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Originally Posted by piginapoke
That reminds me of the debacle about the TSR2. A crying shame it was cancelled.
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TSR2 birthed Concorde though. Once TSR2 had been cancelled, the money spent developing the engines for it had to go somewhere: Concorde was the result. It got the Engines that had been intended for TSR2, in "Civilianised" guise, meaning 3 instead of the original 5 afterburner rings and narrower diameter burner cans, if my recall is correct.
I do recall Roland Beamont's comments that TSR2 was one of the finest airframes he had ever flown, much as, in similar fashion, Andrew Cunningham was to comment after barrel-rolling Concorde during flight testing.
But let's be honest, The UK govt. in that era was out to kill any innovation and progress it could. Neither TSR2 nor Concorde was ever going to survive once some form of mishap had occurred. It also has to be remembered that the USA was pushing heavily to kill outright both TSR2 and CF105 Arrow, and would have far preferred Concorde dead as well. American Aero Industry wanted no commercially viable rivals for its' own existing or projected products, despite the fact that, with the exception of the SR71 family, no American product was at the time as good, nor likely to be. The UK was only too happy to oblige, as was Canada.
The only beneficiaries of all this were USSR and PRC.
Respectful Regards, Uyraell.