Hawker Siddeley P.1127

The Hawker P.1127 and its development the Hawker Siddeley Kestrel FGA.1 were the British experimental aircraft that led to the Harrier, the first vertical and short takeoff jet fighter-bomber. Work began in 1957 around the Bristol Pegasus vectored-thrust engine, with Sydney Camm and Ralph Hooper leading the airframe design. The first untethered hover of the prototype came on 19 November 1960, and the program went on to land a prototype on HMS Ark Royal in 1963. Swept wings and stronger Pegasus engines produced the Kestrel, which a tri-partite British, American and West German squadron evaluated before US forces and NASA flew others. The first three P.1127 aircraft crashed in testing, one at the 1963 Paris Air Show.