It is 1968 .....

[AndyG43]

... and the government of Sir Alec Douglas-Home, having won thenarrowest of election victories in 1964, remain committed to their ‘East ofSuez’ policy; they have however, despite significant pressure from the USA, declined to involve themselves directly in the Vietnam conflict. The UK Defence forces are going through a period of change & modernisation, to ensure they are adequately equippedfor the role.

For the RAF that modernisation means that Vulcan has finally been joined bythe BAC TSR.2 GR Mk 1. The TSR.2 programme has ended up well over budget, and well behind schedule, has been the subject of much debate at Whitehall and in the press; the RAF at one point expressed a preference for the American F-111, but the problems with that program are equally well documented. However, the aircraft that entered service at the beginning of this year is, without doubt, one of the finest strike aircraft available in the world today & is arguably the most advanced military aircraft in the world. The trials unit, 40 Squadron, and 237 OCU are developing the tactics that will be used by this innovative strike aircraft over the coming years; the first operational squadron, XV Squadron is in the process of forming at RAF Honington. The rest of the squadrons will be formed, largely, by re-equipping the current Canberra strike & recce units, with two more squadrons for the UK, five in RAF Germany, three at Akrotiri and one at Tengah.

Attachment 91785
Attachment 91786
Attachment 91787

Coming soon, to an Outhouse Library near you!

[ian elliot]

Very nice Andy, and a Greek one to keep Matt happy. Alphasim ?
cheers ian

[Blackbird686]

Hey Andy --

Those look absolutely STUNNING!! I have been waiting on these for a long, long time. My trusty ol' TSR2 continues to fly though, over the skies of Brisbane. She's even been spotted in Sydney and Canberra, on brief hold-overs. She wears fictional Australian "Boneyard Wrangler" paint, (the same worn by FB-111's of the RAAF) and is a major attraction at all of my virtual air shows. Sadly, she is the last of her kind but still a solid aeroplane. LOL! :salute: Superb job, mate!

BB686:USA-flag:

[Tom Burnside]

TSR2 repaints yes please.

[AndyG43]

You think he'd be happy with just ONE Greek paint Ian? Yes, it's the Alphasim TSR2, a pretty decent model, it does have a few flaws though; for example the FDE really isn't up to scratch, for an aircraft that was designed with short field performance in mind it takes a lot of real estate to get off the ground - but that is for another day.

BB686, sorry for the wait! Real life (and a few PC issues including an upgrade to Windows 7 caused by a total crash) kept getting in the way; hopefully the end product makes the wait worthwhile? And the bulk of the credit goes to Mr Wynn, for putting together a superb new paint kit which made this possible and allowed me to do a bit of decaling!!

They're being uploaded now, 5 packs containing a total of 35 repaints - and, no, I haven't included 617 Squadron, got something else in mind for them.

[arfyhun]

Excellent, Andy. I was amazed when the government took my tax money to build that fantastic aircraft and then scrap it on a whim.

What REALLY pissed me of is; they never asked me if they should, and they didn't have the decency to post me a bit of one of the plane to the value of my monetary input. I suppose my cash went on the wine and Rolls Royces which were used to cart their fat arses about.

Graham.

[Blackbird686]

BB686, sorry for the wait! Real life (and a few PC issues including an upgrade to Windows 7 caused by a total crash) kept getting in the way; hopefully the end product makes the wait worthwhile? And the bulk of the credit goes to Mr Wynn, for putting together a superb new paint kit which made this possible and allowed me to do a bit of decaling!!

They're being uploaded now, 5 packs containing a total of 35 repaints - and, no, I haven't included 617 Squadron, got something else in mind for them.

YES!!! And I believe I was the first of the lot to grab all of them . New life for my TSR2, and a fitting tribute to the real TSR2, despite her abilities to outclass everything that was in service at the time, she never got a shot at the real world.

Thanks Andy and Matt! You've made this TSR2 driver very happy. :salute:

BB686:USA-flag:

[Matt Wynn]

enjoy her guys, plenty of schemes to pick and choose from

was a pleasure working alongside Andy on this one, from my initial paintkit to the final 35 schemes... now we just need a new FDE something that'll outpace a lightning on just 1 afterburner/reheat lit, and yeah... she did that!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXdJxjvQZW4

so next time you want some get up and go, if you have the TSR.2.... perfect!...

[T Square]

Thank You Andy, Great packages. :salute:

[Tom Burnside]

Will there be a pack with modern RAF textures.

[SPman]

Will there be a pack with modern RAF textures.

Surely she would have been phased out by now........

[NAMBUS]

Thank you very much guys.
Excellent work.

