BAC Jet Provost

The BAC Jet Provost was a British jet trainer aircraft used by the Royal Air Force from 1955 to 1993. Hunting Percival began design studies in early 1951 as a private venture and developed it from the piston-engined Percival Provost, deliberately reusing the Provost tail surfaces, main planes and main undercarriage legs to reach a prototype quickly. The prototype XD674 first flew from Luton Airport on 26 June 1954, and the type was later produced by the British Aircraft Corporation after Hunting became part of it. It is an all-metal, stressed-skin, side-by-side two-seater with a single Armstrong Siddeley Viper turbojet, and Flight International called it the first ab initio jet trainer standardised by any air force. The T3 entered service in 1959, the T4 and the pressurised T5 followed, and armed export versions went to Ceylon, Kuwait, Iraq, Sudan and others. It was withdrawn in the early 1990s in favour of the Short Tucano, and the design also led to the BAC Strikemaster.