The Saunders-Roe SR.53 was a British rocket and jet powered interceptor from the 1950s.

Gallery:

Features:

• Blueprint recreation of the real aircraft
• Custom weapons (Firestreak)
• Custom landing gear with nose wheel steering
• Custom airbrake
• Custom canopy view

Nonstandard Controls:

• AG 1 Rocket Engine On/Off
• AG 2 Activate Nose Wheel Steering, then Yaw to use
• VTOL for Flaps
• Trim for trim

Notes:

• Fly with mouse as joystick
• Don’t mirror it
• Yaws left and right when taking off, use nose wheel steering to counteract
• Unfortunately haven’t had much free time lately, so here’s a real simple plane, hence the wings

Background:

At the beginning of the Cold War, the strategic bombing threat posed by the Soviet Union loomed large. The performance of Soviet bombers was ever-increasing, and this, combined with that country’s new nuclear weapons, created a need for a new generation of interceptor aircraft. The interceptor with the highest performance from WWII had been the rocket-powered Me 163. With early jet engines suffering such poor acceleration, rocket engines offered a way to takeoff and climb to altitude faster than anything else. The British Air Ministry put out a request for a rocket-powered interceptor.

One of many designs submitted was the SR.53 from Saunders-Roe. It was a small aircraft, powered with both a rocket and jet engine. The aircraft would ascend to altitude quickly with the rocket engine, and use its weak jet engine to return to base and land. The aircraft was solely armed with two Firestreak infrared-guided missiles. The first prototype flew in 1957 and attained supersonic speeds.

Even before the aircraft entered production, a follow-on design was planned. The SR.177 was to be an enlarged version of the aircraft with a radar in the nose and an afterburning jet engine. The first SR.177 was nearly complete when the infamous 1957 Defence White Paper effectively ended both programs (along with countless others). Two SR.53 prototypes were built, one of which survives today and is on display at Royal Air Force Museum Cosford.