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Avro/ Howker Siddeley 748Many was the manufacturer who tried theirhand at a DC-3 replacement. Of course,nothing ever truly succeeded the Douglasclassic, but the 748 did better than many.

It started as an Avro product, the firstAvro 748 Series I (G-APZV shown herewith second prototype G-ARAY) flyingon 24 June I 960, and service entry soonfollowed with Skyways. Productionswitched in 196 I to the Series 2, and

that was when the twin Rolls-RoyceDart-engined turboprop regional

airliner really'took off '. Knownfrom 1963 onwards as the HS748,

and still later as the BAe 748, 380ended up being produced both inBritain and by HAL in lndia. lts mostsuccessful derivative was of coursethe Andover, with its 'kneeling'

undercarriage and re-designed rearfuselage incorporating a loadingramp, of which 37 were built.Today, the 748 can still be foundin service in small numbers withvarious operators worldwide,mainly as a freighter, continuingthe life of this unassuming Britishsuccess scory.

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Hqwker Siddeley TridenlThat just I I TTridents were produced as against 1,832 Boeing 727stells you all you need to know. British European Airways wanted a

1O0-seat airliner capable of over 600mph, and chose de Havilland'sDH l2l design powered by the Rolls-Royce Medway. But then BEAdecided it was too large, and the Trident design was 'downsized'to 79 seats,while the Medway engine was cancelled and Speys

used instead. lt took to the air in January 1962,ayear before the727,but the larger Boeing design had already stolen a march interms of sales and theTrident would never catch up.This was in

spite of successively improved, enlarged and longer-range versionsbeing produced, culminating in the I 80-seatTrident 3 as depictedhere by G-AWZB.TheTrident was never the best performeron take-off,the latter variant requiring a tail-mounted auxiliaryRB I 62 turbojet to augment the Speys, which were not the quietestpowerplants around - it thus came as no surprise when tighternoise regulations forced British Airways to retire its fleet in 1985.

A fondly-remembered aircraft, then, and one which made history in

November I966 when aTrident performed the first fully-automatic

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'blind' landing by an airliner, but also one thar neverachieved its potential.

Howker Siddeley HSt 25de Havilland, long purveyors of fine'gentlemanl aerial carriages', came earlyto the burgeoning business jet market. ltcame up with the DH 125, flown inaugurallyin August 1962,and it is a testament tothe excellence of that original design thatthe aircraft remains in production today,looking much the same as the original.The first major change came with thestretched HS 125 Series 600, while the-700, introduced in I 976, replaced thetype's Rolls-RoyceViper engines withHoneywellTFET3 ls, variants of which haveequipped it ever since. British Aerospacecontinued its development, initially withthe re-designed I 25-800 boasting a glass

cockpit, and then the longer-range - I 000.Keen even then to start getting out ofthe civil business, BAe sold its CorporateJets division to Raytheon in l993,whichstarted offering the 125 under the Hawkerbanner, and transferred final assemblyto Wichita, Kansas, during l995.Today,Hawker Beechcraft offers the 750,850XPand 900XP as its current productionrange. Can the 125 family be describedas Britain's most successful post-warcivil productsfThis elegant type has an

excellent case.

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Vickers VCI O

Yet another of the post-war British airliner'what might have beens', theVC l0came about aftervickers suffered the cancellation of its four-jetvl000. lt waslaunched in 1958 with the intention of offering excellent airfield performancefor'hot and high' operations, British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC)having already ordered the Boeing 707 which was nor really suitabre for suchoperations.The government of rhe day pressured BoAC into ordering 25 vc I 0s,and there followed a great deal of wrangling between the two parties and themanufacturer, all of which effectively killed off the type's wider sales chances.The first prototype of what became known as the StandardVCl0 flew in Junel962,the stretched SuperVCl0 foltowing up in May 1964,a couple of weel<safter BoAC had put the Standard aircraft into commercial service. lt eventuallypurchased just I 2 Standards and I 7 Supers, the last of which were retired byBritish Airways in 198 l.Total VC l0 production amounted to just 54, althoughthis elegant, quiet, comfortable and rapid airliner surely deserved better.Its lengthy RAF service as a transport and tanker, continuing today, remainstestament to that. Shown here is the third Standard VC 10, G-ARVB, whichundertook many BOAC route proving flights.

