TSR2
Page 2
The 1950s began with the shock of the Korean War, which kick-started the British aviation industry back into wartime production, albeit at a much slower rate than during World War Two. More complex aircraft and engines inevitably took longer to produce, and cost much more than their ancestors. An atomic war was a horrifying prospect but it was not unthinkable, and, more importantly, the government did not believe it was unwinnable. This all changed on 1 November 1952, when the USA detonated its first full-scale hydrogen bomb. A basic fusion weapon, it was nonetheless around 450 times as powerful as the bomb used against Hiroshima, and when the Russians began tests of similar weapons in 1955 it was horrifyingly clear that the nightmare of an atomic attack upon Great Britain was as nothing compared with an attack with the new ‘H-bomb’, and the existing defences were laughably inadequate.
A massive construction programme began that would end with nearly 2,000 underground bunkers scattered across Great Britain, most of them being fall-out plotting and monitoring bunkers manned by Royal Observer Corps personnel. They afforded little but basic fall-out protection for the volunteers staffing them; facilities within were primitive, but at the end of the day it was the national will demonstrated by having such a network that was the most important thing. Part of that national will was also the demonstration that Great Britain had the means to support the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in a European conflict. The RAF and Army were far too small to be a viable threat to the Soviets, and the whole of NATO would still be hopelessly outnumbered. NATO doctrine recognized that only tactical nuclear weapons could restore the balance. Thus Great Britain had been placed into a situation where it was operating mostly outmoded aircraft, fielding outmoded weapons, as part of an alliance facing a numerically superior enemy armed with the ability to turn much of Great Britain into a firestorm during just a few hours of unrestricted warfare.
For the RAF’s part it was clear that the Canberra, although it was an excellent aircraft, was living on borrowed time. Soviet defences were improving all the time, and improvements in radar and missile technology would soon make the Canberra obsolete. The RAF desperately needed a modern bomber that could survive in the increasingly sophisticated defence environment of a European battlefield and pack a big enough nuclear punch to redress the numerical imbalance that NATO troops faced.
This was the world into which the TSR2 was to be born.
CHAPTER ONE
Beginnings
In September 1951, with the Canberra shortly due to reach RAF squadrons in quantity, the RAF’s Directorate of Operational Requirements (DOR) began looking at the prospects for a new light bomber to replace the Canberra in due course. It has traditionally been the case that the RAF has always looked ahead for a replacement type as soon as possible after the existing type has begun to enter service (sometimes even before that milestone was reached). Air Commodore H.V. Satterly at DOR started the ball rolling with a Minute to his staff at the Directorate, asking them start thinking about policy for the Canberra replacement. In it he pointed out that the RAF’s Aircraft Research Committee had already begun a study on the pros and cons of a low-altitude bomber, though current policy was that bombers had to be able to evade or fight their way through defences, and the low-altitude bomber concept was designed to evade only.
A paper entitled ‘An Appreciation on the Requirement for a Future Light Bomber’ was produced in July 1952. It laid out the need for a light bomber with a primary role of the delivery of atomic weapons; with the highest performance possible, particularly at low altitude; and the capability to be adapted to secondary roles without compromising its primary role. This was the first real hint of what was to become the TSR2. The paper specifically referred to replacing the Canberra, ‘now in Service and already to some extent technically obsolete’, with the new aircraft expected to be in service by 1958 and having a useful front-line life of about four years, until 1962. The RAF mindset at the time was still stuck in the 1940s, when an aircraft type’s useful life was sometimes measured in months rather than years; certainly never in decades.
