The Canceled British Aircraft that Cost the UK Industry

I bet you thought you were going to be reading about the BAC TSR.2 when you came across the title of today's post, but while there's no arguing the effects that the TSR.2 cancellation had on the British aerospace industry, there was a canceled aircraft that came before the TSR.2 that some have argued cost British industry far more than could ever have been imagined. In 1951 the government had issued a specification for a new long range strategic transport that would be able to move 120 troops long distances to replace the elderly piston-powered Handley Page Hastings. It was envisioned that this new transport could also move personnel and equipment rapidly around the world and deploy as necessary with the new V-force bombers that were soon to enter service with the Royal Air Force. The main condition of the specification was that it had be based on existing design. 

Five companies submitted proposals, with Bristol submitting a version of the Britannia turboprop transport, Saunders Roe submitting a variant of their Duchess flying boat, and Handley Page, Avro, Vickers, and Short submitting transports based on their bomber designs (Victor, Vulcan, Valiant, and Sperrin, respectively) and powered by the new Rolls-Royce Conway turbofan. De Havilland submitted a stretched version of its Comet 1 jetliner. Bristol's Britannia variant was eliminated early due to it being too slow, along with Saunders Roe's flying boat. The Sperrin was next eliminated as the transport version had a fuselage only 9 feet wide with accommodation for only 50 passengers or personnel. Handley Page and Avro's submissions were judged too risky for the RAF contract, leaving only Vickers and De Havilland as the remaining designs not eliminated.

It was realized early on after Vickers was named the winner of the RAF competition that what the RAF needed was not terribly dissimilar with BOAC's need for a long range jetliner that offered more capacity and range than the De Havilland Comet 1. The original specifications that Vickers won was then amended with the requirement that the jet transport also earn a certificate of airworthiness from the civil aviation authorities. With the new amended specifications in place, an order was placed with Vickers for the V1000 prototype aircraft, serial number XD662, in March 1953. 

The V1000 would be the RAF transport version and the anticipated civilian version was the VC7. With construction of the V1000 prototype underway in the summer of 1954, the RAF ordered six aircraft with an eventual requirement of twelve aircraft. BOAC was regularly consulted through this phase as they wanted to put the VC7 on the North Atlantic routes to Canada and the United States as well as on the longer Empire routes that couldn't be served by the Comet 1 jetliner. Besides BOAC, Trans Canada Airlines (Air Canada's predecessor) and Pan American showed significant interest in the VC7. Even BEA expressed an interest in the VC7 for its longer European services.

To meet BOAC's wishes, the V1000/VC7 was a bit larger than the RAF desired, mainly out of a need for the wing fuel capacity to meet BOAC's range requirements. Four Rolls-Royce Conway engines were mounted in the wing root similarly to the Vickers Valiant only the wing was larger and more swept with Kuchemann wingtips (similar to the 707-320BAdv and 707-320C's wingtips) and low mounted. The fuselage had six-abreast seating with a 12.5 foot diameter. This was significant at the time, as Boeing was wrestling with the cabin diameter on its anticipated Boeing 707 and Douglas at the time was still contemplating five-abreast seating for its coming DC-8. Unfortunately prototype construction at Vickers' Wisley facility showed that the V1000 prototype's weight would be about 18,000 lbs higher than planned.

It would have been a simple matter to have upgraded the Conway turbofans, but for whatever reason, BOAC's enthusiasm for the VC7 cooled as the planned weight with the intended engine would rule out London-New York nonstop services. Ironically, several years later when BOAC ordered the 707-430, it would have Conway turbofan engines that were upgraded that would have worked on the VC7! Government meetings in September 1955 formalized BOAC's disinterest in the VC7 and suggestions were made that De Havilland put forth a stretched version of the Comet as well as refinements to the Bristol Britannia as being suitable for BOAC's needs. In addition, BOAC looked further ahead to the mid-1960s for a possible supersonic transport. Despite BOAC's incomprehensible stance, Vickers anticipated the V1000 prototype's first flight in June 1956 with the first production aircraft flying in 1959 with inaugural airline services in late 1959/early 1960 (not too far off from when the Boeing 707 began its passenger services). In a bid to maintain the competitiveness of the VC7, Vickers explored other engine options and even looked at a version of the VC7 with each of the Conway turbofans in its own podded nacelle under the wing, not unlike that of the 707 and DC-8's layout.

