Cancelled aircraft projects, page 1

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Topic started on 4-7-2010 @ 07:36 AM by LeBombDiggity

Nef started a thread today about the British Vulcan bomber and it got me thinking about the golden age of aircraft design and manufacture.

Here's Nef's thread ...
www.abovetopsecret.com...

I'd suggest that the golden age of aircraft development was in the 1950's and 1960's.

So I thought I'd share two aircraft which made it from the design stage to flight ... and then got cancelled. Please feel free to add your own favourites too !

British Aircraft Corporation - TSR2

The TSR2 was designed to an RAF specification for a new aircraft designed to penetrate enemy airspace at low level, high speed and to be able to deliver both conventional and nuclear weapons with a high degree of accuracy. First flight took place in 1964, the aircraft was cancelled shortly afterwards on the grounds of cost, despite the TSR2 being widely recognised as being the most advanced, most potent aircraft under development in the West.

The British then took options for the undoubtedly inferior American F111, then they cancelled that order too, leaving the RAF with a hotch potch of aircraft which served into the 1970's.

The TSR2 is the greatest "what if" of British military aviation.

YouTube Link

The Bristol Brabazon

Perhaps the most expensive white elephant British civil aviation has ever produced, but perhaps one of the most beautiful & graceful too, the Bristol Brabazon was a proposed post WW2 transatlantic airliner, the prototype first flew in 1949. Prop driven, with enormous cabin space (probably as capacious as a modern day 767 or A320) it was designed to carry as many as 50 (!) passengers in first class luxury from London to the US East coast.

Overtaken by the jet age, Britain's own Comet jet airliner & Boeing's 707, the Brabazon was just the wrong aircraft in the wrong era. It was cancelled almost immediately.

But what a graceful giant she was !

YouTube Link

Hey, what's your favourite cancelled aircraft projects ?

reply posted on 4-7-2010 @ 08:31 AM by justwokeup

Have to say that TSR2 video is very very sad, a reminder of what Britain once was capable of.

With regard to other cancelled aircraft projects.

Got to give the XB-70 a mention. Now that was an ambitious aircraft for the time. Still looks futuristic now.....

reply posted on 4-7-2010 @ 09:01 AM by waynos

Rather than go for the longest reply in the history of ATS (

) Here are links to some previous ATS posts on this subject of my own.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

The other threads I was going to link to are so old they are no longer showing the pics I included (why is that?)

I may just have to write an all new reply about one of my favourite subjects!

reply posted on 4-7-2010 @ 09:24 AM by LeBombDiggity

reply to post by justwokeup

Just for you ... two vids of the XB-70 ... hard to believe these flights took place over 40 yrs ago, the XB-70 looks so futuristic even today !

Maiden flight and wheel gear incident

YouTube Link

Crash sequence ... photo op goes badly wrong

YouTube Link

reply posted on 14-7-2010 @ 05:52 PM by Mike55555

I know an old chap who worked on the TSR2, (he's now unfortunately having cancer treatment,so don't want to push him too much).He reckoned it was a fantastic aircraft,he also saw politicians watching the jigs for it being smashed up,no doubt in his mind that they were doing as their masters in the Kremlin told them to do !.Me?,it would'nt suprise me one bit.

reply posted on 14-7-2010 @ 09:16 PM by FredT

We have done this a few times. I have to beleive that 'Mac the Knife" Macnamara was the biggest killer of planes ever.

Under his watch he killed:

XB-70
XF-108 Rapier (The Valkyrie's Mach 3 escort fighter)
YF-12
YB-12

Also

YF-23
A-12 Avenger II
Dark Star Tier 3 Minus
AH-56 Cheyane

reply posted on 15-7-2010 @ 11:13 AM by RichardPrice

Originally posted by FredT
We have done this a few times. I have to beleive that 'Mac the Knife" Macnamara was the biggest killer of planes ever.

Under his watch he killed:

XB-70
XF-108 Rapier (The Valkyrie's Mach 3 escort fighter)
YF-12
YB-12

I posted something fairly recently which gave the reasons for these being canceled - there was no need for them as all intelligence indicated that the Soviets had shelved all their Mach 3 capable bombers, and their other aircraft were not as capable as previously thought. Put simply, the technology gap did not exist as accepted, and infact the US was far ahead of the USSR without having to operate hugely expensive Mach 3 fighters and bombers.

Why order and operate them if cheaper alternatives exist? Hence the cancellations - and while I would have liked to have seen more A-12 based aircraft in the air, I don't exactly hold a grudge for any of hte above projects.

Also

YF-23

Out performed by the YF-22 in quite a few tests and Northrop had dropped the ball on the B-2 program, with the result that no one had the confidence in them to deliver the product in both a timely and a fiduciary manner. The fact that Lockheed can be said to have dropped the ball on the F-22 is another matter altogether.

A-12 Avenger II

Drastically overweight, over budget and underperforming before it even flew. No real loss.

Dark Star Tier 3 Minus
AH-56 Cheyane

I have no real opinion on these.

reply posted on 11-8-2010 @ 08:33 PM by Xammu

I'm more into civil aircraft than military ones. Yet I can literally go on forever listing aircraft projects that would have been awesome if they weren't cancelled.

Boeing 2707 (Probably the biggest reason to hate hippies)

Learavia Learfan 2100

McDonell Douglas A-12 Avenger II

Boeing Sonic Cruiser

Cessna Citation Columbus

The next two might be cancelled but it is not readily disclosed:

Tupolev Tu-244

Aeroscraft ML866

reply posted on 11-8-2010 @ 09:19 PM by Ferris.Bueller.II

Mine definitely is the XB-70 after seeing it at the museum at Wright-Patterson AFB. That is one hot looking bomber!

reply posted on 2-9-2010 @ 06:27 PM by brutalsun

Originally posted by FredT
We have done this a few times. I have to beleive that 'Mac the Knife" Macnamara was the biggest killer of planes ever.

Under his watch he killed:

XB-70
XF-108 Rapier (The Valkyrie's Mach 3 escort fighter)
YF-12
YB-12

Also

YF-23
A-12 Avenger II
Dark Star Tier 3 Minus
AH-56 Cheyane