I think it’s too early in the 50s for a Vanguard. It looks like there are two Viscounts and possibly the “Britannia” is actually a Handley Page Hermes. I can also see a Short Sturgeon and possibly an early Fairey Gannet or its Blackburn competitor (the YB9?).
That’s definitely the Armstrong Whitworth Apollo, parked rather cheekily directly across from the Air France liveried Viscount.

The Hawker Siddeley HS146 project dates from around 1971/72. Unfortunately, Michael Heseltine (that great supporter of British aviation), when Minister of Aviation, refused to put in any Government funding to the project. HS put it on the back burner until 1978 when the whole project was resurrected. By then, of course, HS had become part of BAe. I could just about tolerate the BAe 146 tile but the renaming of the plane as the Avro RJ series was a total nonsense.

Well, the latest BAE fighter is called Typhoon and the latest RR engines are the Tay and Trent. The current BAE jet trainer is called Hawk and the RAF’s basic trainer is called Tucano.

I think the numbers era is probably over. Many 60s and 70s projects seemed to be given numbers instead of names – The Avro 748 for instance, or the Hawker Siddeley HS125 executive jet.

Numbers can be almost as resonant as names. In many respectys, the Boeing 7-7 nomencalture is a marketing ploy. The 707 project was originally the 367-80 remeber. The DC series of airliners were also named that way as marketing ploys.

The American military seem to prefer using the DoD title – F4. F-14, B-52 etc rather than the manufacturer’s name.

Hotspur was originally a character from Roman mythology.

The Britannia is a late 1940s design.

Place names are the most common theme amomgst British manufacturers, particularly pre – WW2.

Sometimes the place name system got corrupted into something slightly weird. For example, the Bristol Beaufighter was so called because it was developed using components from the Beaufort.

Not wishing to upsdatge the B-29 pics, here are some pictures I took at Duxford in September 1978.

Giving the aircraft an official name and using it are two different things.

As I said in my post, many US aircraft are officially given names but the users choose to call them by their designatory numbers.

Maybe Americans, who traditionally come from varied European (and many non-English speaking) backgrounds find the numerical route psychologically easier.

They also use different styles when referring to numbers. We tend to call Boeing aircraft by their individual numbers i.e the 737 is referred to as the “seven – three – seven” where Americans will say “Seven – thirty – seven”.

Of course not. The Germans had plenty of names for their aircraft. Bf108 Taifun, Me410 Hornisse, Fw200 Condor etc etc.

The Americans too often give their planes names, although the names are often ignored by their users – P-51 Mustang, F4F Wildcat, P-38 Lightning, B-29 Superfortress, B-70 Valkyrie etc etc etc