In terms of dates, yes, I'm generalising a bit. In particular, for space and missiles it was perhaps a decade or so later overall than from aircraft - from the mid-1950s until the early 1970s, rather than 1945-1964. I used 1964 as an endpoint because of the huge spending review that cut so many major projects at the time, but when you look at them most were ripe for the chop:
P.1154 - Mach 2 VTOL multi-role fighter literally decades ahead of its time (it's proving enough fun making the F-35 work now). It could never have worked and the decision to convert the subsonic technology demonstrator P.1127 into the Harrier was very much a better option.
HS.681 - V/STOL tactical airlifter? As Hamilton-Paterson notes, someone had been watching too much Gerry Anderson (although again the dates are wrong; perhaps someone had been reading too much Dan Dare). 46 years later and the V-22 is the closest we're likely to get to this, and that's had the development history from Hell.
As for the TSR.2's avionics, yes, they used discrete component solid-state components, but in comparison with later IC-based systems they would have required a lot of maintenance. Indeed the RAF expected this, and the technical training system set up in the early 1960s anticipated the sheer complexity of the TSR.2. One of my instructors when I did my RAF engineer officer course had himself been an apprentice then, and had done a five year apprenticeship from which he'd graduated as an instant sergeant; this was apparently a special elite scheme set up expressly with the intent of providing crew chiefs to coordinate the vast amount of in-depth maintenance that the TSR.2 was expected to require. As it happened by the time such sophisticated avionics did enter service, on the Jaguar and then Tornado, it used modularised line-replaceable units, with much squadron-based maintenance consisting of box-swapping. Indeed, not long before I left the RAF it abolished the rank of junior technician, on the basis that there was no justification for having a specialist technical rank at that level any more.
no subject
P.1154 - Mach 2 VTOL multi-role fighter literally decades ahead of its time (it's proving enough fun making the F-35 work now). It could never have worked and the decision to convert the subsonic technology demonstrator P.1127 into the Harrier was very much a better option.
HS.681 - V/STOL tactical airlifter? As Hamilton-Paterson notes, someone had been watching too much Gerry Anderson (although again the dates are wrong; perhaps someone had been reading too much Dan Dare). 46 years later and the V-22 is the closest we're likely to get to this, and that's had the development history from Hell.
As for the TSR.2's avionics, yes, they used discrete component solid-state components, but in comparison with later IC-based systems they would have required a lot of maintenance. Indeed the RAF expected this, and the technical training system set up in the early 1960s anticipated the sheer complexity of the TSR.2. One of my instructors when I did my RAF engineer officer course had himself been an apprentice then, and had done a five year apprenticeship from which he'd graduated as an instant sergeant; this was apparently a special elite scheme set up expressly with the intent of providing crew chiefs to coordinate the vast amount of in-depth maintenance that the TSR.2 was expected to require. As it happened by the time such sophisticated avionics did enter service, on the Jaguar and then Tornado, it used modularised line-replaceable units, with much squadron-based maintenance consisting of box-swapping. Indeed, not long before I left the RAF it abolished the rank of junior technician, on the basis that there was no justification for having a specialist technical rank at that level any more.