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BAG One-ElevenAs British jet airliners went, theOne-Eleven was a notable sales

success.The British AircraftCorporation tool< quite a risl< in

starting the twin-let regional airlinerprogramme in 196 I with an order forl0 Series 200s from British UnitedAirways, but US carriers Braniffand Mohawk signed up for more ofthese 8O-seaters soon after, and thenAmerican Airlines chose the Series

400 with its uprated Spey engines in July 1963.

This was a month prior to the maiden flight,yet national carrier British European Airwaysstill wasn't on the order bool<.American wouldremain the largest single customer, talcing 30,

while BEA waited until the stretched I l9-seatSeries 500 became available in 1967 to buy thetype. Production (including those licence-built by

ROMBAC in Romania) ended at 244 units.The proposed Series 700 and 800 versions, thelatter powered by CFM56 turbofans, never leftthe drawing board, while a proSramme tore-engine One-Elevens with the Rolls-RoyceTay

failed to get beyond the test flying stage.All ofthese could have prolonged the One-Eleven's

life; as it is, just a few remain airworthy, mostly in

executive configuration. Shown is a Series 409AY(G-AXBB) of British lsland Airways.

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BAC TSR2

Few other - in fact, no other - British aircraft that never entered productionwould achieve such symbolic status as theTSR2.That symbolism was a result of itscancellation by Harold Wilsoni government, a decision bemoaned to this day.Thestory of why this Mach 2 Bristol Siddeley Olympus-engined strike aircrafr ended upbeing canned is a decidedly complex one, it having been created jointly byVicl<ers andEnglish Electric, combined into BAC in I 960, to meet what was in effect a Canberrareplacement requirement.The design and development process, though, proved lessthan harmonious, and the ever-increasing costs of what was a very advanced aircraftbecame a matter of some concern. Nonetheless,the first prototype flew in SeptemberI 964, and in spite of some teething troubles all agreed that its flying characterisricswere outstanding.The cloud on the horizon,though,was the General Dynamics F-ll l,in favour of which the TSR2 was abruptly cancelled on cost grounds in April 1965.

Of course,the F-l I I deal never came to fruition either, leaving the RAF to operateBuccaneers and Phantoms - both of which, it must be said, served very well. Butwould theTSR2 have been betterl

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Britlen-NormonBN-2 lslonderIt would appear that theonly aircraft that can

replace an lslander is...

well, another lslander.The longevity of this early1960s design by John Brirten

and Desmond Norman'scompany has provedoutstanding - the basiclslander design has changedlittle since the first prototype

(it and the second aircraft are pictured),which took to the air in June 1965,

although today's aircraft are significantlyenhanced. lt has also proved supremelyadaptable, the long list of individualderivatives including the military Defender(itself available in several versions over theyears) and the three-engined Trislander.Popular for such diverse roles as policework and island-hopping passengerflights, the lslander and sub-types have

notched up a production run of over| ,200, in spite of the Britten-Norman firmchanging hands several times. Certainly,it represents one of the biggest Britishaviation successes since the war.

Hondley Poge/Scotlish Aviqtion /BAe JetstreomIt's often forgotten that the Jetstream, of which 458 werebuilt (and that excludes the 4 I version and the unrelated,except by name, 6l) beat theViscount's production runto became Britain's most successful turboprop airliner. ltall began when Handley Page decided to develop a small,I 2-seat, twin-turboprop commuter airliner, the jetstreamI taking to the air duringAugust l967.Alas, troubles withthe Turbomeca Astazou engines, cancellation of a USAForder, rising costs and delivery delays all contributed toHandley Page going bankrupt, and production ceasing inI 970. Scottish Aviation took the Jetstream on, notablyattracting orders from the RAF and Royal Navy. But it tool<Scottish Aviation's own banl<ruptcy and subsequent mergerinto BAe in 1978 to really make the most of the design, the

Jetstream 3 I /32 series (with I 8 seats and Garrett TPE33 I

engines) racking up customers the world over. lt was a

fine achievement. G-WMCC, shown here, was in fact thefirst production Jetstream 3 I and later saw airline service

Howker Siddeley NimrodThe worldt first four-let maritime patrol aircraft, the Nimrod wasdesigned in 1964 to meet an RAF requirement for a successor toits Avro Shackletons.Although based on the Comet 4 airliner, moreeconomical Rolls-Royce Spey turbofans were adopted, and the changes

to the airframe were of course substantial, incorporating a ventralweapons bay, MAD boom and fin-mounted radome.A maiden flightoccurred inM'ay 1967,and the RAF took on its first Nimrod MRI onI October l969.The upgraded MR2,as depicted,followedfrom |1977

onwards, and is still in RAF service, although increasingly used foroverland ISTAR duties as opposed to its originally-intended maritimerole. Other variants have enjoyed mixed success, the R I ELINT-gathering version having served since 1974, though the AEW3 airborneearly warning platform was cancelled ignominiously, and the newMRA4 has been plagued with problems and delays.

including with BA Express.

