This aircraft was built in 1954 as a high-speed research ship; according to Wikipedia it only achieved Mach 1.88.
It is the Bristol Aircraft Type 188.
Bit of a coincidence eh?
It was built of Argon-welded Stainless Steel honeycomb, immensely strong and easily able to exceed the limiting Mach number of aluminium(2.2). Apparently fuel consumption prevented the craft from exploring thermal soaking fully, and was one reason that Concorde was built of Al.
Starting to add up to something?
Concorde was basically a Churchill baby.
1 comment:
ps-when I wrote to BAC in 1978, the 188 was still classified.
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