by Damien Burke
At 2.30pm the next day – 6 April, Budget Day – the Minister of Aviation, Roy Jenkins, and junior ministers from the Department of Economic Affairs and the MoD informed representatives of BAC and BSEL that the TSR2 project was to be cancelled with immediate effect. Jenkins also instructed the CA to ground both airworthy aircraft immediately to stop any further flights from taking place. The First Secretary and the Minister of Labour informed representatives of the Trades Union Congress and the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions (CSEU, which, despite the name, included aerospace workers), extending the meeting until 4pm to minimize the possibility of leaks before the public announcement. During the meeting with the CSEU representatives Roy Jenkins informed them that there was a possibility of a developed British aircraft meeting future defence needs. At 3.30pm the cancellation was publicly announced in the Budget Speech made by Chancellor of the Exchequer James Callaghan. The reason given was primarily the saving of manpower for more important projects:
Altogether, about 1½ million men and women are employed in the Forces and in industry to supply them. These are important and scarce resources of manpower, needed for industrial expansion and for exports. It is against this background that the Government have had to consider the future of the TSR2 project.
The effect of this decision is to save £35 million of Government expenditure in 1965–66, after taking account of the terminal costs which may become due to be paid this year. We all admire the technical skill that has been put into this advanced aircraft. But, so far, this aircraft has cost £125 million, and the cost is mounting fast every week. It has, and would have, diverted hundreds of factories employing thousands of skilled and semi-skilled men from other work of national importance, including exports in particular. This is not a sensible use of our overstrained resources. The Government’s decision will, in the next five years, release £350 million of resources of an advanced kind for more productive work.
A further statement was made by the Secretary of State for Defence, Denis Healey, at 6.20pm, 40min earlier than promised by the Chancellor earlier in the day. It was a statement interrupted time and time again by opposition MPs, furious with the manner in which the cancellation and the further statement were being made.
The Government have been wrestling continuously with this problem ever since they took office some six months ago. It has always been obvious that the cost of continuing the TSR2 programme was likely to impose an intolerable burden on the national economy, in general, and the defence budget, in particular. But we have had to consider also the operational needs of our defence forces and the needs of the sort of aircraft industry which Britain is likely to require in the 1970s for both military, technological and commercial reasons.
We discovered when we came into office that the programme for the TSR2 planned by the previous Government would have cost about £750 million for research, development and production. An order for 150 aircraft would have meant that each one would have cost £5 million. The smaller the order the higher the cost per aircraft. For example, an order for 100 aircraft would have meant that each aircraft would have cost over £6 million, of which nearly £5 million would still remain to be spent. These were the figures which the previous Government accepted as the basis of their policy. I submit that a programme of this order was not one which, in any circumstances, could be held to represent value for money. It was not only too costly in terms of defence expenditure. It was also making far too great a demand on our country’s scarce resources of highly skilled manpower.
Nevertheless, I do not believe the Government would have been justified in taking a decision to cancel the TSR2 at the time when they decided on the other changes in our military aircraft programme two months ago. We needed better information than we then possessed on the probable cost of the TSR2 and on the cost and performance of possible alternative aircraft. As the Prime Minister explained on 2 February, it was the mounting cost of the TSR2 programme on which the previous Administration had embarked which was the essential reason for the review which has been undertaken.
We now have enough further information to take a decision, and it is clear that no more significant information is likely to be obtained for some months. The House of Commons was informed earlier that we should seek a fixed price for the TSR2. In view of all the complexities of the programme, the manufacturers have not been able to offer such a price. The best arrangements that they have felt able to offer would have given no assurance that Her Majesty’s Government’s ultimate financial liability would have been limited. The likely course of completing the development of the TSR2 would have been as high as, or even higher than, previous estimates. Meanwhile, every week that the programme continues it is costing the taxpayer something of the order of £1 million.
In the circumstances, we do not feel that we can justify any further delay. With deep reluctance, Her Majesty’s Government have decided that they must now cancel the TSR2 programme. I hope that no one believes that this has been an easy or welcome decision, particularly at a moment when the aircraft was making good progress in its development programme. We are fully conscious of the disappointment our decision must cause to those thousands of people who have worked so long and so hard on a project which has been cancelled through no fault of theirs. The fundamental reason for the cancellation – I ask the Committee to accept this – is the stark fact that the economic implications of modern military technology rule out British development and production of this type of aircraft for a purely national market.
The quoted cost figures were exaggerated only a little from the estimates generated by BAC, BSEL and the MoA itself, but had been presented simplistically, leading to much complaint that the government lied about the costs. This was not really the case; while the only individual airframes that would cost £5 million each were the preproduction batch of eleven aircraft, and the production examples would cost £2.8 million each, it was clear that the Minister was referring to a unit cost that included R&D costs, rather than presenting these separately.
