Hawker Siddeley Trident

The Hawker Siddeley Trident, originally the de Havilland DH.121 and briefly the Airco DH.121, was a British airliner produced by Hawker Siddeley. In 1957 de Havilland proposed its DH.121 trijet design in answer to a request from British European Airways, and by 1960 de Havilland had been acquired by Hawker Siddeley. The Trident made its maiden flight on 9 January 1962 and entered service on 1 April 1964, two months after its main competitor, the Boeing 727. It was powered by three rear-mounted Rolls-Royce Spey low-bypass turbofans, with a low swept wing and a T-tail. Advanced avionics allowed it to make the first blind landing by an airliner in revenue service in 1965. The initial Trident 1 and 2 seated 101 to 115 passengers, while the stretched Trident 3 seated 180 and added a booster engine in the tail. A total of 117 were produced by the end of the programme in 1978, and the type was withdrawn from service in 1995.