The English Electric Canberra. The RAF expected the type to be obsolete by 1965 and completely worn out by 1970. This is B.2 WK163, which set a world altitude record in August 1957 with the aid of a Napier Double Scorpion rocket engine. This aircraft had a varied trials career, including linescan development work, before being finally retired, still not worn out, in the 1990s. It began a civilian career as G-BVWC in 1994 with Classic Aviation Projects, and is seen here being displayed at Duxford in 2008 just before being grounded by lack of suitable replacement Avon 109 engines. Damien Burke
Some of the more interesting aspects of the paper included an appreciation that, when it came to carrying small atomic bombs, the ‘best bomber for any task is broadly the smallest and cheapest that is capable of the required range and accuracy’, and that surface-to-surface guided weapons, or ‘expendable bombers’, could well fulfil the primary role, though accuracy and the attack of fleeting targets would be a challenge. Attacking moving targets and targets of opportunity would not be possible for an unmanned system of any kind, and even the best blind bombing system would also be unsuitable for this kind of task, which would demand visual bombing. Visual bombing accuracy depended greatly on going in at low altitude, and as high-altitude operation was also no longer a means of protection from fighter attack, it was clear which way the wind was blowing. As for weapons carriage, guided bombs would demand control surfaces and economy would demand a small fuselage, so external carriage rather than an internal bomb bay was expected to be the result.
By March 1953 a draft Operational Requirement (OR) had begun to be worked on, based on the Future Light Bomber paper, which blithely (and, as it transpired, inaccurately) declared that the Canberra ‘is rapidly becoming outdated and has no potentialities for further important development’. Clearly the writer of that requirement did not expect the Canberra to be in RAF service more than fifty years later (albeit purely in the reconnaissance role). The draft requirement called for a new aircraft capable of striking up to 500nm (575 miles; 925km) behind the enemy front line, in all weathers, day or night, with priority given to low-level performance, and relying on speed, routeing and manoeuvrability to protect it from enemy defences, as no defensive armament was to be carried (by this point, evade or fight had become simply evade). A cruising speed of 600kt/690mph/ Mach 0.9 was needed, with supersonic bursts of Mach 1.4, and runways of 2,000yd (1,850m) length should be adequate, including pierced steel planking (PSP) or similar improvized surfaces. For 1953 this was all pretty advanced stuff, but the RAF’s dated mindset still showed in other aspects of the draft requirement. These included references to the navigator being provided with a crash station should his normal position be unsuitable; the provision of Gee Mark 3 in the radio fit for the marshalling of bomber streams; and armour to protect against cannon attack from below (as per the Schräge Musik upward firing night-fighter cannon used by the Luftwaffe in World War Two). Weapons were to include four 30mm cannon and various items fit for particular roles, e.g. Blue Jay (Firestreak) missiles for the intruder role, rockets and bombs for interdiction or Pentane torpedoes for anti-shipping strike. Production was to begin in 1958, and the aircraft needing to be in squadron service by 1959 at the latest, when the Canberra was expected to be on its last legs.
Coincidentally, in January 1953, as part of development work for an improved Gloster Javelin fighter (the ‘Developed Javelin’) which was being designed to satisfy Specification F.153D, Glosters had submitted a proposal to use a variant of this new ‘thin-wing’ Javelin as a light strike aircraft, and this attracted a great deal of Air Staff interest. By July 1955 OR.328 had been drafted around Gloster’s bomber-Javelin proposals, the broad intention of which was to provide a bomber capable of delivering a tactical nuclear weapon (to OR.1127, the requirement that would result in the atomic bomb later known as Red Beard) in the face of modern air defences, at long range (the target was to be up to 1,000nm (1,150 m
iles, 1850km) away from base, twice as far as the early drafts of the Canberra replacement requirement), in adverse weather by day or by night. Deletion of fighter equipment such as the huge radar and wing guns would enable the carriage of an extra 2,600gal (11,820L) of fuel (for a total of 4,000gal (18,185L) and the fitting of Bristol Siddeley Olympus 6 engines. A single tactical nuclear bomb would be carried externally, slung under one of the wings, with a drop tank balancing it on the other side and further drop tanks under the fuselage. The in-service date was still required to be 1959.
