Originally posted by Rob37n
reply to post by hp1229
Just as the US made sure Concorde wasn't a success the TSR2 programme, and yes I am aware it was a military plane, was killed off on the orders of the US Military because it would have outperformed anything US nanufacturers had on the drawing board at the time, and we were forced to take inferior planes from American manufacturers, such as the F-111 and the F-4.
Sorry, but thats just plain bunk, for want of use of harsher terms.
The TSR2 was killed because it was a hugely expensive program that the then Labour government could not justify continuing with, when at the same time they were seeking loans and guarantees on loans from the international monetary fund and international partners.
It would be like you borrowing money from your friends because you claim you cannot buy food or pay your rent, while at the same time boasting about your upcoming 6 month long round the world holiday.
Also, the US had no hand in Concordes demise - we even had US courts on our side, when the New York Port Authority (who owned the airports at the time) tried to ban Concorde on noise grounds, but were ultimately overruled because Concorde was no louder than the Boeing 707 at the time (aircraft noise levels have drastically reduced since those days, which is why Concordes noise levels were such a big thing in the years leading up to its retirement).
What killed Concorde was the middle east oil crisis - that sky rocketed fuel costs across the world, and when it was resolved they never came back down to the levels that they were before. The US had no hand in that at all - it was sheer economics that killed Concorde, it couldn't operate in that environment. It needed to be bigger, it needed to carry more passengers, it needed to do so with a lower per seat cost - but Concorde was already as big as it could be without a serious raise in production costs, so that was out of the question.
The TSR2 could have gone into service across Europe and further afield and being a real success if the rug hadn't been pulled from under it.
That is true, but it wasn't the US that pulled the rug - it was our own government.



