by Damien Burke
Radii of action for Australia-based TSR2s, from a brochure prepared for the RAAF in June 1963. BAE Systems via Brooklands Museum
On 24 October 1963 the government sent a telegram offering a further 10 per cent discount on TSR2, along with participation in the trials, evaluation and development flying, and twelve Valiants at an ‘insignificant’ price as an interim measure until the first TSR2s were delivered in 1969. The total cost of twenty-four TSR2s would be £48 million, and refurbishment of the Valiants to RAAF standards would be an additional £2 million. It was too little and far too late. Just hours later, with the telegram as yet undelivered, the Australians ordered the TFX instead, at a total cost of £45 million including spares and training, and with delivery of the first aircraft expected in 1967, two years before the TSR2. This was a strong blow to the TSR2’s chances of survival. While an order for just twenty-four airframes would have not made a huge difference to the unit costs, and therefore the total cost to the UK, it could conceivably have led to other export orders, and made cancellation a trickier proposition when there was another customer to support. George Edwards later said that he was ‘… convinced that the American aircraft industry was out to slaughter the British industry and was prepared to sell below cost to achieve that’.
Four days after the Australian decision, the UK government finally allowed BAC to issue a press release describing the TSR2, with some photos of the first TSR2 in its nearly complete state. At last the UK taxpayer had some idea of what the ‘ghost’ looked like, and the press was able to describe it in more detail. Despite this release of information there were those within the Air Ministry who continued to block any public discussion of the aircraft. The Shadow Minister of Aviation, John Cronin MP, visited BAC in November to seek more information on the project to back up his (generally constructive and fair) views on the project. An Air Ministry representative sat in on his meeting with George Edwards and blocked any discussion of what he considered to be sensitive aspects, many of which had already been accurately covered in the press in recent weeks. Cronin was furious, and in a letter to Minister of Aviation Julian Amery decried this policy of ‘fatuous obscurantism’ and summed up by saying: ‘The way things are going at present your Ministry and the Air Ministry are going to have the illusion of security about the TSR2 without having the TSR2, like the smile on the face of the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland, which persisted after the Cat had disappeared.’
One of the first photos of XR219 finally released in late October 1963 to show that the TSR2 was more than just a paper project. Unfortunately by this time the Australian decision had already been made and any public relations value was lost. BAE Systems via Brooklands Museum
TSR2 reaches crisis point
Having failed to sell the aircraft to the Australians, Britain’s new Prime Minister, Alec Douglas-Home, now had an expensive project on his hands and doubts that it could be afforded by the UK on its own. Writing to the Ministries of Aviation and Defence on 15 November 1963, he noted: ‘I am rather troubled about this project. It seems to be turning out to be considerably more expensive than we thought …’, and added: ‘Ought we to have … a new look at the whole venture and satisfy ourselves that is is still an integral element in our defence programme?’ The opposition did not miss any opportunity to have a go too, with Denis Healey, Labour’s spokesman for defence matters, saying that the TSR2 affair was ‘the biggest scandal in British politics since the South Sea Island Bubble’.
In January 1964, on finding out that TSR2 costs had risen once more, by a staggering £130 million, Julian Amery wrote to the Minister of Defence, Peter Thorneycroft, saying: ‘… I am appalled by this. Whether we cancel or go forward with the project, politically we could be faced with a scandalous situation’, and ‘We are now reaching a position where, to put it brutally, the British aircraft industry is destroying our military air power.’ The letter went on to suggest that, unless the TSR2’s cost could be reduced, the only alternative would be to buy the TFX from the Americans instead; at £2 million a unit, even allowing for wasted costs on TSR2 to date, a serious saving could be made. A ‘tough line’ would have to be taken with BAC. Even the Chief of the Air Staff was appalled at the new costs: ‘The situation … is of the utmost gravity. … we are in no doubt that the aircraft is unacceptable at this price.’ The Minister of Defence was of like mind, and for the first time the government was seriously looking at buying TFX and cancelling TSR2. Air Vice-Marshal Emson, Assistant Chief of the Air Staff (OR), wrote that he had ‘… no confidence in the ability of the management of BAC to give us the aeroplane we want, when we want it and at the right price’, and that ‘The real problem is, of course, that Sir George Edwards is the only man who can make anything of the mediocrity at his disposal and he has not the time.’
