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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pioneer" data-source="post: 54218" data-attributes="member: 122">Hi gents as a big F-111 fan for most of my childhood partly due to its excellent service in the RAAF, and partly due to my ignorance of the full TSR.2 project.I have to admit with both age and knowledge, I have come to very much appreciate the TSR.2’s potential and what could and should have been!Woody – I found the You Tube documentary you posted most educational and the best and most informative I have seen regarding the TSR.2 – Thanks!!I found it very interesting in the documentary when it was mentioned about the American visit and so-called interest in the TSR.2 program.I know that the American’s did this many times to many British aerospace projects (to the detriment of the British efforts and good nature!).I get the impression that the gentlemanly British nature and good will was taken advantage of many times.Examples of this are -I read in ’Project Cancelled’ (by Derek Wood) that de Havilland invited a top-level team from Boeing to see everything on the de Havilland 121 Trident at Hatfield.Boeing was amazed, but not unnaturally accepted with alacrity. Thus it came about that de Havilland solemnly handed all its research over to its rival.Boeing returned the compliment and invited a team from de Havilland to visit their factory in Seattle.They were cordially received but learned little or nothing of the Boeing’s plans for the 727 design.Then there was the Blackburn Buccaneer carrier-based strike aircraft.The United States sent a delegation to learn about this (then) very advanced and capable design, when its navy itself was developing its VAM competition, which would become the Grumman A-6 Intruder (Granted the United States had paid for most of the Buccaneer development via military assistance program!!) While the French Dassault company benefited greatly from the British Fairey Delta II program, which spent time flying out of Cazaux, France during its low-level supersonic trials. This would help confirm Marcel Dassault’s theories and information which was feed into the Mirage III program.  A few questions if I may-It is not difficult to miss the very obvious smoky jet engines in both film footage and photo’s of the TSR.2 prototype.Would this ‘tell tail’ signature have been remedied in the production model?Was it a cleaver design consideration by English Electric to have the majority of radar related avionics mounted behind the cockpits, while leaving the actual radar dish in a fairly small diameter radome / forward fuselage – in the attempt to minimize the forward fuselage’s overall diameter and cross section, which would have otherwise governed a somewhat larger forward fuselage and radome (i.e. like that of the Su-24 and F-111)The appearance of the TSR.2’s main landing gear has always been of concern to me – it looks a little on the weak side.I found it very interesting to hear the comments on the You Tube clip about the problems experienced with the prototype.This was with only the prototype, which would not have been operating or exposed to full operational weight.So how would have the operational TSR.2 have stood the tests of warlike operations, with a full fuel and warload?Was there plans to beef up the TSR.2’s landing gear??Thanks in advanceRegardsPioneer</blockquote>

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