Late father-in-law's TSR2 material

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Yard king

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I have been sorting through my late father in laws office and found a large folder marked TSR2.

Inside there are some brochures marked “TSR2 weapon system, Secret”, “TSR2 for the Royal Australian Air Force”, “TSR No. 3 Bulletin” and a “TSR2 XR219 Flight Reference Cards”

I also have his own personal hand written notes on about nine of the early test flights logging all the problems after a post flight debrief.

There are also a number of plans showing cockpit layout, air frame bulkheads and a drawing of the complete side of the aircraft.

Other items I have are the document to show the “Certificate for flight trials of a service aeroplane” for XR 219/1 and a thick folder for a slide lecture on all the control system.

I am not selling any of this but will be looking into compiling it all into a book for publication. Problem is I don’t know what the interest will be for something like this, any ideas?

Yard King
 
I had thought about copyright, is there still copyright on the booklets after all this time as well as the drawings?

There won’t be on his hand written notes as these were his personal jottings noted after each test flight. Or are we talking about copyright to other publications?
 
I would suggest getting in touch with BAES Heritage at Warton, or Farnborough Air Sciences Trust, or the RAF Museum to ask advice.

From a book perspective, then I think probably the personal notes after the test flights sounds the most unique. I think a lot / most of the other material has been published previously (maybe in slightly different form). This could make a good article in The Aviation Historian, which has a series of similar recollections.
 
There is an Interesting private 1965 BAC memo (14 April) proving the UK government deliberately ignored its own experts to scrap the TSR-2. While politicians claimed the prototypes were worthless, this document exposes an ironclad engineering plan to use them to safely anchor the future of European supersonic flight.

It possibly adds weight to many people’s views that it should not have been scrapped.
 
Yard king said:
I had thought about copyright, is there still copyright on the booklets after all this time as well as the drawings?

There won’t be on his hand written notes as these were his personal jottings noted after each test flight. Or are we talking about copyright to other publications?
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The booklets and drawings, yes, with BAE Systems likely having the copyright. BAES Heritage at Warton is your best bet for advice, permission, etc. The handwritten notes and stuff, obviously that's yours to publish.

Anything marked SECRET, you need to be careful with, even if logically its probably no longer sensitive. If its not been officially declassified, it can cause you problems. Selling such things has caused police raids on houses for example.
 
I will be calling Wharton tomorrow (when someone is in) to discuss what I have and what I can use freely. I also understand a lot of it was declassified many years ago, just need to find out the bits that aren’t.
 
"Proves" is a strong word

Obviously BAC had a vested interest in trying to get the government to continue to pay them lots of money. But further details on a proposal for further use of the prototypes etc. again might make the basis of an interesting article / chapter.

Damien Burke's book provides a fairly balanced view from multiple sources, and pretty clear evidence for people to form their own opinion.
 
The memo indicates the government’s intention to bring UK and European aircraft production together. It also hints at the possible outcome of such an alliance, which came to fruition.
 
I called them this morning and to be honest I found them a bit rude, misleading and demanding about the material I have.

Let’s just leave it at that.
 
I haven't interacted with them as Hawker material was at Brooklands and Farnborough. Wharton is English Electric / BAC.
 
So, my experience of archives in the UK -

Mostly, people were very helpful. Sometimes I found visiting in person and talking with people helps compared to communicating via email. It can be helpful if someone with research and publishing credibility (e.g. Tony Buttler, Chris Gibson) vouches for you being a good sort, who is not just wasting their time.

Lots of once-classified brochures and reports end up at Aero Jumbles, on EBay, or get donated to archives. Sometimes people acquired then illicitly at work, maybe as a memento of a program they were on. Maybe a blind eye was turned at the time. Sometimes they got thrown out of an archive for disposal and someone retrieved them from the bin. Archives vary in how strictly they treat such things, sometimes assuming they are from sufficiently long ago that its unlikely to be an issue.

Company archives are a little different. If an archive of an Aerospace company accidentally allow access to classified materials, even if they are from long ago, this could conceivably impact their ability to undertake classified work in future. So, items might need to be officially declassified even if common sense says that surely nothing on the TSR.2 is classified still.
 
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I am not going to get too embroiled in this, the conversation indicated that although for instance the brochures were declassified, my ones still had to be declassified on an individual basis and that it could only be done by them and would not be retuned. Also, all the hand written notes were also regarded as being classified as well.

What is interesting is that I believe the ‘weapons system’ brochure was reprinted by them? (clarity needed here) some years ago, if this is the case I am now confused. Also the same brochure is available on eBay as a digital copy.

As I said, it wasn’t a phone conversation I would want to enter into with them again.
 
