February 1957: The supersonic jet Fairey Delta 2

February 1957, Robert Lickley of the Fairey Aviation Company addressed the Royal Aeronautical Society. His subject was the Fairey Delta 2 (FD2), a supersonic research jet first displayed to the public two years earlier at Farnborough. But it was not until March 1956, when the FD2 set a flight airspeed record of 1,132mph, that the aircraft really took hold of the public’s imagination.

The UK’s Fairey Delta 2 hit a speed of 1,132 mph in 1956

The FD2’s design was completed in 1949, but the two prototype jets ordered by the Ministry of Supply were put on ice when production of the submarine-hunting Gannet was designated a ‘super-priority’. Reporting on Lickley’s lecture, The Engineer bemoaned the delay, finding it “surprising that, in a country with over a dozen aircraft constructors… the need to produce a deck-landing, turbo-prob submarine killer should hold back the construction of a supersonic jet research aircraft”.