TSR2
Page 11
Ferry range on internal fuel was 2,400nm (2,760 miles, 4,440km), or 2,500nm (2,875 miles; 4,625km) with a bomb bay fuel tank. For the 1,000nm sortie with one Red Beard onboard, the take-off weight would be 65,000lb (29,500kg) (or 65,900lb (29,900kg) if a water-methanol load was also carried), and take-off roll to 50ft (15m) would be 1,500yd (1,370m). The landing run in tropical conditions, without braking parachutes would be 900yd (825m), reducing to 570yd (520m) if parachutes were used on a dry runway. However, there was a catch. When it came to meeting the performance requirements of the GOR, Fairey stuck its neck out and expressed some contrary opinions. For instance, supersonic operations at altitude were, it felt, of little value for the primary task of tactical strike. Speed at any significant height was little protection against ground defences, and it would be substantially safer to spend more time at low level, albeit at subsonic speeds. For reconnaissance operations, supersonic speed at medium altitudes would be of more use. Fairey had looked at the use of supersonic bursts at low level, and calculated that for every 10 miles (16km) supersonic at low level, 55nm (63 miles; 100km) would be lost from the overall combat radius. With any significant time spent supersonic, therefore, the Fairey aircraft would not meet the range requirements, and would run out of fuel on the way home. As a result Fairey decided ‘… to exclude any supersonic element from the operational profile, and that such supersonic elements would be considered as penalties on the basic missions’.
Navigational and bombing accuracy was another weak area. As a firm believer in the ‘near enough is dead enough’ principle of atomic attacks, Fairey did not consider high accuracy to be relevant in LABS attacks, and proposed a simple computer that would calculate bomb fall position and enable the pilot to fly the manoeuvre manually following a basic flight director, or hand the task to the autopilot, which would be linked to the bombing computer. With the submission already light on details when it came to the navigational and bombing side of things, this cannot have gone down well at the Ministry, but in the end Fairey’s fatal error was effectively in designing a supersonic bomber that could only meet the range requirements if kept subsonic.
Gloster Aircraft design study: P.384 Thin-wing Javelin
Gloster carried out an internal study into resurrecting its thin-wing Javelin bomber concept, which it had originally proposed in the early 1950s. The work resulted in a pair of designs being described. First of all, and by far the least satisfactory, was the P.386, a ‘Stage A’ development of the thin-wing Javelin originally designed to try and satisfy the F.153D fighter requirement. The 600nm sortie requirement could not be met by the basic design, but with ventral tanks and a bulged fuselage to make room for extra fuel it could just about manage that task. The aircraft would carry the atomic bomb in a similar manner to the Scimitar, under the port wing, balanced by a drop tank under the starboard wing. Ultimately, no amount of massaging the airframe or figures could get the aircraft anywhere near the 1,000nm sortie requirement, and it could attain a maximum speed of only Mach 1.13 on the way to the target and Mach 1.41 on the way back.
Leading particulars: P.384 Thin-wing Javelin development
Length
77ft (23.47m)
Height
20ft (6.09m)
Wing span
60.7ft (18.50m)
Wing area
1,240sq ft (115.19sq m)
Wing aspect ratio
2.97
Engines
2 × 17,270lb (7,840kg)
Olympus 21R (29,000lb
(13,150kg) in reheat)
Max speed
Mach 1.41 @ 30,000ft
(9,000m)
Empty weight
57,560lb (26,125kg)
Max AUW
114,500lb (51,970kg)
A general-arrangement drawing of the Gloster P.384 of November 1957. Damien Burke
Accordingly, Gloster envisaged an alternative, the P.384, in which the engines were moved to underwing pods, leaving the entire fuselage available for fuel and a weapons bay. The wings were thinned even further, with no room to hold the main undercarriage, which was replaced by a ventral quad-wheel main gear plus outriggers on the outer wings. Carrying all stores in the bomb bay and having a thinner wing reduced drag substantially, and the extra fuel combined with that to make the aircraft capable of the 1,000nm sortie. However, speed was once again lacking, Mach 1.85 being the absolute best that could theoretically be expected, though in reality it would be highly unlikely to be achieved. Gloster considered that the only way to improve on this was with more thrust, and as the design already used the highest-thrust engines then available (the Olympus 21R, though the Conway would be more suitable for a bomber aircraft), that meant more engines. Four Olympus 21Rs would have done the job, but the aircraft would be massive, weighing in at nearly 180,000lb (82,000kg) and having a huge 2,000sq ft (185.8sq m) wing. Clearly this was not practical. Gloster also considered reducing drag, but expected improvements from area ruling would not have been likely to be anywhere near helpful enough, and it believed the only viable route was to make the aircraft smaller. As this would have resulted in a vicious circle of carrying less fuel and going shorter distances, it was no wonder that Gloster threw in the towel and did not make a formal submission. Its only contribution to the final Hawker Siddeley Group submission, therefore, was to take part in some peer review of the P.1129 proposal before it was sent to the MoS.
