Handley Page HP.100

The Handley Page HP.100 was a tendered design for a long-range, high-speed reconnaissance aircraft for the Royal Air Force, able to overfly Soviet territory despite anti-aircraft defences and to supply information to the V bomber force that carried nuclear weapons. Operational requirement OR.330 called for an unarmed, radar-equipped aircraft cruising above Mach 2 and able to reach Mach 3, with a range of about 5,000 miles, and Handley Page, English Electric, Shorts, Vickers and Avro each supplied designs. Handley Page proposed a delta wing with canard foreplanes, with 12 small turbojets in a fairing below the leading edge, a length of 185 ft and a wingspan of 59.3 ft. In 1955 the contract went to the Avro 730 and work on the HP.100 stopped with a partial mockup, and the whole high-speed reconnaissance project, Avro 730 included, was cancelled in 1957.