Simultaneously, work was under way to see what, if anything, could be done to upgrade the Canberra, concentrating on the addition of a blind-bombing system so that the type would have much improved tactical capability at night and in bad weather. However, as the RAF fully expected the type to be out of service in less than a decade, it looked like any serious effort to upgrade it would be wasted, as any sufficiently advanced blind-bombing system would take so long to develop that the aircraft would be nearing retirement by the time it was available. Development of the Bomber/Interdictor versions of the Canberra was rushed through as a stopgap measure, the definitive B(I).8 version entering service in RAF Germany with American ‘Project E’ atomic weapons during 1957.
Unfortunately for Gloster it also soon became clear that the company could not get its thin-wing Javelin bomber into service until 1961. Moreover, a variety of problems, such as dealing with low-level flying and its effect on fatigue life, crew comfort and equipment reliability, had not been fully addressed in Gloster’s proposal. The firm considered that an aircraft with an all-up-weight of 70,000lb (31,750kg) and carrying 4,000gal (18,185L) of fuel would only be able to manage a radius of action of 1,000nm (1,150 miles, 1850km) if most of the flight was to be at high level, and any improvement would entail a complete redesign. As OR.328 required a combat radius of at least 1,000 miles, mostly flown at low level, the bomber version of the thin-wing Javelin did not get far. The Defence Research Policy Committee recommended cancellation of the requirement in late 1955, and when the Chiefs of the Air Staff met in March 1956 they accepted the recommendation. On 11 April 1956 OR.328 was formally cancelled.
The procurement process
The usual process of procuring a military aircraft for the RAF began in the Air Ministry, where the Air Staff (RAF officers) would begin formulating a rough requirement. The result would be an Air Staff Target (AST), which gave a broad outline of what they were after and formed the basis for feasibility studies at industry level, usually submitted in the form of detailed brochures. Assuming these found that the target was a practical and viable proposition, the next step would be to formulate a more detailed Air Staff Requirement (ASR, also often referred to as an Operational Requirement or OR) and award a project study contract to a single firm. The aim of this study was to make an extremely thorough and detailed investigation of the scientific and technical problems involved, and produce a detailed development plan including estimates of cost, timescale and manpower requirements. Assuming this study was approved by all concerned in the Air Ministry (the Air Staff, Operational Requirements department and so on) and Ministry of Supply (MoS, the ministry responsible for the procurement of military aircraft, replaced by the Ministry of Aviation (MoA) from 1960), it would be recommended to the Secretary of State for Defence, who would then ask for Treasury approval to proceed.
The Treasury’s job, of course, was to resist spending money, and this would prompt further investigation into the requirement and whether the new project was really needed, including political input. Assuming Treasury authority was finally granted, the next step would be the awarding of a Development Contract to the firm, covering work on a number of prototypes or a development batch of aircraft. While the company was working on these it would be negotiating a Production Contract, approval for this also having to go through the Treasury and thus requiring further investigation and justification from the Air Ministry. At any point in the process continued Treasury co-operation could never be taken for granted, and political decisions could overrule any requirements at any point. Thus it was not uncommon for projects to get as far as the Development Contract stage, with prototypes under construction, and then be cancelled without further ado, sometimes even before the prototype had flown.
All of this took time, and the replacement of the Canberra was becoming an ever more urgent requirement. Within just a handful of years the Canberra would be obsolete and only the V-bomber force would be able to deliver, in ad hoc fashion, tactical nuclear weapons. Both the Air Staff and the MoS needed to find some way of shortening the process.
