[rjsw]

Apparently, a comment on the TSR-2 [1] was that it was too heavy. The problem was that the manufacturer misinterpreted this and instead of just going away and designing a smaller aircraft they spent a lot of money trying to make the existing one lighter.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAC_TSR-2

[tengwar2]

It's not exactly practical to throw away a design and start on completely different aircraft! Also consider that the size was fixed by the fuel requirements and the wavelength of the sideways-looking radar. The second point was a dominant consideration in the earlier competition which led to the Avro 730 selection.