Short SC.1 — the first British vertical take off plane.

Short SC1.

Work began in 1954 to design a test aircraft that could demonstrate the utility of the recently developed Rolls-Royce RB.108 lift engine, producing 966kgs of a thrust each. The Short Brothers SC.1 was powered by 4 RB.108 lift engines vertically mounted on gimbals in the center fuselage and 1 RB.108 cruise engine in the rear for forward flight. Ground carts were used to spin the lift engines up to speed for take-off; for landing, cruise engine bleed air was used.

The SC.1 was designed to study hover, transition and low-speed flight, and had a fixed landing gear. Gross weight was 3495kgs. Overall length was 9.14m; the wingspan was 7.16m.

The Flying Bedstead (anorher British experimental vertical take off aircraft) and Short SC1.

First Short SC1 flight was made on 2 April 1957, its first free vertical flight was on 25 October 1958. The SC.1 experienced the typical suck-down and hot-gas ingestion problems discovered during the tests. It appeared at the Farnborough air show in 1960 and Paris air show in 1961. It flew across the English Channel both ways to get to Paris.

Short SC1.

One of the main disadvantages of Short SC1 was the location of the lift jets, which took up a lot of space within the fuselage and consumed a lot of fuel. But they were the most vital part of the aircraft, as they allowed vertical take-off and landing.

Maximum speed was only about 396km/h due to the low thrust of the single cruise engine. Pilot workload was very high during landing, just when pilot attention was most important. The lift engines had to be started as late as possible, due to the high combined fuel consumption of the five engines. The ignition procedure was very labor intensive.

The second test aircraft crashed on 2 October 1963 due to a controls malfunction, killing the pilot. It was rebuilt and the two aircraft continued to fly until 1967.

Short SC1 in flight.

Two aircraft were built: fhe first Short SC1 was used until 1971 for the research and is now part of the Science Museum’s aircraft collection at South Kensington, London. The second SC-1 can be seen at the Flight Experience exhibit at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, Northern Ireland.

This research aircraft opened the way to projects that would eventually lead to the most successful vertical take off and landing aircraft, the Harrier.