Epilogue
Almost six months after the cancellation of the most sophisticated military aircraft ever built, Alex Swan sat next to Arthur Gable as his ex-Scotland Yard colleague negotiated the Sapphire through Hyde Park Lane. Swan’s left arm was in a sling, following a scuffle with a large deerhound encountered while the two men had entered a private residence which had revealed a covert safe house for Soviet agents. Gable had been lucky, managing to climb onto a wall to avoid the dog after Swan had spotted it bounding towards him. Swan had helped Gable up to safety, however, the animal had flung itself at him as he raised his arm to protect himself, and was wrestled to the ground. Gable was left with only one option: Knowing that Swan could have been more badly hurt or even killed by the beast, he had taken out his revolver and pulled the trigger.
The car radio was on and being midday, it was time for the news. They both listened attentively to the broadcast, but it was the second item that caught their interest.
‘Earlier this morning the first American GK FB-X aircraft was delivered to RAF Pembridge to commence a series of operational evaluation trials. The FB- X has been selected as the primary strike and reconnaissance aircraft, following the cancellation last year of the BR-101 known more commonly as the Silver Angel.
The FB-X is due to enter service with the RAF next year, although there has been some speculation from military advisors whether the aircraft will be able to fulfil all the roles of the original official Air Ministry requirement.
The FB-X has also been purchased by Australia. The first BR-101 prototype and the only one to fly was transported to a weapons range in Essex, where it still languishes in a dilapidated state as a gunnery target and armaments test platform. The second prototype aircraft is currently at RAF Wenlow, and will not be repaired after being damaged in a transport accident. It is not known as to what will be the fate of this particular aircraft.
On cancellation of the project, the wooden mock up and all remaining uncompleted airframes and assembly jigs at Brinton Aviation, were dismantled and blueprints and technical spec drawings were ordered destroyed by the Air Ministry. Brinton Aviation was purchased at the beginning of the year in a takeover deal by American aircraft manufacturer, GK Systems Incorporated. However the BRE-303A engine that was the power plant for the BR-101, is currently being evaluated for the Anglo-French Supersonic Airliner programme.
In other news, England football team manager Alf Ramsey will be shortly naming his squad for this year’s World Cu-.’
Swan turned off the radio. ‘Well, there you have it Arthur. The Yanks got their way after all.’
‘Sacrilege, sir. That’s all I can say. This is a final nail in the coffin of our own aircraft industry I reckon.’
Swan nodded, staring out of the side window. ‘I quite agree with old Hammer. I can’t see this country ever producing another military aircraft on this scale again without the collaboration of other countries.’
The two men sat in silence and Swan gazed through the windscreen up at the statue of Admiral Nelson, as Gable brought the Sapphire around Trafalgar Square heading towards Whitehall.
Later that year at RAF Wenlow, Rapier P-Two sat forlorn, set up on supportive hydraulic braces. A Warrant Officer in overalls stood before a team of apprentices. To his right, stood a man explaining the avionics that were on full display within the open panel on the side of the aircraft.
Larry Smith had been pleased, when at the final hour following the decision to scrap all existing Rapier airframes had been given, two of them had been saved. The ex-Brinton Aviation technician now stood next to airframe no XR440, in full lecture mode with his students, pointing out the different areas and demonstrating the viewing panels for each. ‘Here is the TACAN, or Tactical Air Navigation System control, which would have been able to be placed to two settings: Low level and Altitude. The SLAR which stands for Sideways Looking Airborne Radar is here. This could have been either manually set, or integrated as part of the automatic system.’ Larry continued for another hour, going over every part of the beautiful piece of machinery that was centre stage amongst the other aircraft in the teaching hangar. In a way, although he still had managed to remain with the Silver Angel, he felt sad each time he had to add all the what may have been comments to his instruction. Despite all the disappointment that he had experienced since leaving Brinton’s, he would later be jubilant to hear that as well as XR440, another partially built aircraft, the XR442, had been earmarked for use as another instructional airframe.
For another eight years, they would each continue to be used for ground instruction, until the time came for their retirement from the RAF technical training circuit. From then on, both airframes were earmarked to become respective museum pieces and generations to come would have the opportunity to add their own personal views, opinions and dreams as they stood and stared in awe and appreciation at what would turn out to be the swansong of the British military aviation industry.
Acknowledgements
This piece of historic fiction would not have been possible without the essential reference gathered from a variety of sources such as other novels of the genre and period, magazines, newspaper archives and TV programmes in which there are so many, that I regret that I am unable to list all by name.
However, there is one source that I feel that I should express my sincere gratitude to and that is for the excellent account written by Frank Barnett-Jones: TSR- 2 Phoenix or Folly? (GMS Enterprises 1998).
During the writing of this novel, Frank’s book was to be my bible, as I flicked back and forth through the chapters covering both the engineering and the political properties of this remarkable aircraft.