By this point the RAF was entering a period of fiscal austerity and it's most expensive item to date was the V1000/VC7 project. Without mentioning the V1000/VC7, the British government cautioned the RAF to scale back its expenditures. Politics came into the picture with the prospect of the end of Comet production which would have affected one of the Comet's main subcontractors, Shorts in Belfast. A desire to keep Shorts busy shifted the support amongst some MPs in Parliament against the Vickers jetliner. In addition, the Britannia was having teething problems with its turboprop engines and was selling slow. Some ministers in the government felt that support should be given to the Britannia program instead of embarking on the all-new Vickers jetliner. 

Some historical accounts point the finger at BOAC for planning to procure US jets from the start and with the support of some in the government, did what it could to commit formally to the VC7. A spirited debate in Parliament dragged on for weeks with the supporters of the Vickers projects openly declaring that the VC7's cancellation would "give the large jet market to the Americans for the next 20 years". Rather obtusely, several government officials proclaimed that the planned performance of the Boeing 707 and DC-8 would make them cost-prohibitive for many of the world's airlines and the speed advantage over the Comet and Britannia would not matter to most passengers! With the V1000 prototype 75% complete, the project was ordered shut down by the British government on 11 November 1955, and this was despite intensive lobbying by Trans Canada Airlines. 

For many observers, it was the cancellation of the Vickers VC7 and not the TSR.2 where the British aerospace industry lost its way. Sir George Edwards, managing director of Vickers and the chief designer of the V1000/VC7, had lamented that BOAC and the government had simply handed over the lead in jetliner technology to the Americans for "generations to come."

Source: Stuck on the Drawing Board: Unbuilt British Commercial Aircraft Since 1945 by Richard Payne. Tempus Publishing, 2004, p38-42

The Barnes Wallis Swallow

As the Second World War began to wind down, renowed British aircraft designer Barnes Wallis started investigating the challenges of supersonic flight and concluded early on that a variable geometry swing wing was the best way to accommodate the center of gravity changes in moving between the subsonic and supersonic regimes. In 1946 he wrote an engineering paper entitled "The Application of the Aerodynamic Properties to the Stabilisation and Control of Aerodynes" (quite a mouthful) in which he combined his ideas on swing wings with laminar flow studies. Starting out with small hand launched models, Barnes Wallis gradually moved up to larger versions that were launched for a catapult at 100mph. His models had slender, ovoid fuselages with swing wings mounted far to the aft and a single highly swept fin. With the end of the war, the British government was eager to regain research ground lost to the Americans and Vickers was awarded a contract of a half-million pounds to study supersonic flight. With the cancellation of the Miles M.52 supersonic research aircraft, some of Vickers' money was reallocated to Barnes Wallis' project which was given the code name Wild Goose.

The Wild Goose project ran to 1954 and it used progressively larger radio controlled models based on Barnes Wallis' designs. The later models had provisions for rocket engines in the fuselage and the RAF took notice, considering the Wild Goose design as the basis of a long range surface-to-air missile to intercept Soviet bombers before they reached UK airspace. Wild Goose ended in 1954 but the research data acquired went over to a classified project known as Green Lizard. This project called for a compact missile fired from a storable tube with flip out wings for which Barnes Wallis supersonic design work was applicable. Green Lizard was envisioned as both a surface-to-surface missile that could dispense submunitions or a surface-to-air missile powered by turbojet engines for the long range interception of Soviet bombers. It's not known exactly when the Green Lizard project was terminated, but it may have run in parallel to the Wild Goose project.

