There was a gap bof many years between the cancellation of the TSR.2 and similar projects and the deployment of F-15's in europe to (partially) fill that gap. During thiose years europe was extremely vulnerable to any hostile Soviet actions.
We outside of the US think of it as being oinetinuous adminstraiton whereas you within the US see it as being several separate administrations.
By "europe" I mean of course Great Bitain since that was the only european country within NATO which had an advanced aerospace industry. It was exaggerated claims by US manufacturers such as McDonnel and General Dynamics for the performance and cost of its aircraft which persuaded Britain to abandon its own defense projects. The ultimate cost to the UK taxpayer was actually far higher than if those programs had continued. The USA also suffered in that it did not have those projects to turn to when it's own aircraft proved inadequate for the tasks they were designed for.
As an independent observer I can assure you the UK at least has both the means and the will to defend itself against any likely aggressor.
I bet there are some people in France who would have some pretty interesting replies to that statement. :-) Flying Frog, where are you when we need you??
Crap! It was the British socialist idiots who were pissed at the aircraft industry and did their own industry in out of spite.
IIRC the thing that ran the Phantom project through the roof was re-design to use the Spey engine, which was a change insisted on by the British Government after the fact. Your own government screwed you, as usual.
And just which aircraft did you have in mind?? Enlighten us.
This sounds like the chest thumping we were hearing after the breakdown of the Soviet Union when we were being bombarded with talk about the "New European Union" and it's new combined military. Then this sociopath Milesovich surfaced in Yugoslavia and all we started to hear was "When are the Americans going to do something about him"??
During the time period being referred to, France did not have an 'advanced' aerospace industry, that came later. Besides which France was not a full member of NATO. The Luftwaffe was interested in buying TSR.2 to replace the F-104G and had they done so it is likely many other NATO air forces would have done the same.
If you examine the records you will that the previous Conservative government had already cancelled many projects and was considering cancelling TSR.2 before the general election which brought the Labour Party into office. The aerospace trade unions who were overwhelmingly socialist marched in support of keeping the project going.
The order for the bastardised Phantom was placed only after an order for the F-111K was abandoned. The latter was only abandoned becuase of rising costs and delays. Had the UK proceeded with the F-111 order in the same way as Australia did it would eventually have been delivered ten years late and ten times over budget. It was exaggerated claims by J.S. McDonnell for the radar capabilities of the Phantom which persuaded the Conservative UK government to abandon all development of Britain's own fighter-interceptor aircraft as far back as 1962.
When the U2 was shot down over Russia the USAF was forced to buy the Canberra from Britain in order to fill a gap in its reconnaissance requirements, albeit disguised as the "Martin RB-57". The US Marines were forced to buy Britsh developed Harrier fighters for close support as there was no US plane suitable for the role. During Gulf War 1 the allies had to rely on RAF Tornado bombers to carry out low level strikes on AAA sites as there was no US design suitable for the job and if Britain had proceeded with the TSR.2 project the USAF would eventually have bough that too for the same reasons it earlier bought the Canberra.
I specically used the phrase "defend itself". Serbia was no threat to UK, european or US interests and anyone who's studied the sad history of Yugoslavia will tell you that intervention by foreign nations has seldom been good for the people who live there. Just for the record it was United Nations forces under Boutros Boutros Galli who first intervened in the civil war in Bosnia not the European Union.
I'm not blaming the USA as a whole. What I'm saying is that there were two powerful corporate lobbies in the US (J.S. McDonnell and General Dynamics) who were more interested in winning large overseas contracts than in disseminating accurate information to potential buyers. The US taxpayer was just as much a victim of false information supplied by certain defence contractors as UK taxpayers were.
Utter BS. The B-57 was purchased as a replacement for the Douglas B-26 as a light bomber in competition with the Martin XB-51, North American B-45 Tornado, North American AJ-1 Savage, and Avro-Canada CF 100. Its development for the reconnaissance role was an afterthought, not the primary reason for its procurement by the USAF.
Yeah, those ground attack and interceptor versions of the MiG 25 were really awesome...
Well then, you would be wrong.
I'm sorry I couldn't read your mind. Why did you write 'europe' rather than Great Britain then in the first place?
It sounds to me like you're saying the British can't think for themselves. I'm sure you don't mean that either.
Which US aircraft proved in service to be inadequate for the tasks they were designed for?
Well, the UK is certainly better off in the former regard than the rest of Europe. She at least has _some_ force projection assets. For the time being anyways.
As for the latter, that's another discussion entirely...
Probably right but isn't that what most corporations do? I'm darn sure that BAe has never been completely forthcoming when one of their projects comes a-cropper.
Speaking of the thread title, has anyone her tried making an F-111K?
At a model show here in Australia one of the clubs built dozens of kits in what if schemes. It is a shame I can't remember all of them but I think there was a TSR2 in Australian markings amongst others.
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