The Hawker P.1121.

I have posted this in the historic aviation forum as well, as I appreciate that there is not that much cross traffic between ‘us’ and ‘them’. Also this kind of falls in the gap between modern and historical (well I think anyway);)

A few years back I aquired an article from the september 11th 1959 issue of ‘The Aeroplane and Aeronautics’ magazine about the P.1121. I never got a chance to read it and put it to one side eventually stumbling on it recently.

It is a very detailed article, however there is one paticular thing that stands out. The article appears to infer that the aircraft was originally intended as a fighter and provides good evidence to suggest this. Firstly the article points out that the prototype was to be single seat and powered by a Gyron engine(apparently this was the most suitable for a high altitude fighter but not optimum for a low level strike fighter).

Some of the more informed among you are probably wondering why this is so interesting to me, but the reason is that before I read this article the only reference I had come across was for the 2 seat version for the TSR-2 requirement.

It seems that Hawker created 3 very different variants from the one basic design.

1) A single seat air superiority and light strike fighter.

2) A steal winged high altitude interceptor capable of Mach-3 and above.

3) A two seat long range strike fighter (all ordnance carried externally).

A further note on the engines, Hawker apparently regarded the de Havilland Gyron as the best engine for high altitude flight, whilst the Rolls Royce conway represented the best option for a low level strike aircraft (due to its low fuel consumption) and the Bristol Olympus was considered the best compromise for a dual role aircraft.

I have always had a fascination with his aircraft as I believe that it would have given the British aviation industry a real ability to compete on the global combat aircraft market against the likes of the Mirage 3/5/50 series and the F-4 phantom, possibly into the 1970s, there might have even still been some flying today.:eek:

All comments, questions or additional information and pictures very welcome, thanks for reading.

Ps, I am guessing that this will interest the Brits here the most?;)

PPs. I should also point out that this is not an entirely what if flight of fancy, the first prototype was under construction when the project was cancelled. A real shame, I think it would have made a nice follow on to the lightning.