As the database on his designs grew, Barnes Wallis then moved into a manned aircraft applications of his swing-wing designs. Small aircraft builder Heston Aircraft was a subcontractor on the Wild Goose project and Wallis worked with Heston to build a small flying demonstrator designated JC.9. With a single seat, retractable tricycle undercarriage and 46 feet in length, the JC.9 was planned to fly first as a glider, then have an turbojet engine installed for powered trials. The JC.9 was then shipped in sections to the Vickers Weybridge facility for final assembly, but for reasons unknown, it remained disassembled until scrapped.

By 1954 Barnes Wallis began thinking even bigger, adapting his unique swing wing design to a supersonic intercontinental range aircraft. The RAF had issued OR.330 (Operational Requirement 330) that called for high flying supersonic bomber/reconnaissance aircraft. Although not responsible for Vickers' submission for OR.330, Wallis adapted his design to meet the stringent requirements, coming up with a sleek arrowhead shaped tailless aircraft with slender swing wings pivoted at the aft end of the fuselage. Pod-mounted engines pivoted on the tips of the swing wings and also provided some directional control. Calling his revolutionary design the Swallow, small scale models were tested in Vickers' wind tunnels with encouraging results. Scale flying models of the Swallow powered by rocket engines easily attained Mach 2.5 in flight tests. While the Swallow wasn't selected for OR.330, the RAF was sufficiently interested to continue funding Wallis' work towards a scaled-down flying demonstrator called the Research Swallow that could be readily adapted for military roles. Versions of the Research Swallow were submitted to the RAF and Royal Navy as a supersonic strike fighter.

The most impressive would have been the bomber version of the Swallow and a supersonic military transport. The Swallow bomber would have been approximately the size of the B-1 bomber with 4-5 crew, a cruising speed of Mach 2 and a range of 5,000 miles carrying a single Red Beard nuclear bomb. The military transport was even larger with a civilian airliner version that could have carried 60 passengers between the UK and Australia nonstop. Development work on the bomber and transport versions of the Swallow was estimated at 10 years, but the infamous 1957 Defence White Paper of Duncan Sandys that stated the era of manned military aircraft was being eclipsed by missiles ended funding for the Swallow.

As consolation, Barnes Wallis was allowed to meet with the American Mutual Weapons Development Program to see if the United States was interested in his extensive work. Exchange visits were conducted between Wallis' facility at Vickers and Wallis himself led several teams to the United States to meet with NASA's Langley research facility. A six month joint UK-US development program was conducted at NASA Langley to further refine Wallis' work. By June 1959, NASA's extensive testing uncovered pitch up problems in certain flight regimes as well as higher than expected drag. This effectively killed off the Swallow as an aircraft design, but NASA found the body of work still applicable to a more conventional tailed swing design. This design would eventually evolve into the world's first production swing-wing combat aircraft, the General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark.

Source: Secret Projects: Flying Wings and Tailless Aircraft by Bill Rose. Midland Publishing/Ian Allan, 2010, p27-31.

It was a moment that not even Boeing, Douglas, or Lockheed could have envisioned taking place. In June 1955 in one of Capital Airlines' hangars at Washington National Airport, Patricia Nixon, wife of the US vice-president Richard Nixon, christened Capital's first Vickers Viscount, N7402 as Capital's president, Slim Carmichael and an enthusiastic crowd of dignitaries and employees looked on. In 1955 Capital was already an industry leader despite being only the fifth largest airline in the United States. It was the first airline to introduce low-fare no-frills services to the United States with its nightly "Air Coach" services that started in 1947, flying aircraft that otherwise would have sat unused at night waiting for the daytime regular full-fare services.

The introduction of the Viscount on Capital's network on 26 July 1955 between Washington DC and Chicago marked the first US scheduled turbine passenger services and it was on an aircraft that wasn't built in Seattle, Long Beach, or Burbank. Vickers pulled off a sensational coup with the Capital sale and at the time, the order for sixty Viscounts represented the largest single post-war dollar sale for Great Britain, worth $67 million. BEA was even talked into giving three early delivery spots to allow Capital to the first to operate turbine services in the United States with the Viscount. BEA and Vickers invested heavily in getting Capital prepared to operate the Viscount.