Handley Page design study
Sir Frederick Handley Page, a famously strong-willed man, did not think much of the MoS’s requirements for mergers and amalgamations within the aviation industry, particularly when they were so crudely tied to carrots such as GOR.339. Given that agreeing to such a merger would only have left the company with a one-in-four chance of being chosen to actually build its submission, and would have involved a great deal of probably fruitless negotiation with prospective partner companies even to get that far, Handley Page declined to submit a formal proposal for an aircraft to satisfy GOR.339. However, it did let its Research Department draw up a preliminary design, and submitted this in December 1957, purely for information, along with further notes in January 1958 about a mechanism to smooth the ride at low level.
Leading particulars: Handley Page GOR.339
Length
75ft (22.86m)
Height
14.8ft (4.51m)
Wing span
48ft (14.63m)
Wing area
924sq ft (85.84sq m)
Wing aspect ratio
2.5
Engines
2 × RB.141R or Conway
11R or Olympus 6R
Max speed
Mach 1.7
Max AUW
60,000lb (27,215kg)
A large aircraft of 60,000lb (27,000kg) AUW was drawn up, with basically delta-shaped wings and a tiny butterfly tail. The two engines, ideally of bypass type, would be carried in pods under the wings, and the crew would sit in tandem under a bubble canopy. Handley Page recognized that high wing loading was the basic method to resolve the problem of a rough ride at low level, but equally felt that it impinged too much on high-altitude performance and required high-lift devices to achieve sensible take-off and landing performance. Its solution was a mechanical gust response alleviation method using a probe on the nose to measure gusts, linked to equipment to sense the magnitude of the gusts and operate control surfaces on the wing to respond to them as they occurred, thus smoothing the ride. This was an idea somewhat ahead of its time; fly-by-wire would make it a much more practicable proposition some years later.
A rudimentary bomb bay in which bombs could be semi-buried in the fuselage was mentioned, but was secondary to the carriage of bombs under the wings, between the fuselage and engine pods. The positioning of the wing in the middle of the fuselage was chosen so that it did not interfere with the bomb bay or unnecessarily restrict the crew’s view to the sides and rear. Interestingly, Handley Page thought a clear field of view much more important than other firms, re
sponding to the requirement that the crews would want to be able to see if they were leaving a contrail and thereby giving their position away. The outer portions of the wings would have 62 degrees of sweep-back, but the inner portions would be straight, the company considering any sweepback here to be of little benefit. The butterfly tail was sized to clear the engine efflux, and was considered a compromise between having no tail at all and having a conventional tailplane arrangement.
A general-arrangement drawing of the Handley-Page GOR.339 of October 1957. Damien Burke
The choice of engine dictated performance and fuel consumption, and therefore weight. A bypass-type engine such as the RB.141R would provide best economy and lowest weight. Alternatives such as the Conway and Olympus were mentioned, but carried severe weight penalties owing to their higher fuel consumption and the resultant need to carry much more fuel. In any case, GOR.339’s requirement for a supersonic dash across the target area could not be met by the design and the company blithely recommended the removal of this requirement.
In the end Handley Page considered work on the transport variant of the Victor and boundary layer control (BLC) techniques to be more important than jumping through the Ministry’s hoops to build an aircraft it did not believe was entirely realistic, so its efforts are just an interesting footnote in the TSR2 story. Thus Handley Page avoided the chaos and heartache of the TSR2 project’s cancellation.
Hawker P.1129 & P.1121
Hawker, having had its P.1121 rejected in 1957, began work on some other variations. The P.1123 was the twin-seat tactical bomber mentioned in the original P.1121 brochure, with larger-chord wings with fairings at the mid-point to house four-wheel main undercarriage units, and semi-recessed bomb carriage. The P.1125 was a single-seat strike aircraft with twin RB.133 engines, half-cone intakes on the fuselage sides, a small internal bomb bay and the original P.1121 wings. Finally there was a more impressive type, the P.1129. This bore many similarities to a two-seat P.1121, the most striking difference being that it inherited the twin-engine half-cone intake layout of the P.1125 rather than the ventral intake. After much deliberation it was the P.1129 that Hawker formally submitted to satisfy GOR.339 in January 1958.
In common with some of the other proposals, Hawker proposed a navigation system consisting of Doppler radar (Yellow Lemon), Master Reference Gyro, compass, and SLR with 4ft (1.2m) aerials for fix-taking with a Doppler-driven moving-map display and SLR display unit. The P.1129’s forward-looking radar, Blue Parrot, as used on the NA.39, would primarily be used for radar ranging and ‘sore thumb’ target identification. For the attack phase, sights would be provided for LABS, medium-altitude bombing and rocket attacks, along with a sight-recording camera. Weapon carriage could consist of a single Target Marker Bomb, up to four 1,000lb HE bombs, twenty-four 3in rockets (in two packs of twelve) or seventy-two 2in rockets (in a single large pack). All except the Target Marker Bomb could be carried entirely within the bomb bay; the Target Marker Bomb, however, was too big, and would be carried half-buried and half-exposed with special bomb doors.
