Short SC.1

The Short SC.1 was the first British fixed-wing vertical take-off and landing jet aircraft, developed by Short Brothers as a research machine. It was a single-seat tailless delta with five Rolls-Royce RB.108 turbojets, four mounted vertically for lift and one at the rear for forward flight. The aircraft answered a Ministry of Supply requirement of 1953 for a vertical take-off research aircraft, and a contract for two prototypes, XG900 and XG905, was placed in October 1954. Air-jet nozzles at the nose, tail and wingtips controlled it at low speed, and it was also the first VTOL-capable aircraft with a fly-by-wire control system. The two prototypes flew test programmes between 1957 and 1971, and data from them fed into the Hawker Siddeley P.1127 and then the Harrier. In October 2012 the SC.1 received Northern Ireland's first Engineering Heritage Award.