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Hqwker Siddeley HorrierHere is one of those outstanding aircraft that sums up'Best ofBritish'.The brief history of the Harrier is well-known, but bearsrepeating - it began as a technological exercise relating to a NATOclose support aircraft requirement, the Bristol Pegasus thrust-vectoring engine and the Hawker P I 127 devetopment aircraftproving the concept of a fixed-wingV/STOL fighter.The P I 127 madeits first tethered flight in October 1960. Following on from thatwas the Hawker Siddeley Kestrel, of which a small number wereevaluated by the RAE the USA and West Germany.At that time,the RAF was still intending to receive the supersonic Pl 154 tomeet its needs, but it was cancelled during early 1965, whereuponit was decided to develop the Kestrel for operational service.Adevelopment aircraft flew in August l966,and the initial productionHarrier GRI in December l967.When No I Squadron at RAFWittering received its first GR ls in July 1969, it made history as thefirst operational unit in the world to fly aV/STOL jet aircraft. l3l'first generation' Harriers were proCuced for the RAE culminatingin the GR3,whileMcDonnell Douglas

built it as the AV-8 forthe US Marine Corpsand the Spanish Navy.

This was far from theend of the Harrier line,

though, thanks to thevery different Harrierll family, which will be

featured next month.

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SEPECATJoguorOpinions on the

Jaguar changed

markedly duringits years ofservice with

the RAF.AI theoutset, many deemed it disappointing

- underpowered, slow and uninspiring.Whenits premature retirement came in 2007, its manyadvocates considered the'Jag' irreplaceable as a closesupport, tactical strike and tactical recce platform.Thisearly example ofAnglo-French aircraft developmentco-operation brought together Br6guet and BACin the SEPECAT consortium, formed in 1966, and

saw the inaugural flight of a prototype in September1968. Service entry with the French Air Forceand RAF came in 1973-74.The RAFi Jaguar forcebecame a potent Cold War asset, not least throughits dual conventional/nuclear capability, and remainedrelevant long afterwards - French and RAF Jaguarsfought valiantly in the Gulf conflict of 199 l, and wereinvolved for many years in ongoing operations overlraq and the Balkans. Four other nations purchased

Jaguars,with lndia and Oman continuing to operatethem today. Many believe, with much justification,that the RAF should still be amongst currentJaguaroperators, its'ultimate' GR3As having been highlycapable upgraded beasts.

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Beogle Pup/Scottish Aviqlion BulldogA rather odd aircraft to include, you might thinl<, but the Pup andBulldog represent the last major products of a famous name, Beagle.The Pup, the civilian aerobatic trainer/tourer, first flew in April 1967,and 176 were produced

- good going in a light aircraft market

dominated byAmerican-built types. However, Beagle itself was onlysurviving thanks to Government support, and when those funds werewithdrawn near the end of 1969 the company collapsed.The Bulldogmilitary trainer had flown that May, and was tal<en over by ScottishAviation. Early deals were all for export, headed by the Swedish AirForce, until the RAF decided to buy l3Q in 1972. Replacing the deHavilland Canada Chipmunk as a basic trainer, it became a mainstayof the UniversityAir Squadrons until retirement in favour of theGrob Tutor in 200 I .

