Aeroplane’s Database focuses on the Short Brothers research aircraft that achieved a world first
DEVELOPMENT
In one of the many different arrangements considered for vertical take-off and landing jet aircraft, the Short SC1 had four separate downwards-facing lift jets installed within its fuselage to push the aircraft up into the air, plus a separate engine for forward flight. Hawker had investigated the lift engine approach quite extensively, but for its P1127 eventually opted for a single engine with vectored thrust and rotating nozzles. The penalty in having lift engines is that they are ‘dead weight’ to carry around during conventional forward flight, though the Bristol Pegasus engine used in the Harrier family was much larger and more powerful than would have been the case for a conventional take-off and landing aircraft of a similar size.
The SC1 also benefited from research by Rolls-Royce. Its Thrust Measuring Rig, better known as the ‘Flying Bedstead’, was, it is believed, the first jet-lift aircraft to fly anywhere. It was designed to demonstrate the practicability of controlling a jet-lift vertical take-off aeroplane in hovering and low-speed flight. It had no wings and relied on jet lift only. Two were built by the …