In a meeting at the Ministry of Aviation, George Edwards was bluntly told that the project was now in danger of cancellation because its cost was felt to be uncontrollable. He was willing to negotiate fixed prices for the development batch and preproduction aircraft, but the prices would be likely to ‘frighten rather than reassure’ the Ministry. Within the Air Ministry the question was even being raised as to whether it would be worthwhile to drop the Mach 2 requirement and reduce the aircraft’s top speed to around Mach 1.3. The savings in materials and engine development (in particular, the need for continuous reheat operation) could be considerable. However, this was a step too far and the idea was buried.
The Treasury, meanwhile, embargoed the approval of any additional funding for the project, even for items that would normally not need their authority, and in May the MoA finally had agreement from George Edwards that a big management shake-up was necessary at BAC. The result was that Freddie Page was put in control of the project as a whole, and this, along with introduction of Value Engineering, was expected to have a large positive effect.
By June the RAF was expecting an in-service weight of more than 103,000lb (46,750kg) and the RAF’s Resident Project Officer at Weybridge, Group Captain P. Walker, was predicting (accurately) that the aircraft would not meet the specification and that rising costs were inevitably going to result in a smaller buy, with delays resulting in no serious front-line force being in existence until 1969 or even later. He ended his assessment thus: ‘I … believe … that we ought to take one final long, hard, look at the TSR2.’ Very soon the Air Staff would push the MoA to begin an in-depth review of the project. It seemed that the RAF was, at a late stage, getting cold feet about the whole thing.
Just days before XR219 was to fly, the RAF, MoA and Treasury officials held a meeting to discuss the additional financial authority necessary to continue with the project, covering funding through to about February 1965. The Treasury, with an eye on a possible change of government in October, was still unwilling to release the full amount. It would, however, release enough to fund the project through to December, but withheld any authority for items it considered to be additions to the original requirement or changes to it.
Export customers
BAC had not just tried to sell the aircraft to Australia. Detailed brochures had also been given to the Royal New Zealand Air Force (which lost interest some time before the Australian decision) and the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) (which also lost interest, in late 1963). Additionally, dossiers of unclassified material on the aircraft had been prepared for the Royal Netherlands Air Force, Indian Air Force and Iranian Air Force (which showed ‘mild interest’ in late 1964, including a visit to Boscombe by the Iranian Air Force’s Commanding General, General Khatami). France had shown some mild interest in March 1962, suggesting that it would replace its Mirage IIIVs with licence-built TSR2s some time in the late 1960s. This prompted a question from the Minister of Aviation as to whether it was entirely ‘out’ to equip the French with TSR2s earlier than that, and equip the RAF with the Mirage IIIV! Needless to say this idea went nowhere.
The only other country to express any serious interest was West Germany. In March 1961 the
Germans were invited to play a part in the development of the TSR2 (limited co-operation on the P.1127 already being under way), but this came to nothing. German interest continued in the aircraft itself, however, and by 1963 they appeared highly interested in acquiring the TSR2 as a replacement for the Lockheed F-104G, an aircraft the Luftwaffe had only acquired after Lockheed bribed German politicians to buy an aircraft somewhat unsuited to German needs (and killed off any chance of the German Navy buying the NA.39 in the process). After several exchanges of information, a German delegation including their Minister of Defence, Herr Kai Uwe von Hassel, along with several senior military officers, made a visit to BAC Weybridge in 1964 to look at the production line and systems rigs, and gather detailed information. One of the officers attending was in the Luftwaffe’s Operational Requirements department, and gave the impression that the F-104G replacement was not an urgent matter (though they were actually dropping out of the sky and killing Luftwaffe pilots with alarming regularity), but that an aircraft of the TSR2/TFX type was certainly a serious option.
