticated laser range finder to its Jags.
The Jag was another attempt to make up for the loss of capability from the cancellation of the TSR.2, F-111K and AFVG, but it was far less capable. Nevertheless, it did its job of low-level down and dirty bomb hauler well and lasted in service for a long time...
The chisel nose of the British Jag was a distinctive characteristic and housed the LRMTS.
A.G. Williams
Airman 1st Class
- 182
- Oct 10, 2020
It was MUCH cheaper just to buy another country's aircraft off a hot production line. One of the problems is that the user keeps wanting to fiddle with the design (e.g. Spey Phantom, and British-engined AH-64) which sends the price through the roof.
