Cancelled: BritainÂ’s High-Mach Heartbreak The TSR-2 bomber was a case of aeronautical genius foiled by political foolishness. For an American teenager, 1963 was a great year to be living in London. Thanks to my dadÂ’s job in international marketing, I was a Beatles fan six months before my pals back home knew there was such a thing as a Beatle. And as a budding airplane buff, I had a front-row seat for the emergence of another symbol of British national pride: the TSR-2 supersonic bomber, a twin-engine, low-level hotshot that I thought was the coolest-looking airplane ever. Shivering in my...