A6rospoliqle/ BAC ConcordeHow to sum up the story of Concorde? lt was a taleof the highest highs and the lowest lows, from thegreat day in Toulouse on 2 March 1969 when prototype00 I tool< to the air, to 2000's tragedy in Paris and itsfinal retirement by British Airways in 2003. By far thehighest-profi le example of Anglo-French aerospaceco-operation, the Rolls-Royce Olympus-poweredsupersonic airliner once looked set for over I 00 orders,but gradually, as the 1970s oil crisis and other factorsintervened, they drifted away, leaving just the nationalcarriers of Britain and France to tal<e l4 Concordesbetween them.The early years of Concorde operations,after the simultaneous service entry with BA and AirFrance in January 1976, were difficult commercially, butit was greatly to BAi credit that it ended up turning a

profit on its Concorde services by the end of the I 980s.By then, it was well established as a true aeronauticalicon, unmatched in beauty and performance

- all ofwhich made July 2000's disaster at Gonesse, France,involving an AF aircraft all the more shocl<ing, despitethe type's excellent safety record until then. By the timeConcordes of both carriers were cleared to resumecommercial services in late 200 l, following safetymodifications, the airline world had changed thanks to'9l I l'. Load factors never reached their pre-accidentheights, and suddenly Concorde no longer seemed tomake commercial sense.Thatl as maybe, but part of themagic of aviation, and particularly civil aviation, still diedwhen Concorde landed for the final time.

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Wesllqnd Seo KingAlready a tried and tested design, being

a licence-produced Sikorsky 5-6 l, theWestland Sea King first flew and was firstdelivered to the Royal Navy 40 years ago,

having been selected to replace theWessexin the anti-submarine warfare role.Today,

the Sea King is nearing the end of its servicelife with the UK armed forces, the ASWversions having been phased out in favourof the Merlin (though some have been

converted for rescue and utility duties),

while the commando and ASaC (AirborneSearch and Control) examples are also due

for eventual replacement, and the RAF's

rescue Sea Kings will be superseded by

civilian-operated helicopters.Different variants have served

extremely well in all the majorconflicts in which Britishforces have participatedsince the Fall<lands, whileWestland-built Sea Kings

were purchased by theair arms of nine othercountries, and are still used

by all of them.The example

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Commando Ml<2 of theEgyptian Air Force.

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Westlqnd lynxAlthough it was developed in conjunction with A6rospatiale, the WG I 3 designwas conceived solely byWestland. Especially notable in that context was itssemi-rigid rotor, and combined with the Rolls-Royce Gem turboshaft enginethis helped deliver excellent performance

- the typek maiden ftight in March197 I by XW835, pictured, was followed during 1972 by the setting of severalnew helicopter speed records,while a modified example (with a more powerfulengine and advanced rotor blades) has remained the world's fastest helicoptersince ic established the new benchmark in l986.Always intended to replacethe British ArmyAir Corps' Scout anti-tank helicopters and the Royal Navy'santi-submarine Wasps, the Lynx began to do so in I 978, and remains in use withboth service branches,theArmy now using theAHT (as do the Royal Marines)and battlefield utilityAH9, and the Navy versions of the HAS3 and improvedHMA8.A consistently strong seller in its maritime form on the export market,especially when the upgraded Super Lynx became available, the advent of newversions means that the Lynx will be flying on for years to come.

Airbus A300Britain's early participation in theAirbusprogramme! first product was decidedlypatchy, although British involvement didprove crucial in shaping the design andbuilding the aircraft. France, Germanyand Britain were the three originalpartner nations in 1967, at whichtime the twin-let, wide-body 4300was intended to seat 300 passengers.

Then, the French and British voiced a

preference for a smaller aircraft, theconcept for which was presented byHawker Siddeley and Sud Aviation -this was the 250-seat 43008, whichbecame the production variant. But bythe timeAirbus lndustrie was set upin 1970, the Brits were no longer onboard, having pulled out a year earlier,apparently unhappy at the choice of theGeneral Electric CF6 engine. HawkerSiddeley, though, was still heavily involved,with a 20 per cent production stake. Sothere was a good deal of British contentin the first A300B to fly, which did soon 28 October 1972.Gradually, afteran uncertain start in the marketplace,Airbus started to be taken seriously as

a challenger to Boeing, all thanks to thefoundations laid by the,{300 programme.

