TSR2 Booster Launcher in BSP4

[Mossie]

I'm very much thinking of building the TSR2 booster launcher that makes an appearance in the BSP Hypersonics volume.  I'm assuming an early to mid seventies time line, to give the TSR2 time to get into squadron service & for most of the testing to have been completed.  I assume that one or more airframe from the test or pre-production batch would have been passed to the RAE and/or A&AEE.  Any particular airframe that might be suitable?

I want to model the booster & aircraft in the test phase, rather than operational.  The booster itself I'll probably paint in yellow with black markings.  This seems to have been usually the case for test weapons that were carried on aircraft.  A launcher would be something different, but the reasoning behind the colouring remains the same.

The markings of the aircraft are my main problem.  RAE or A&AEE?  I'm leaning towards A&AEE as the testing of the booster would see to more closey fit their role.  Then, there's the paint scheme of the aircraft.  I've done a bit of research into RAE & A&AEE schemes & it seems I've got a number of choices:

1. Keep it in the standard RAF paint scheme, either anti-flash white or DG/DSG over LAG.  This tended to be the case for aircraft not permanently attached to the RAE/A&AEE.  I think this is less likely, as the aircraft would have had to be heavilly modified & more likely to part of the permanent test fleet.
2. Modify an RAF scheme with red patches.  Red had replaced dayglo orange by the early seventies.  Again, tended to be loan airframes.
3. The early standard RAE scheme of white/blue/grey or A&AAE scheme of white/red/grey.  This came around in the mid seventies & predated Raspberry Ripple.  These schemes mainly tended to be used on transport or large aircraft.  A slight variation on one of these schemes would be possible, a few aircraft carried something a long these lines.  Within the main schemes, there seems to have been no absolute standard & schemes differed slightly between aircraft.
4. An individual scheme.  Before standardised RAE/A&AEE schemes came along, several aircraft up to the late seventies were painted in highly individual, bright but usually simple paint schemes.  This opens up the field pretty much to my imagination!
5. Rasberry Ripple. RR as we've come to know it started in the mid to late seveties & is probably a bit too late for my time scheme, although the aircraft may have been repainted at some stage in the booster test program.

Any thoughts?  Let me know if I've not understood things correctly, or there's something I've missed out.  There are other questions I've got, but I'll leave those till later.

Thanks!

Simon.

[Scooterman]

To keep it in your timeframe, I vote #2.  But of course..........



RASPBERRY RIPPLE!!!!

[Thorvic]

Considering the mods required for the booster to fit the airframe would be greatly modified requiring a repaint. I expect one of the prototypes would probably be used for the job as less likely to see RAF use. The actual aircraft assigned to A&AEE were in teh early part of the 2nd 11 pre-production batch but yjese would be then either reassigned to RAF use or used for operational developments.

Scheme wise i suppose the undersides would certainly be a different colour to the booster for photo reference purposes with plenty of calibration markings, maybe in a similar fashion to the Canberra they used.

Only problem i can see is fitting the booster for the TSR2 and ensuring the TSR2 still has an undercarriage to use !!!

G

[TsrJoe]

hi there 'mossie' #3 sounds like it could be nice, altho id personally guess the aircraft woul;d be in a 'special' scheme, probably based upon an overall white scheme like the early airframes (the overall white would also be good for heat refectivity too i guess a la Concorde, hmm just wondering how oitd look in 'ESA.' markings as a quasi civil aircraft possibly with BAC. 'class B' registration ?

re the design tho, id agree with Geoff re the practicality of the design, theres no way such a booster could be mounted beneath the TSR.2 without the airframe needing substantial redesign, the original paper describing the proposal merly suggesting the type as a possible launch aircraft with the launcher superimposed ventrally on a drawing of the TSR.2 without regard to undercarriage etc, an interesting design nontheless! .... hmmm...wheras dorsal mounting... a few studies were carried out re. the feasibility of upper mounted large stores on the TSR.2, again nothing coming of it but might be worth a thought?

cheers, Joe

[Mossie]

Yeah, undercarriage is going to be problem!  As far as main undercarriage clearance is concerned, I thought about folding down the rocket wings, similar to how the ventral fin on Blue Steel folded to allow ground clearance on the Victor.  The nose wheel is a different matter.  If you set the rocket back further, the engines are in the way.  I can think of only two ways to remedy, firstly, totally modify the nose wheel operation, unlikely, but you could lose plenty of the stuff in the equipment bay to make room.  The obvious way would be to reduce the length of the rocket, but then that impacts on the payload you could carry.  Scratches head.....

Dorsal might be an option, though there's the old problem of the tail getting in the way for this soloution & I don't want to modify the girl too much.  Another slim possibility would be wing mounted, either over or or under.  No idea what the rocket would have weighed but since Blue Water would have been 3000lb I expect it could handle it.  The main problem would be aerodynamic I think, maybe put a dummy on the opposite wing.  With both of these options drag is going to be a problem.  I suspect TSR2 was considered because of it's speed, otherwise if load carrying capcacity & practicallity was the main consideration then Vulcan would have been the natrual choice.

I could go the Gerry Anderson route & design an elaborate sled system for take off, landing on it's own gear.... in fact, I can see a whole Thunderbirds episode for this one!  The rocket is sabotaged & it fires when failing to detatch from the TSR2.  The pilots pass out from the acceleration & the TSR2 is in danger of breaking out of the atmosphere.  T3 is launched to prevent the TSR2 going into orbit & succesfully does so, but then the pilots are in danger when they come too & find they can't punch out.  T1 & T2 try to detatch the rocket from the TSR2 to allow it to land, but there's not enough time.  To avoid the rocket blowing up on a belly landing, T2 uses it's grapple to bring the TSR2 in to land.  Tea & cakes at Tracey Island!!!!

[Mossie]

Funny you should say that Scoot, on the opposite page to that which the TSR2 & booster appears, there are some illustrations showing the launch sequence for the EAG.3299.  Basically, it was launched by a trolley with a jack on it!  So this kind of setup may have been in the designers mind when they thought about the TSR2 launching this rocket, but like Joe says, the practicalities seems to have received very little consideration at all.

I also wonder how they would have connected it into the TSR2?  The rocket with it's ramjets is taller than TSR2's undercarriage, you'd need to jack the TSR2 up or build an access pit that the rocket could be lowered into.  Many garages have these pits & I wouldn't be surprised to learn that hangars have them for aircraft with low ground clearance, so it's not out of the realms of possibility.

The more I look at this the more I realise it probably wasn't much more than brain storming exercise.  "What shall we fit it on?"  "Errrmm, TSR2?"  "That'll do.  Right, meeting over, lets go down the Pub!"   I'm seriously thinking of shortening it to fit.

[TsrJoe]

erm, funny you should mention that..the other type illustrated in the paper is the Vulcan (also favoured as carrier for the Avro FCRA. (a manned Blue Streak!) and an ELDO. proposal for launching the Diamant rocket!)

hm..dorsally...how about a twin fin arrangement similar to that suggested for some of EE.s P.17 proposals? might provide enough clearance for such a booster?

again the 'Satellite Launcher' idea was merely that, just an idea, (theres no mention of getting the thing off the ground in the original paper, im guessing its authors really did just draw the missile onto a drawing of the TSR.2 same as they did with the illustrated Vulcan too!) altho id be first to admit, itd look neat in model form ..

cheers, Joe