TSR2: Britain's lost Cold War strike jet (X-Planes) by Brookes Andrew

Author:Brookes, Andrew [Brookes, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781472822499
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2017-10-19T04:00:00+00:00

XR219 climbs away on its first flight from Boscombe Down on 27 September 1964. (BAe Systems Heritage)

The source of engine vibration on the second flight was eventually traced to a reheat fuel pump pressure oscillation and the problem was cured before the fourth flight by fitting pumps made to higher standards of quality control. However, one problem not resolved and then receiving urgent attention was undercarriage vibration, which was felt by the crew just after touchdown on both flights as a low frequency lateral oscillation of sufficient magnitude to affect control of the aircraft on the ground. In the next phase of testing it was found that this phenomenon could be reduced by landing the aircraft at slower rates of descent, and this expedient was adopted as a temporary measure to allow flight testing to progress. A complete solution to the problem was found but TSR2 was cancelled before the necessary modifications could be incorporated.

XR219 flew for the third time on 2 January 1965. Thereafter, a sortie rate of two flights a week was maintained, which demonstrated a high degree of reliability of the aircraft’s systems despite new problems with the undercarriage. The first attempt to retract the undercarriage was made during the fifth flight on 14 January, and resulted in the main bogies failing to de-rotate for the landing, which was made very gingerly. On some subsequent occasions only one of the main legs retracted completely. The undercarriage was finally retracted successfully during the tenth flight on 6 February after air-spring jacks were added to assist bogie rotation and other small modifications were made, whereupon the aircraft was taken immediately from its previous fastest speed of 270kts to Mach 0.8 at 2,000ft and to 511kts in a fast run over the airfield at 70ft. Thereafter, exploration of the flight envelope progressed rapidly, and by 16 February a total of 5hrs 27min flying time had been accumulated. Joining the test team were pilots Jimmy Dell and Don Knight and navigators Peter Moneypenny and Brian McCann.

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