General Operational Requirement No. 339
The DOR now began work on a report defining its future tactical bombardment requirements, and whether they could be fulfilled by an all-new aircraft, a guided weapon or an off-the-shelf aircraft. The Assistant Chief of the Air Staff within the Operational Requirements department was H.V. Satterly (by then promoted Air Vice-Marshal), who had already looked at a new design from Blackburn Aircraft, the NA.39/B.103 low-level strike aircraft being designed to satisfy a naval requirement. Satterly and the Air Staff were unimpressed with the NA.39, considering it ‘not much of advance on the Canberra’ with high-altitude performance ‘handicapped by either lack of span or too early drag rise’. Blackburn had suggested an improved version with redesigned wings and tail, but would not be able to get it into the air until after 1960, again too late. Thoughts turned towards acquiring a suitable aircraft from the USA, preferably as a ‘free gift’. The Convair B-58 Hustler was just about to make its first flight and was considered by Satterly to be the only viable contender, and some quiet efforts were made to find out what sort of performance it was likely to have. However, the B-58’s flight-testing turned into a protracted affair, and it had not been designed for conventional strike, nor low-level operation. It was also a big and expensive aircraft, and the RAF soon lost interest. The B-58’s impressive high-altitude speed and range was drastically reduced when it was later operated at low level, validating the RAF’s loss of interest at the time.
Blackburn’s brochure model of its B.103 design to NA.39. While obviously a Buccaneer, the B.103 differed in many ways from the prototype airframes that Blackburn actually built, and the production marks S.1 and S.2 differed further from those. BAE Systems
In October 1956 English Electric began discussions of its own with Mr Handel Davies at the MoS about their ideas for a Canberra successor. The talks centred on an aircraft capable of up to Mach 1.3 with a radius of action of more than 350nm (400 miles; 64km) at sea level, carrying conventional or atomic weapons, or reconnaissance equipment (cameras or electronic sensors). Rolls-Royce Conway engines, then in development, were suggested as a powerplant. The target in-service date of the first version would be 1964, a much more realistic prediction than any of the RAF’s ideas up to this point, and various versions covering different roles were envisaged. English Electric’s initial sketches were of an aircraft with straight, shoulder-mounted wings, podded engines slung under each wing and a high tailplane, though it was also asked to consider a development of its P.1B to do the job.
Within the Air Ministry’s Operational Requirements department the discussions prompted the generation of a new ‘General’ OR, GOR.339, a file on this being first recorded on 28 November 1956, covering the need for a tactical strike and reconnaissance aircraft. A GOR was more of an American concept than the traditional Air Staff Target, but was similarly intended to be the basis upon which various firms would tender designs, and would be the solution to short-cutting the more usual lengthy procurement process. The most interesting aspects of the firms’ submissions would be used to create a more detailed OR to then proceed with. Another bonus would be that, if any of the requirements in the GOR were felt by all the firms to be technically too difficult or expensive, those requirements could be amended or dropped to make sure the project as a whole was feasible.
Feelers were also put out to the various tactical air for
ces and commands within the RAF, and also to the Army, to gain a better idea of just what type of aircraft was going to be needed. English Electric had another meeting in January 1957 with Gp Capt Wheeler of the Air Staff (Deputy Director of Operational Requirements; DDOR) and Handel Davies, which further firmed up the requirement to cover a two-seat strike aircraft, carrying a single ‘Target Marker Bomb’. This was the hilarious euphemism then in use for the atomic weapon to OR.1127 that came to be known as Red Beard. (Admittedly, any target hit with such a weapon would certainly be marked in fine style.) A conventional bomb load was also called for, of four or preferably six 1,000lb high-explosive (HE) bombs. Combat radius was to be 600nm (690 miles; 110km) at low level with a speed of Mach 0.9 (with a Mach 1.3 burst) or 1,000nm (1,150 miles; 1,850km) combat radius at higher altitudes and Mach 1.5. Short takeoff, or even vertical, would be needed, to operate from strips just 1,000yd (900m) long (for the shorter sortie), and the first mention was made of possibly catering to Royal Navy (RN) needs at the same time.
English Electric had a further meeting with OR and the MoS on 30 January, after a conference on P.1 development. The importance of the low-level requirement was restated, and English Electric realized that a developed P.1B (the P.18 that it had been working on) would not be up to the job in terms of combat radius or short takeoff and landing (STOL) performance. Work on it was discontinued so that the company could concentrate on a far more elaborate design, Project 17. English Electric also pointed out that vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) and any formal preparation of a requirement followed by a prolonged design competition would both rule out any possibility of getting a new aircraft into service by 1964.