Leading particulars: Hawker P.1129
Length
72.75ft (22.17m)
Height
17.25ft (5.26m)
Wing span
48ft (14.63m)
Wing area
630sq ft (58.52sq m)
Wing aspect ratio
3.65
Engines
2 × RR RB.142R or
2 × Olympus 15R
Max speed
Mach 1.3 at sea level,
Mach 2.3 at altitude
Empty weight
45,800lb (20,790kg)
Max AUW
79,100lb (35,900kg)
A general-arrangement drawing of the Hawker P.1129 of January 1958. Damien Burke
The P.1129 would have carried three permanently fitted F.95 cameras in the front fuselage for vertical and oblique coverage, with a downward-looking rotating sight provided for the navigator so he could both verify photographic coverage area and check for the presence of wingtip or tailplane-tip contrails. The reconnaissance pack would have consisted of four more cameras (two F.100 for vertical photography and two F.96 or F.89 for oblique coverage or vertical coverage from medium altitude), along with flash bombs for use at night as well as SLR with moving target indicator (using an 8 to 10ft (2.4 to3.0m) aerial for low-level use, mounted as far forward in the pack as possible though even so carriage of drop tanks would cause some blanking), plus linescan with UHF data link. For medium-altitude reconnaissance Hawker proposed a different reconnaissance pack which would have had longer SLR aerials (12 to 15ft (3.6 to 4.6m)) tilted down from the horizontal by 10 degrees. Again interference was expected from the drop tanks if carried. The radar recorder would be an item of permanent fit carried on-board the aircraft, and could thus record the sideways-looking navigation radar’s output if no reconnaissance pack was carried.
In-flight refuelling and buddy refuelling were also part and parcel of the P.1129 proposal, a retractable probe being mounted in the nose ahead of the cockpit and offset to one side. The buddy refuelling pack, to be mounted in the bomb bay, would include pump, hose and drum, control unit and a 300gal (1,360L) fuel tank. Fuel jettison would be possible, via a retractable pipe normally hidden within the ventral fin. Standard internal fuel capacity was 2,300gal (700L), in bags in the fuselage and integral tanks in the wing, and to this could be added up to four underwing drop tanks; inners of 500gal (2,270L) capacity and outers of 300gal (1,360L). Only by carrying external fuel would the aircraft be able to meet the 1,000nm sortie requirement. At low level, maximum speed would be Mach 1.05 (without reheat) or Mach 1.3 (with reheat), rising to Mach 2.3 at high altitude.
Hawker predicted a first flight by the middle of 1960 if an intention to proceed was given in July 1958, and CA release during 1964. However, as the company was part of the Hawker Siddeley Group of companies, which also included Avro, Hawker’s submission caused some embarrassment, and the Group as a whole soon made it clear to the MoS that Avro’s brochure was the one that represented the thinking of the Group, and the Hawker brochure received very little credence as a result. However, some individuals within the Air Staff and Ministry saw great promise in the Hawker design and encouraged Hawker to continue putting forward its ideas, not just the P.1129 but also the developed P.1121 variants. This was, no doubt, well-intentioned, but it led to a great deal of wasted effort on Hawker’s part over the next nine months or so.
Leading particulars: Hawker P.1121 Stage B
Length
70ft (21.34m)
Height
15.3ft (4.66m)
Wing span
39ft (11.89m)
Wing area
509sq ft (47.28sq m)
Wing aspect ratio
2.99
Wing anhedral
2 degrees
Tailplane span
19.25ft (5.87m)
Tailplane area
115sq ft (10.68sq m)
Tailplane dihedral
10°
Fin area
75sq ft (6.96sq m)
Engines
2 × Olympus 22R
Max speed
Mach 2.0 @ 50,000ft
(15,000m)
Empty weight
30,970lb (14,060kg)
Max AUW
53,890lb (24,460kg)
A general-arrangement drawing of the Hawker P.1121 Stage B development of September 1958. Damien Burke
Part of that effort included further work on the P.1121 design. With the P.1129 effectively ignored, Hawker continued to upgrade the P.1121 to meet more of the GOR.339 requirements, and the result was another brochure, on the P.1121 Two-Seater Development – Supersonic Strike Aircraft, submitted in July 1958 (just before Hawker submitted a collaborative brochure on a further P.1129 development with Avro). As the introduction to the brochure stated, this was ‘… with a view to satisfying the broad intentions of GOR.339 without involving the heavy cost of completely
meeting all the requirements’. The twoseater was based on the Olympus 21R (no mention of the Conway now), and differed from the original P.1121 in a number of ways besides the provision of a navigator/radar operator’s position. Leading-edge flaps had been added to the wings, with blowing on both these and on the existing trailing-edge flaps. The rocket packs were deleted and the main strike weapon could be installed in a semi-recessed position under the fuselage; alternatively a reconnaissance pack could be mounted there. Three F.95 cameras gave sideways and downward cover; Doppler and FLR assisted with navigation and target identification. The reconnaissance pack would contain an additional two F.100 cameras and SLR. A third role, that of buddy tanker, was catered for with an underwing buddy refuelling pod and extra overload fuel in the form of one 300gal (1,360L) drop tank and two 200gal (910L) drop tanks along with a 200gal belly tank.