Comments by "Mike Hipperson" (@mikehipperson) on "Imperial War Museums" channel.

  1. The aircraft was cancelled due to political decisions made both here in Britain and the USA. The British government of the day was the wishy washy, left leaning Labour party, intent on not being a belligerent force as a nuclear deterrent. They didn't want to upset their friends in the USSR! This, of course, upset the Americans as they couldn't have a left leaning nation with a weapon system that could fly under the radar and, therefore, was a threat to the USA. One of the conditions the Yanks insisted on was that all the jigs, tooling and prototypes be completely scrapped before Britain could purchase the F111, which we never did anyway. Certain technology of the TSR2 were 'cherry picked' by the US to be further developed by them in their own aircraft industry such as the terrain following radar and navigation system which, in a miniturised form, found its way into the Tomahawk cruise missile. So between them both governments killed off this beautiful aircraft, ours because the Labour party were never interested in British sovereignty and the States couldn't have a nation that could possibly turn into an enemy being better equipped than them!
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