There was concern within the government that arming Germany with such an aircraft, when they had access to US nuclear weapons as part of NATO, would mean that a German aircraft could conceivably get as far as Moscow and attack the city with a nuclear weapon. Giving Germany this capability could damage relations with the Soviet Union. German interest then appeared to end abruptly just three months later, when General Buchs of the Joint Staff said very firmly that ‘Germany had never had any interest in adopting for itself the TSR.2/TFX type of aircraft’, stating that any mention they had made of it was in the terms of a multinational NATO force, not German acquisition of such an aircraft. This was a puzzling statement, and von Hassel later wrote a response in which he assured the UK government that Germany was still interested, but had no immediate need, and would therefore keep a close eye on the project as it progressed.
Ironically, BAC had also tried to interest the Americans in buying the TSR2 to satisfy the very requirement, SOR.183, that resulted in the creation of the TFX/F-111. This went as far as Boeing even agreeing to push the TSR2 as a ‘cheap and happy’ alternative to the development of a fully fledged variable-sweep type, and a suggestion from the Americans that the USAF would buy TSR2s while the RAF could perhaps buy North American B-70s to suit its strategic needs (a complete non-starter of an idea, given the cancellation of OR.330). However, with TSR2 unable to operate from carriers, there was no serious chance it could be acceptable to satisfy SOR.183; and even when TFX development branched into separate versions for the US Navy and USAF, TSR2 was still of no interest. This was a disappointment to Glenn Martin, which had licence-built the Canberra when the Americans bought that type in the 1950s, and was keen to do the same with the TSR2.
The RAF’s internal report on shortcomings of the TSR2 was the beginning of the end of the project as far as the Service was concerned. Crown Copyright
The RAF loses faith
In early October 1964, just days after XR219 had flown, the RAF’s Operational Requirements unit was working on a report entitled Short Comings of the TSR-2. That long hard look had been taken, and the RAF did not like what it had found. The report admitted that the likelihood of open conflict in Europe was receding. However, limited war elsewhere was more likely than ever. Therefore it was felt pertinent to ask if the TSR2 still met the RAF’s requirements, particularly in the conventional role. The conclusions made uncomfortable reading: ‘The outstanding and all-pervading shortcoming of the TSR2 is its high cost … has virtually no conventional strike capability at night or in bad weather … does not have a real all-weather reconnaissance capability … navigation system, being dependent on accurately mapped fix points, is ideally suited to northwest Europe but is unlikely to be as effective in the probable areas of limited war … it will be useless at altitude over northwest Europe … has no armed reconnaissance capability … considerable shortfall in the originally specified airfield performance … more or less tied to operations from paved runways … fundamentally bad engine tunnel installation and accessories bays … low reliability … wing design seems to be too heavily biased in favour of low gust response/good crew environment …’, and so on.
The infamous Labour Party leaflet issued in the Preston South constituency before the 1964 General Election. After the cancellation, Preston South’s Labour MP, Peter Mahon, denied any responsibility for the issuing of this leaflet.
The RAF had belatedly realized that its own requirements had led to an aircraft that did not do what the Service wanted, seven years down the line. Many of the criticisms in the report were hardly fair on BAC, such as the assertions that that the conventional weapons load was not heavy enough and the ferry range was insufficient, when both were in excess of the original requirement. However, weighed against what the RAF now needed, the aircraft was falling well short.