Fortunately for Vickers, the changes needed to get US certification for the Viscount had already been accomplished in getting the order for Trans-Canada Airlines the year before. While there were still modifications needed to meet US certification and Capital's own requirements, the majority of the work had already been done to meet TCA's requirements and that of Canadian certification.

But it would all come crashing down for Capital only six years later. Three factors would lead Capital to financial ruin and eventual merger with United Air Lines in 1961, but none of them were attributable (contrary to popular belief) to the performance of the Viscount itself. The first one was that Capital's route network consisted of many smaller communities and routes that were too short to be economical for the Viscount. Secondly, increasing competition from airlines like United that were introducing pure jets on the same longer range routes that were ideal for Capital's Viscounts resulted in their planes being flown faster to try to match the block times of the jets. As a result, maintenance costs on the aircraft and particularly the engines, increased dramatically as the aircraft were being pushed harder. Adding to the airline's woes were the crashes of four Viscounts between 1958 and 1960 that brought press attention to the airline's problems.

By 1960 Capital owed Vickers $34 million in outstanding payments on the Viscounts and they had to go to US court to file suit. Vickers was persuaded to take back 15 of the Viscounts while Capital came up with a restructuring plan that centered around ordering modern jet equipment in the form of the De Havilland Comet 4B while they successfully petitioned the Civil Aeronautics Board to gain more nonstop route authorities in their network and drop some of the more unprofitable destinations.

Unfortunately it was too little too late as Capital's large 1954 order for sixty Viscounts resulted in increasing interest payments that left the airline little financial flexibility. However, stoked by the press, the general public gained the impression that it was the Viscount itself that was causing Capital's problems when in fact their Viscounts were operating at an 80 percent load factor compared to 58% for the other types in the fleet. Break even on the Viscount for Capital was only 52%, so the aircraft was clearly a money maker for Capital, but it wasn't enough to stave off the large growing debt obligations from the large sixty aircraft order. On 1 July 1961 Capital's operations were merged into that of United Air Lines, but in a show of the aircraft's soundness, United retained the Viscounts in its fleet and even recalled some of the aircraft that Capital had returned to Vickers.
Source: Vickers Viscount and Vanguard by Malcolm L. Hill. Crowood Press Ltd, 2004, p40-48, 97-99.

In 1960 the British aircraft manufacturer Vickers gave an extensive contract proposal to Pan American World Airways on a custom-tailored version of the VC-10 airliner for the airline's centerpiece trans-Atlantic routes. Pan American was in need of a prestige jetliner for its transcontinental and Pacific routes as well. What was needed was a 200-seat jetliner with nonstop capability across the Atlantic in all but the most severe winter conditions.

With an American-designed interior (by Butler of New York), the Pan American VC-10 featured a developed version of the Rolls-Royce Conway engine with 24,000 lbs of thrust designated the Conway 7 as well as prominent leading edge root extensions on the wings that housed more fuel as well as increasing the wing area. Wingtip fuel tanks were also a part of the design for a total fuel capacity of over 24,000 US gallons. An underfloor compartment could be used as a passenger lounge or a crew rest area and, in a prescient move, Vickers developed a two-crew flight deck using cathode-ray tube displays in one of the first proposals for a glass cockpit. There was a third crew member in the flight deck referred to in Vickers' proposal as an "engineering and systems manager".

Also part of the proposal was an all-cargo version of the VC-10 that featured straight-in loading via a swing nose developed for the unbuilt VC-10 F4 freighter. A roller-bearing loading floor would ease the loading of palletized cargo long before palletized cargo became a reality.

Although the negotiations never bore fruit, it was considered very serious business by Vickers as a copy of the proposed contract is in the Vickers archive at the Brooklands. It was a proposal ahead of its time, a fleet of highly efficient passenger and cargo variants that would have provided a common fleet without having two totally different aircraft types.

Source: Vickers VC-10 by Lance Cole (Crowood Aviation Series). The Crowood Press, 2000, p93-95.