I once read somewhere that Hawker Siddeley kept pushing a Trident derivative against the wishes of the MOD who wanted the HS801; all came to a head at some meeting when the MOD told them flatly that if they didn’t start listening, they would buy the Atlantic instead, and a HS man had to scurry back to Woodford (or wherever) to collect the HS801 drawings. How true or not, I’m not sure.

I understand the decision for Comet was heavily influenced by the early 1960’s purchase of three or four Comet airframes for the RAE to use as flying test beds in support of all the expected avionics development work associated with TSR2, AW681 and 1154. When all those got the chop there were 2 Comets paid for and delivered which were completely surplus to requirements and therefore available free of charge. This made the Comet based RMPA much cheaper than the Trident ( or VC10) approach……..but less profitable for Squidly Didly.