Armstrong Whitworth AW.681

The Armstrong Whitworth AW.681, also designated the Hawker Siddeley HS.681, was a projected British long-range military transport of the early 1960s, meant to take off and land in very short distances and, in a later form, vertically. Armstrong Whitworth, by then part of Hawker Siddeley Aviation, drew it up to meet Operational Requirement 351, which sought a replacement for the Blackburn Beverley and Handley Page Hastings. Four Rolls-Royce Medway turbofans with vectored thrust nozzles and blown flaps would have given it its short field performance. The government authorised a detailed study and a prototype in March 1962, with a first flight expected around 1966, but announced the cancellation of the programme in February 1965 and bought the American Lockheed Hercules instead. A cheaper non-STOL proposal, the HS.802, found no buyer, and the Armstrong Whitworth factory at Coventry closed.