TSR-2 Details

 In a high wing group build, one of my fellow modelers is building a 1/72 scale BAC TSR-2. If you don' know what that is, then you can read it all here, as well as in numerous books detailing the many missteps of postwar aviation planning in the UK.

It was a Tactical Strike & Reconnaissance design developed in the late fifties and ultimately canceled by Harold Wilson's Labour government in 1965. It is of particular interest to me because it was developed primarily at the BAC Warton site in the northwest of England (on the Fylde coast, between Preston and Blackpool), and that's where I started my career in 1974, fresh out of high school. The first year I was at Warton I got a few chances to chat with grizzled designers from the TSR-2 days, and it was interesting that they weren't as sad about its cancellation as the rest of England was. Like any new program i had encountered many development problems, all of which needed fixing, and many of which would have required major redesign.

Only one prototype ever flew (XR221), and only two airframes survived the draconian "cut all the tooling up and destroy it forever" edict that ensured the project couldn't be revived. The flying prototype and two other airframes were used as range targets - a fate that ensured they didn't survive. The two airframes are at the RAF museum at Cosford in the Test Flight hangar (the pretty much complete XR220), and at the Imperial War Museum at Duxford, just outside of Cambridge (the very much incomplete XR222).

TSR-2 XR220 at RAF Cosford

TSR-2 XR222 at IWM Duxford

In the kit build thread there has been much discussion about some of the details, of both the airframe and how they are modeled in the kit. In particular, there is some ducting from the intake boundary layer splitter o an exhaust in the landing gear bay that required a cutout in the landing gear door.

This photo from Cosford shows it quite well:

The black ducting in he lower right is the item in question, and the hole in he landing gear door can be seen just at the bottom of the shot. This second photo captures the hole a bit better, but also some of the complicated looking articulated flap

As I have a 1/48 scale Airfix kit of his, it will provide some detail to work from, although the kit itself is quite well detailed, as it is relatively new and primarily based off the same airframes.