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Pqnqviq TornqdoIt seems incredible that the Panavia consortium wasformed 40 years ago this year, a year in which the35th anniversary of the Multi-Role CombatAircraft(MRCA) prototype's maiden flight and 30 years

since initial Tornado deliveries are also marked.Atri-national (British, German and ltalian) consortiumfrom 1970, involving BAC, MBB and Aeritalia, Panavia

was tasked with producing a low-level interdictor/strike aircraft using variable-geometry wing sweep,the chosen design being a two-seater. Only the

UK desired an interceptor version of whatbecame theTornado.A German MRCAprototype was the first to fly,from ManchinginAugust 1974,and service entry oftheTornado IDS/GRl commenced five years

later, in which year theADV (Air DefenceVariant) for the RAF made its inauguralflight.Just under l,000Tornados of all

variants were built, concluding with an IDS

for the Royal Saudi Air Force in I 998, butthe type still has quite a long service lifein front of it in the strike and recce roles.The RAF's strikeTornados in particularhave been upgraded extensively sincethe Cold War and their subsequentinvolvement in'Desert Storm' and

the Balkans conflicts, now to GR4standard; by contrast, the air defenceF3s are due for retirement in 20 I I .

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Hqwker Siddeley/Brilish Aerospoce Howk2009 marks the 35th anniversary of the Hawk's maiden flight in August1974,and perhaps only now is the design, albeit in its latest, very differentform, starting to show its age.The RAF ordered Hawker SiddeleysHSI 182 as a Gnat replacement for the advanced training role in 1971,and it also succeeded the Hunter as a weapons trainer. No 4 FTS tookon its first Hawk T I s in April I 976, and I 76 would be raken on charge,the most famous being those used by the RedArrows.Just under halfwere modified toTlA standard in the l980s,these being capable of firingAIM-9 Sidewinders (as well as the standard Aden cannon) in the wartimepoint defence role. Since then, the RAF's Hawks have also taken on target-towing and aggressor duties, while a substantial number of those operatedas trainers have been re-lifed with new fuselage sections, and othershave gone to the Royal Navy.The aircraft has proved one of the Britishindustry's most prominent export successes, including its selection by theUS Navy as theT-45 Goshawk.

Hqwker Siddeley/Brilish AerospoceSeq HorrierWhen the Royal Navy decidedit wanted the Harrier as astrike fighter for V/STOLcarrier operations, it wasadamant that the design beadapted for the purpose,rather than just having its name put on the side of'ordinary' Harriers.The result, once the powers-that-be had been persuaded, was the Sea Harrier,and the FRSI prototype was first flown in AugustI 978. lt did not take long ro earn its spurs, and theparticipation of the fledgling Sea Harrier force in1982's Falklands campaign is legendary. Later, RN'Shars'operated in the 1990s Balkans campaigns.The improvements contained in the FRS2, laterFA2, variant, such as the BlueVixen radar, madethis a very capable fighter indeed

- one of

the new-build FA2s became the last all-Britishfighter aircraft to roll off a production line, at thebeginning of l999.The Sea Harrier fell victim todefence cuts at the beginning of 2006, and theRoyal Navy will probably never operare its ownfront-line fixed-wing aircraft again, now beingcommitted to Joint Force operations with theHarrier, then the F-35. lt was, therefore, the last ofan illustrious line.

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BAE Systems

Brilish Aerospoce 146Hawl<er Siddeley's original design for the HS 146 was way ahead of its time when

conccived in 1973, but that was precisely the wrong time to be developing a brand

new airlincr, even a fuel-efficient one, due to the oil crisis. BAe resumed work on the

type in I 978, and three years later in September I 98 I the BAe I 46- I 00 PrototyPegot airborne for the first time. lt was in part an unusual design for a regional airliner,

having four cngines (LycomingALF502s), but its quietness and STOL capabilities won

over many airlines, beginning with Dan-Air. Successive fuselage stretches produced

the 146-200 (of which G-WISC here was the first) and -300. ln total,22l examples

wcre produced before the aircraft became known as the Avro RJ in I 993' but

l46s continue in active service around theworld in

Passengerand freighterconfiguration,there being

a healthy

market for used

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Airbus A3t 0By the time the first ,A3 I 0 took to the air

on 3 April 1982, the UK was a full member

of the Airbus consortium once again. lthad rejoined in 1979 through BAe,whichbought in with a 20 per cent share, and

was instrumental in the re-design of the

A300's wing for this new shorter-fuselagebut longer-range variant. Lufthansa and

Swissair were joint launch customers, and

255 A3 l0s were built over the course

of a Z4-year production run, thoughonly one UK airline, British Caledonian,

has ever flown the type.The'difficultsecond airliner' for Airbus cemented the

consortium's rePutation as a market force,

paving the way towards the great family ofaircraft that has followed.

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