At 8pm a press conference was held for the defence correspondents of various publications. Part of the press release contained the basic summary that ‘The basic facts are that TSR2 was too expensive and that it should have been stopped long ago’. Two days after the cancellation Roy Jenkins wrote to the CA to thank him and his staff at the MoA for ‘… the enormous amount of work which they have done during the past few months on the TSR2 and in particular on placing before the Government the mass of material which was required before a decision could be taken’. No such communication of admiration was sent to the thousands of men and women who had put so much work into the aircraft itself. BAC would be given three months to close the project down; 6 July was to be the end.
Attempts to keep TSR2 flying
The day after the cancellation the Director of the RAF Aircraft Department at the MoA invited BAC to examine the whole programme to consider what elements, including limited flying on the first two or three aircraft, could be shown to warrant continuation on the basis of research having direct application to current projects or future ones. A flight-test programme using XR219 and XR220 was proposed by BAC. It would cover expansion of the flight envelope to Mach 2 at altitude, and then use the aircraft’s ability to fly continuously at this speed to gather data on engine handling and engine control system behaviour, experience of specialized engine instrumentation and telemetry, and data on component and bay temperatures, engine cooling systems, engine relighting and correlation between flight and ground tests of intake gauze bias work, all in aid of the Concorde engine programme. As a further aid to Concorde development, data could be gathered on engine ejector-nozzle performance and drag, intake performance and drag, intake buzz, thrust meter development, structural temperatures, flutter and vibration, sonic boom investigation, simulation of Concorde air traffic control problems, rain erosion at high speeds, and so on. As a bonus, some of the design concepts (gust response and its effect on crew comfort) a
nd AFCS features (stability augmentation) could be compared against theoretical work carried out to that point. The programme would consist of 160 flying hours, lasting until late summer 1966. This proposal was submitted to the Ministry by BAC on 14 April, along with a suggestion to continue static and fatigue tests on structural test specimens – airframes already completed but not airworthy.
With XR221 also complete it was tempting to try to find a use for that airframe too, and on 15 April BAC’s manager at Boscombe Down roughed out a possible programme for it. Assuming a go-ahead at the beginning of May, the airframe would be completed, then broken down and transported to Warton, rebuilt, and flown at the end of September. He admitted: ‘It is very difficult to find a strong technical case for carrying out this programme’, but said it could be used for low-level testing of the TFR and navigation system in more realistic conditions than those in the Buccaneer and Comet used up to that point. The vulnerability of low-level aircraft to ground defences could also be an area of useful research. This proposal was submitted as an addendum to the programme covering XR219 and XR220.
By 20 April BAC was trying to assess the amount of spares it would need to keep three airframes in the air for a short flight-test programme. This was complicated by most such spares having been declared redundant and effectively held under MoA control. In addition, some stocks were still at subcontractors and, with work having stopped, MoA authority would also be necessary for work to continue with providing these spares. Some firms had not yet been paid, and would be unlikely to consider delivery without receiving what they were owed. As it appeared impossible to ensure that all of the various spares needed could be acquired in the limited time remaining before the TSR2 project was finally terminated, one suggestion was to obtain three aircraft carcasses to rob for parts as required.
The sad scene at Samlesbury one week after the cancellation announcement. Now united with its rear fuselage, XR225 is in as advanced a state of construction as it would ever get. BAE Systems via Warton Heritage Group
The first aircraft, XR219, remained at Warton until August 1966, and had a starring role in the static display at the 1966 Families Day. This family grouping of Canberra WD937, Lightning XR755 and TSR2 was arranged and recorded for posterity. BAE Systems via Warton Heritage Group
The government looked at the proposal, and initially the prospect of spending another £2 million on top of the £200 million already spent to gain some concrete benefits was attractive. There were obvious benefits, not only to the Concorde programme but also possibly to the UK version of the F-111, the Anglo-French Variable-Geometry (AFVG) project, and even to a possible improved Buccaneer, as well as providing valuable flight confirmation of test-cell work at the NGTE some twelve months before the Vulcan testbed would be available for the Olympus 593. Weighed against this was the short flight-test programme already carried out, and the efforts that had been needed from all involved to manage it. It was thought that the likelihood of minor problems continually halting any new flight-test programme would be very high, and therefore costs would inevitably rise once more, perhaps to £3 million. The experience of the Bristol 188 research aircraft tended to bear out the government’s fears in this respect. Moreover, the MoA did not believe that any of the proposed research work other than engine flight-testing would be of any direct benefit to Concorde.
The company’s hopes for an early decision on the matter were soon dashed, as it became clear that not only were the MoA’s various departments all examining the proposals, but that they had also gone to the MoD, and higher up – to the Cabinet. The government’s biggest real concern was that the public would see TSR2 in the air again. They had received so much grief when they cancelled it that letting it fly again would be highly embarrassing. However, Roy Jenkins supported the proposal, as long as a fixed-cost contract could be put in place to reduce risk. The overall MoA response, despite some reservations, was also positive, but at the MoD the Assistant Chief of the Air Staff (Operational Requirements), Air Vice-Marshal Emson, opposed the idea, believing the risk to be too great. It was a final twist of the knife from the very Service that had begun the project and had, over the last six months, abandoned it in an attempt to end up with something – anything – as long as it was not a Buccaneer.
