Short Sperrin

The Short SA.4 Sperrin was a British jet bomber design of the early 1950s, built by Short Brothers and Harland of Belfast and named after the Sperrin Mountains. It was meant as a fall-back in case the swept-wing V bombers, such as the Vickers Valiant, were delayed, and it was drawn up to Air Ministry specification B.14/46 for a medium-range bomber. It first flew in 1951 with four Rolls-Royce Avon turbojets. Because the Valiant and its successors arrived on time, the Sperrin never entered production, and its two flying prototypes were used instead to test high-altitude radar equipment, bomb shapes for Britain's first atomic bomb and several jet engines before being retired and scrapped in the late 1950s.