The story of the Hawker Siddeley / de Havilland Trident is perhaps symbolic of the decline of the British aerospace industry following the initial post-war boom of the 1950s, and in particular of Britain's inability to compete with American manufacturers due to numerous factors. In the mid-1950s, British European Airways put out a request for a short-haul jet airliner, and following competition between four British aircraft manufacturers, the design of the de Havilland DH. 121 - named 'Trident' - triumphed. It was a revolutionary design, with three small jet engines at the rear, one of which would be mounted in a large T-shaped tail, and would incorporated avionics which were very advanced for the time (many of these were stored below the cockpit, leading to the nose gear being offset to the port side, as seen in the picture above). Talks between BEA and de Havilland soon began, but became protracted by British government policy decisions and indecision within BEA. Different companies would be asked to manufacture different parts, BEA's requests would change, and de Havilland would be bought up and merged with different companies.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, Boeing had begun work on a trijet of its own - the Boeing 727 - at the request of United, American, and Eastern Airlines. The chairman of BEA suggested that Boeing drop the 727 project, and instead assist de Havilland with the DH. 121. After some umming and erring, Boeing opted to stick with the 727, but not before sending a team of engineers and executives to de Havilland's base at Hatfield Airport, where engineers and executives on the DH. 121 eagerly handed over all of their research and development progress on the project, a move which aviation author Derek Woods would later describe as "the crowning piece of stupidity" on the part of de Havilland.

The Trident finally introduced to commercial service in April 1964, two months after the Boeing 727. The 727 would become one of the most produced commercial aircraft in history, with over 1,800 aircraft produced, and its final known commercial flight would occur in 2019. By contrast, 117 Tridents were built, and its last flight occurred in 1995. I must confess, I have a particular soft spot for the Trident: for a time, my grandfather worked an electronics engineer for de Havilland, and was instrumental in designing the electronic layout of the Trident.

This Trident is currently on open air display at the Imperial War Museum in Duxford, Cambridgeshire. To the right of her is a Vickers VC-10 in BOAC Cunard livery, and just visible on the far right is the T-Tail of a British Aerospace BAe-146-100.

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