An AFVG windtunnel model. Following the cancellation of the P.1154, AW.681 and TSR2, this was an attempt to build a cheaper and more flexible strike aircraft in co-operation with the French. BAE Systems via Warton Heritage Group
On 3 May BAC submitted an additional proposal relating to structural research on redundant TSR2 materials, covering further investigation of the static-test wing failure; crack propagation on wingtips; bird impact on leading edges, radomes and nose sections; noise fatigue on flaps, honeycomb trailing edges and tailplanes; endurance tests on bearings; pressure cycling to destruction on nose sections and fatigue tests on fins. Throughout May, while the physical dismantling of the project was beginning to be carried out, no news was received.
On 2 June the Defence and Overseas Policy Committee decided against any further test flying. On 4 June BAC found out (via the press) that it was not to be. The government had leaked a letter from Roy Jenkins to a Colonel Lancaster, explaining the decision, and later that day, in answer to a question raised in the House of Commons on the matter, Roy Jenkins put an official end to the hopes of seeing TSR2 in the air once more:
I have examined very carefully the possibilities of flying the TSR2 during the next few years in aid of our research programme, using the three aircraft with engines and spare parts which are now available. I have regretfully concluded, however, that the information we should be likely to derive from the flying would not justify the £2 million–£3 million which would be the minimum cost involved in maintaining and operating these complex aircraft.
Of course, BAC was bitterly disappointed, but its structural research proposal met with more luck, and in mid-June many of the components that had been earmarked to be retained in early May were now listed as required for the structural research programme.
A glimmer of hope that the aircraft could fly once more then appeared from the MoA. Freddie Page of BAC spoke to the CA, Morien Morgan, on 21 June, and was requested to keep XR219 and XR220 ‘oiled and greased’, and told that Air Commodore Bonser, the Director of RAF Aircraft Development at the Ministry, would be spoken to to stop them from being stripped completely. However, any further flying was ‘out for the present as the decision was a political one’. In fact BAC had already been keeping both airframes not only oiled and greased, but in full running order, and had been carrying out regular engine runs. Page instructed his men to draw up a programme of ground testing, including taxy trials over rough ground, as well as any A&AEE and RAE requirements. An attempt by BAC’s Ollie Heath to phone Bonser the next day to discuss a much-reduced research programme, but including a limited amount of flying, did not get an encouraging reception. Bonser was out, but one of his colleagues immediately asked if the proposal was to include flying. Heath was informed that they had ‘not a chance in Hell’, as a decision that there should be no more flying had already been taken at Cabinet level. The reduced proposal included using XR221 for the rough-surface trials, but there was ‘little point in doing odd jobs on other aircraft’ and the current MoA proposal was for XR221, and XR219, to undergo ‘vulnerability trials’ at Shoeburyness; in other words, to be shot to bits. Incredibly, the MoA’s plan was to carry out some of these trials with engines running, despite the massive headaches involved in disassembling, transporting and reassembling the airframes and getting them back into running condition.
As a result, BAC’s next research proposal, submitted on the 24th, did not include flying, and nor did it include the use of XR221. The rough-surface trials were suggested as being a combined RAE/BAC task using either XR219 at Warton or XR220 at Boscombe Down. Other trials would be noise and vibration tests at various engine revolutions to vindicate design decisions on life and reliability of structures (XR220
being already instrumented for such work); further resonance tests (as considerable differences had shown up between such tests on XR220 and predicted values – XR219’s gust response results had shown much less structural resonance than predicted too); work on measuring IR and radar signatures; running aircraft systems independently of engines to aid future strike and fighter aircraft development; water contamination tests on DP47 hydraulic fluid; firing of the engine fire extinguishers to test extinguishant distribution; and various rig tests in aid of future simulations. The Ministry’s reaction to this was much more positive, immediate instructions being given to hand over XR220 to the A&AEE at Boscombe Down as it was, without removing all of the test instrumentation installed in the aircraft (BAC had been about to do this to both XR219 and XR220), and the A&AEE would end up carrying out some of the suggested research. However, XR219 was still to be dismantled for transport and instrumentation that BAC wanted to retain could be removed. But BAC resisted this, and on further consideration by the Ministry was told to hold XR219 at Warton pending decisions on each individual aspect of the ground-research proposals.
The company had also drawn up another flight-research programme proposal. A much reduced programme costing less than a quarter of a million pounds, it would use either XR219 (fitted with XR220’s fin, equipped for flutter clearance) or XR220 (with the addition of some performance and handling instrumentation). Whichever was chosen, the AFCS would not be fitted, so speed would be limited to Mach 1.7. Total flying would be 30hr, at around 5hr per month, to cover stability and control characteristics, engine and airframe performance and drag, and engine handling characteristics with the Olympus electronic control system (including relighting). Response to turbulence could also be checked as the opportunity arose. However, despite support from the Aeronautical Research Council, this proposal was also vetoed; the TSR2 simply could not be allowed to fly again.
