“All modern aircraft have four dimensions: span, length, height and politics. TSR-2 simply got the first three right.” Sir Syndey Camm, designer of the Hawker Hurricane.
Even 60 years after the project was cancelled TSR-2 looks futuristic. The terrain following radar developed for TSR-2 by Ferranti in Edinburgh was every bit as advanced as the jet bomber and though, the two never flew together a promotional film produced by Ferranti in the mid-1960s shows an astonishing engineering achievement with the technology available at that time. Centred round this film, the talk gives the background to the TSR-2 project and the consequences to the British aircraft and avionics industry from its eventual cancellation.
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David Greig is a technical specialist in radar systems at Leonardo UK at Crewe Toll in Edinburgh (the successor company to Ferranti). He joined what was then GEC-Marconi in 1995 on completing his PhD in computational physics at the University of Edinburgh. Specialising in modelling and simulation he has worked across many radar projects as well as developing an interest in the history of the technology which built one of major radar development sites in the world.