Steps to the crescent

摘要

Investigation of tailless aircraft layouts led Handley Page to create its first swept-wing design. Construction of the mostly-wooden HP.75 Manx was sub-contracted to Dart Aircraft at Dunstable and the one-off first flew on June 25,1943. It was powered by two DH Gipsy Major Us arranged as pushers. Valuable information was gleaned, although the two-seater only carried out 31 flights and was less than 20 hours in the air before it was grounded in 1946. In order to evaluate the crescent wing for the Victor, HP again appointed a sub-contractor to develop a test-bed. General Aircraft created a 0.4-scale wing and tail grafted on to the fuselage of a Supermarine Attacker powered by a Rolls-Royce Nene 3 turbojet.