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'..Lost opportunity..' — Description
April 6th,1965,X-02,the second TSR-2 prototype (XR220),on it's maiden flight,ignites the afterburners of it's twin Bristol Siddeley Olympus BOl.22R turbojet engines and accelerates away from it's Lightning T5 chase-plane...

this,tragically,never happened...

The British Aircraft Corporation TSR-2 was a cancelled Cold War strike aircraft developed by the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC) for the Royal Air Force (RAF) in the early 1960s.
in reality the first flight of XR220 had been scheduled for April 6th,1965,but this was instead the day that the project's cancellation was announced offically (though the decision had been taken some time before) to parliment.
The TSR-2 was designed to penetrate a well-defended forward battle area at low altitudes and very high speeds, and then attack high-value targets in the rear with close-in bomb runs and precision drops. The TSR-2 included a number of advanced features that made it the highest performing aircraft in this role. The programme was controversially canceled in favour of inferior designs,orders that where later canceled.
The remarkably,a study into the feasibility of resurrecting the TSR-2 project was carried out in the late 1970s. This also considered updating the design with more modern technology,primarily the avionics,as the airframe design was still more advanced than anything in existence or development,but this was eventually not pursued any further..RAF's Phantom and Buccaneer were eventually replaced by the variable-geometry Panavia Tornado, a capable and world-beating but much smaller design than either the F-111 or the TSR-2. Experience in the design and development of the avionics, particularly the terrain-following capabilities, were used on the later Tornado program,but not before the cancellation had effectively dealt a death-blow to the British aircraft industry..

“All modern aircraft have four dimensions: span, length, height and politics. TSR-2 simply got the first three right.”

— Sir Sydney Camm

'my other great love-Military aircraft,especially British 'fast-jets',the TSR-2,as well as the P-1154,have always held a particular fascination for me...the 'what if' both aircraft where world-beating designs,years ahead of their time,(the F-35 Lightning II, Joint Strike Fighter,if it actually enters service,will finally provide a supersonic,V/STOL capability for the RAF & FAA,more than 50 years after the P-1154 was canceled.) canceled by short-sighted politicians with no faith in the British aircraft industry.With the cancellation of the TSR-2 & the P-1154,the only project to be 'green-lit' was a subsonic development of the P-1127...eventually christened the Harrier..

so,a 'what-if?' image of the second TSR-2 on it's maiden flight,TSR 2 by P Bratt,downloaded from Silver-Wings.co.uk,background courtesy of Google,rendered in LightWave 9.6,composited in psp X2 by me!!