Of the seven companies that tendered designs, two were selected for development contracts, A.V. Roe with their Avro 720 and Saunders-Roe with their SR.53.
The SR-53 itself was a sleek aircraft with a sharply pointednose, delta -like wing, and a T-tail.The jet and rocket exhausts were mounted one atop the other in the tail.
This was circulated to the nation's aircraft manufacturers the following February.
Dick wasn't a TP; he'd been lead Flight Engineer on the Princess before becoming Engineer i/c of testing of the SR53 and then later head of helicopter R&D on the SaundersRoe (nee Cierva) helicopters.
The first chapter covers the Black Knight / Black Arrow programme which was the UK's space programme (ha!) using SaundersRoe rocket technology - it doesn't go into much technical detail but might give you some leads, and is a good read.
After the war the company concentrated on seaplane designs,but times were hard and after a series of reorganisations,in 1929 A V Roe took over the company which became known as Saunders-Roe Ltd,or SARO.
The very last fixed wing aircraft built were the rwo prototype SR.53 Jet and rocket propelled interceptor fighters.The first aircraft,XD145 flew on the 16th May 1957 at Boscombe Down.
Following WW2 SARO built the Princess flying boats.Unfortunately,the day of the flying boat was just about over and the three Princesses (only one ever flew) became almost the last fixed wing aircraft produced by SARO.
Dick wasn't a TP; he'd been lead Flight Engineer on the Princess before becoming Engineer i/c of testing of the SR53 and then later head of helicopter R&D on the SaundersRoe (nee Cierva) helicopters.
The first chapter covers the Black Knight / Black Arrow programme which was the UK's space programme (ha!) using SaundersRoe rocket technology - it doesn't go into much technical detail but might give you some leads, and is a good read.
We are pleased to have an article on the SR.53 from R B (Dick) Stratton, who was Chief Flight Engineer on the Princess Flying Boat trials.
The learning curve was steep since we were pioneering an extremely new concept of flying control surfaces based on a WWII gun turret developed by Boulton-Paul Ltd.
I then flew as Chief Flight Engineer on the SARO “Princess” ten-propeller turbine Flying Boat.
The SR.53 was taken by road to RAE Boscombe Downs, and flew for the first time on 16th May, 1957, also appearing at that year's Farnborough Air Show.
Tenders were submitted by these firms as well as by Westland and SaundersRoe.
In February 1952, the Ministry of Supply circulated the specification to aircraft firms and invited tenders from Bristol, De Havilland, Fairey, Blackburn and A.V. Roe.
Built by Saunders-Roe, this little aircraft or its more powerful derivatives would have spearheaded the construction of suborbital and orbital air-launched spaceplanes.
Its tool to join the space faring super powers, would have been a sleek white delta interceptor prototype which used rocket and jet propulsion and was named SR.53.
Contents: Early Soviet Spaceplane Projects; The Spiral Program; The VKS Program; The VKK Program; VKK Test Flights; The Energia Launcher; Transporting VKK Shuttles; The First Flight of Buran; Is There a Future for the VKK?; Pilot Selections; Pilot Biographies.