Yard king said:
I am not going to get too embroiled in this, the conversation indicated that although for instance the brochures were declassified, my ones still had to be declassified on an individual basis and that it could only be done by them and would not be retuned. Also, all the hand written notes were also regarded as being classified as well.
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IMO before even thinking of turning of both the brochures and the handwritten notes to checked and declassified I'd make both electronic and hard-copies of them.
 
NMaude said:
IMO before even thinking of turning of both the brochures and the handwritten notes to checked and declassified I'd make both electronic and hard-copies of them.
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I made a decision for the time being to keep them, not sure at the moment the long term fate of it all.
 
My advice would be to contact Julian Temple. He is the Heritage Archivist at BAE Systems Farnborough. He is a good guy to deal with and he has contact with the main BAES copyright people. Dealing with him direct cuts out the local folks at Warton and Brooklands, saving you red tape and potential 'regional variations' in the responses you get.

I'll PM you his contact details.

(My other advice is that it's wise to tread carefully - I can speak from personal experience that BAES has some unexpected legal 'thou shalt not' type of copyright refusals that people outside the company can be unaware of.)
 
Hood said:
My advice would be to contact Julian Temple. He is the Heritage Archivist at BAE Systems Farnborough. He is a good guy to deal with and he has contact with the main BAES copyright people. Dealing with him direct cuts out the local folks at Warton and Brooklands, saving you red tape and potential 'regional variations' in the responses you get.

I'll PM you his contact details.

(My other advice is that it's wise to tread carefully - I can speak from personal experience that BAES has some unexpected legal 'thou shalt not' type of copyright refusals that people outside the company can be unaware of.)
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Well if it is going to cause a lot of problems then the skip is still there and it will go in with the rest of the house clear out.
 
I've always found the folk in the company archives, e.g. Warton, very friendly and helpful, so your experience surprises me.

Hood is correct, try Julian Temple.

For what it's worth, it could be related to TSR.2 being a nuclear system. Pretty much anything nuclear related is withheld nowadays. I couldn't be given copies of a Lightning file in the Warton archive because it included the RP.3.

Same in the National Archives 'Retained under Section 3.4' has scuppered many a research trip. A lot of Nimrod and Tornado files are still retained.

Anyone come across 'Document in use by department'? I've hit that brick wall a couple of times.

I digress. Try Julian, but he's busy at the moment, moving the archive.

Chris
 
Surprised at the Nimrod and Tornado files are still classified Chris since both types are long out of service. Obviously they will eventually be de-classified at somepoint in the future whenever that will be.
 
I'm sure there's an innocent reason, but I've seen it twice today, this is the 42 Sqn ORB 1971-80. Nimrod MR1s at the time.

PRO staff says it happens a lot and they can be kept for months, (this one has, I asked for it in March) for research purposes etc etc. Of course.

I asked if they have a list of what files are currently 'with Department' - there is no list.

Anyone else cone across this?

Chris

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Would be good if they could digitize the whole thing and make it available for those of us who are interested.
 
Yip iv come across same when accessing material at Kew (some of it quite surprising in title too, eg. 1950's dated) iv not seen a pattern but there are some previously accessible files now coming up as being 'retained' or 'in use' :(
 
CJGibson said:
I'm sure there's an innocent reason, but I've seen it twice today, this is the 42 Sqn ORB 1971-80. Nimrod MR1s at the time.

PRO staff says it happens a lot and they can be kept for months, (this one has, I asked for it in March) for research purposes etc etc. Of course.

I asked if they have a list of what files are currently 'with Department' - there is no list.

Anyone else cone across this?

Chris
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red admiral said:
Might just be in a box which is currently being moved or digitised by the department for their own archives and so it's just not currently accessible via TNA?
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There was some Typhoon stuff marked like this a few years back.

Turns out it had been stored in room exposed to asbestos and they were photocopying it all.
 
Mike Pryce said:
There was some Typhoon stuff marked like this a few years back.

Turns out it had been stored in room exposed to asbestos and they were photocopying it all.
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Mike Pryce said:
There was some Typhoon stuff marked like this a few years back.

Turns out it had been stored in room exposed to asbestos and they were photocopying it all.
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Ah ha! That's alright then, in fact good as I find the asbestos files easier to copy as there's none of that double-sided IZAL nonsense.

Chris
 
Yard king said:
Well if it is going to cause a lot of problems then the skip is still there and it will go in with the rest of the house clear out.
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If you decide to get rid of it, please consider donating it to an archive. I expect we could cover the costs of doing so.

The handwritten notes in particular might be the only copies in existence. Your father-in-law's thoughts should be preserved, even if not published at this time.
 

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