[ian elliot]

I dont actually have this model, so i thought i'd look to see if its for sale anywhere, and it looks Virtavia have pulled it. oh well i guess i'll just have to wait.
cheers ian

[Matt Wynn]

someone said Modern.... Tornado isn't much younger (early 70's if i recall) and she's still active... but what if Tornado hadn't been chosen, instead upping the TSR.2 to GR.4 specification?

Attachment 91816

...still massively WIP...

.... General rule to the packs is; if it's RAF it's Andy, if it's Other... it's likely me (except Indian, Andy did the camo and I did the recce)

[T Square]

Surely she would have been phased out by now........

We use to say that about the B-52, when they started talking about B-1s and B-2s but the old Buff is still hangin' tough.

[Matt Wynn]

so, me and my 'Wazzo' (W/SO - Weapons Systems Operator) decided to take the new girl for a spin... (i've still yet to pick a registration), we took off from Lossie and headed South at a reasonable altitude...





...Everything was in Order until we reached our stop at Leuchars to strip off the Ordnance when a visiting LTF T.5 decided he was going to join us....



...getting onto the Radio i kindly asked him to move in a bit closer and take a photo for my scrapbook.... which he graciously did....



....After he took the photo he was Bingo so had to head back to Leuchars, my photo will be sent to Squadron HQ ... i carried on and landed her safely at Warton (allbeit a little wobbly... damn winds off the Irish Sea mixing with Atlantic winds!) :salute:

[AndyG43]

"i've still yet to pick a registration...."

Matt, the serials ran XR219-XR227 (the initial prototypes), XS660-670 (the development batch) and XS944-995; I also added XT293-XT410 (which were actually Shelduck serials) and XV884-XV947, which were actually the serials allocated for the F-111K ordered after TSR2's cancellation.

T-Square, SPMan and others. Re. the lack of 'modern' repaints, the schemes I've chosen work to an internal logic which would have seen her largely out of service by now & replaced by .... well, who knows, the whole ball game would have been changed; after all, her contemporaries, the F-111, Buccaneer, A-6 Intruder etc, are all sadly long gone now. Bit anorakky I know, but I plan to add these into my retro setups along with a few other aircraft types in surprising schemes! Matt's the man to speak to, as he's the man with the paint kit.

Ian, I didn't realise until yesterday evening that this isn't in the current Virtavia offering; it was a few months back, as I saw it on Simmarket when picking up the Sea Vixen, so it's only recently been dropped - maybe Frank can find out what Phil's plans are for her.

[andersel]

I, too, have been looking around the usual payware sites to see if an FS9 version is available somewhere.

It's not.

Any scuttlebutt on a freeware release by the good folks over at Virtavia?

LA

[padburgess]

Great to see. I have this lovely bird, but alas she does not like FSX that well. The hud doesn't want to work and gives a black square in the screen.
I flew a "somewhat" realistic mission in FS9 with her. Three external tanks plus internal recce pack. Left Athens for the Black Sea via the Dardanelles, Istanbul then topped off the tanks 200km into the Black Sea and then low level (200' asl) across the Black Sea to Rostov-on-Don. Took some piccies then hard left turn and up to Kharkov for more snaps. Turn slightly left again and low level across the steppes to Minsk and on to Copenhagen. Approximately 3250km at mostly 200' agl or sometimes lower.
This was what she was designed for and she was supremely capable of doing just that. A similar mission with a 2000lb weapons load (nuke) could have been flown from Athens to Helsinki via Moscow. No wonder the British Labour Govt got rid of her. There was no way the Soviets were going to let the RAF have this plane.

[Blackbird686]

And... like the "Buff", she wears the modern scheme very well. Had the RAF decided to use the venerable TSR.2, I believe she would still be in service today. Given a few cockpit and avionics mods here and there.

BB686:USA-flag:

[Dev One]

Having spent 3 years of my life as part of the Weybridge design team on the beast ( I nicknamed it the Preying Mantis) its a real pity that she never saw service. It was though just at the wrong time for development of the electronics which took up all of the two bays behind the cockpit - I suspect an ipad mini would now do all of the work!
Keith

[harrybasset]

Thank you very much for this work Andy and Matt. My original purchase from Alphasim works quite well in FSX but I am sure I have seen a thread to get better results but can't find such a thread now.

[Desert Rat]

Thanks very much guys, looking AWESOME (I know I'm to old to use that word, but my son likes 'Kung Fu Panda', what can I say?)

to get them.

Ta much,Jamie

[Dev One]

Just a thought on its simple beauty........Where would one put all the modern sensors (warts etc) that make up current aircraft warning & self defense systems - Infra Red, UV missile sensors, Flare & Chaff dispensers, decoy targets......Jammers etc.....
Keith

[Matt Wynn]

one possibility would be like Typhoon with its DASS pods, RWR in the fin wouldn't detract from it's beauty either.... but things like IR Designators... well i suppose you'd have to get centreline/45 to centreline pylons to mount things like that (Raptor Pod etc...)