A change of government
On 15 October 1964 the General Election saw a change in the UK’s government, with the Labour Party winning power by just four seats. The outgoing Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer, Reggie Maudling, is reputed to have greeted his incoming replacement at No. 11 Downing Street, Jim Callaghan, with the words: ‘Sorry to leave things in such a mess, old cock!’. The country’s finances were in a parlous state, and expensive projects were surely going to be at the top of the new government’s hit list. In fact the Labour Party’s manifesto had included in a section on defence policy the statement that: ‘Many thousands of millions have been spent on the aircraft industry, but because of lurches in strategic policy, wrong priorities, and grave errors in the choice of aircraft, we are now in a position where obsolete types have not been replaced, and for such urgently needed machines as helicopters (which could make a great contribution to the security and effectiveness of our troops in Malaysia) we are dependent on the United States.’ With so many Labour MPs having been vocally anti-TSR2 and other big-ticket defence projects before the election, it was no surprise to anybody that all of the RAF’s large projects soon came under the spotlight. Despite promises from local MPs in the areas most strongly associated with TSR2 production that ‘Your jobs are safe under Labour’, the Cabinet had other plans. By the end of the year rumours were rife that TSR2 in particular was being lined up for the chop.
In America the similarities in requirement and performance between TSR2 and TFX that had so interested Boeing in 1963 now brought the aircraft to the attention of the British government. They were smitten with American know-how and attracted by the promised lower price of buying TFX instead of continuing with the home-grown but troubled and costly TSR2, and a visit was made to the USA in mid-December to discuss the possibilities. The team sent was a joint MoA and MoD one, led by the Deputy Chief of the Air Staff, Air Marshal Sir Christopher Hartley.
The Air Staff had initially reacted with some horror to the reality of losing TSR2 and having to put up with TFX, as they viewed it as inferior in many ways. In particular, its navigation-attack system was more primitive, and there was no reconnaissance capability whatsoever. Improving TFX by fitting British nav/attack and reconnaissance equipment would result in the British version of the TFX taking longer to arrive, perhaps not until 1969, and add millions to the cost, though they admitted that even then it would still be cheaper than TSR2. News of investigations into buying TFX soon got back to BAC.
In fact the Defence Council had put together a proposed package that would gut the RAF’s entire line-up of new types and replace them with mostly American equipment. This included:
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Cancelling the buy of 158 TSR2s and buying 110 TFX instead
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Cancelling the buy of 182 P.1154s and buying 150 F-4s and 110 P.1127s instead
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Cancelling the buy of 62 HS.681s and buying 82 C-130s instead
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Cancelling the buy of 60 OR.357s (Shackleton replacements) and buying 38 Comets instead
The RAF was thought likely to roll over and accep
t all of this except for the TSR2 cancellation. The problem was that the government had no idea what the ultimate capital cost of the TSR2 buy would be; BAC had been asked for up-to-date costs in November, but had failed to respond. It was feared that, given the cost history of the project, the final figure could be in the order of £1,000 million. It had become ‘quite impossible’ to retain TSR2. The biggest attraction of the American equipment, beyond near-immediate availability, was that the Americans were willing to offer a big loan at a reasonable interest rate to pay for it all, spreading the cost over ten to fifteen years, something that was not possible if the government stuck with the UK projects. The results would be a muchslimmed-down UK aviation industry, but the government already believed that there should be just one main airframe group.
Rumours of cancellation were so strong by early January 1965 that many of the contractors involved with TSR2, such as EMI and Elliott, wrote to the new Minister of Aviation, Roy Jenkins, pointing out how many jobs were at stake, along with Britain’s technological prowess and hopes of future exports of advanced electronic equipment. George Edwards visited Henry Hardman at the MoA on 12 January to express his own concerns, stating that he would ‘have to go and work for Arnold Hall’ (Hawker Siddeley) if TSR2 was cancelled, as there would be no room for two large aviation firms with so little work to go around. Had Edwards known that the government already had both the P.1154 (supersonic VTOL close-support aircraft) and HS.681 (STOL transport) projects drawing their last breath, the meeting would doubtless have gone rather differently.
