TSR2

During the dark days of the Cold War when the Cuban Missile Crisis threatened to develop into an all-out nuclear exchange between East and West, the Royal Air Force stood prepared to defend the United Kingdom, armed with an array of devastating thermonuclear weapons which could be unleashed against the Soviet Union. The RAF's V-Force was the backbone of Britain's nuclear deterrent and throughout the 1960s its very existence promised any aggressor such a powerful and destructive response that the United Kingdom remained invulnerable from attack. But when Soviet defences improved, the V-Force became ineffective. Without the ability to fly fast and low, the V-Bombers would succumb to increasingly capable Soviet missile defences and thus, their usefulness would undoubtedly come to an end.

But in the early 1960s, Britain was developing another powerful nuclear bomber. It would be capable of supersonic speeds and have the ability to fly at low level, hidden from enemy radar and ground defences and be sure of reaching its target - wherever that might be. It would rely on autonomous navigational systems and be capable of delivering its weapons with pinpoint accuracy. It would no longer need the luxury of a fully equiped airfield with long runways that lay vulnerable to attack. Flexible, reliable, fast and supremely powerful, the RAF was to receive what would be the most advanced warplace of its era - TSR2.

Tragically, this magnificant machine never reached the RAF's front line. Hampered by political indecisiveness, industrial mismanagement and confused defence planning, the project ended abruptly in 1965. Britain was almost bankrupt and the aircraft, which was of supreme importance to the RAF's future, represented a significant cost. A prototype was built and test-flown, and the TSR2 demonstrated itself as a first-class flying machine with outstanding qualities which promised to provide the RAF with a formidable tactical bomber for the 1970s and 1980s and perhaps even beyond. However, in a bizarre twist of circumstances, the Government decided that it no longer wanted the TSR2 and the RAF decided that it too was no longer in favour of the aircraft for which it had fought for so long. Years of dedicated aeronautical research and development was written-off at a stroke.

The tale of TSR2's creation and subsequent abandonment has fascinated historians for fifty years but much of the story has been shrouded in secrecy and mystery. Perhaps more than any other British aircraft, TSR2 has been the subject of rumour, speculation and myth. This book, for the first time, reveals the complete history of how Britain struggled to create a technological masterpiece at huge cost which the country could barely afford - and then abandon it.
This is the true story of the TSR2.