The Saunders-Roe SR.53 and then the Red Duster Bloodhound SAM.

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SR.53 mixed powerplant fighter

The Saunders-Roe SR.53 was a prototype interceptor aircraft of mixed jet and rocket propulsion developed for the Royal Air Force in the early 1950s. Although its performance was promising, the need for such an aircraft was soon overtaken by surface-to-air missile development, and the project was cancelled after forty-two test flights.



It was drawn up to provide the RAF with a fast response interceptor to combat the Soviet high altitude supersonic bomber threat.  To help with development of such an aircraft Saunders Roe built the SR.53 demonstrator. This was a fairly successful prototype, or in modern parlance, a technology demonstrator but would be useless as a service aircraft as it lacked endurance.

The mixed powerplant fighter came along at the wrong time, as during the mid 1950s, SAMs like Red Duster were starting to show promise. While the SR.53 would have been able to attack bombers at longer range, a 200mile range SAM called Blue Envoy was in development. Ultimately neither came to fruition as the threat changed from high altitude attacks, to low altitude, a regime where SAMs like Thunderbird and Bloodhound operated well.

The SR.53 was powered by a Bristol Siddeley Viper turbojet and a De Havilland Spectre rocket motor.

In the event all work on mixed powerplant fighters ceased with the 1957 Defence White Paper and the SAMs took over.

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The Red Duster or Bloodhound

The Bristol Bloodhound was a British surface-to-air missile developed during the 1950s as the UK's main air defence weapon, and was in large-scale service with the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the forces of four other countries. The Bloodhound Mk. I entered service in December 1958 and the last Mk. II missile squadron stood down in July 1991, although Swiss examples remained operational until 1999.

[F-111 C/C]

The SR.53 looks fast!

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Here are the spec details. It was fast for it's day. With a Soviet bomber approaching about to drop a nuclear weapon, they intended to get up there before it could do it.
Or so they thought at the time.
Those cold war days must have been pretty scary.

I wonder if the Soviets would have actually attacked Western Europe if they could have gotten away with it?


Specifications

General characteristics

    * Crew: One, pilot
    * Length: 45 ft 0 in (13.72 m)
    * Wingspan: 25 ft 1½ in (7.66 m)
    * Height: 10 ft 10 in (3.30 m)
    * Wing area: 274 ft² (25.5 m²)
    * Airfoil: RAE102
    * Empty weight: 7,400 lb (3,360 kg)
    * Loaded weight: 18,400 lb (8,360 kg)
    * Powerplant:
          o 1× Armstrong Siddeley Viper 8 turbojet, 1,640 lb (7.3 kN)
          o 1× de Havilland Spectre rocket, 8,000 lbf (35.7 kN)

Performance

    * Maximum speed: Mach 2.2 (at 45,000 ft (13,700 m) [3])
    * Service ceiling: 67,000 ft (20,420 m[4])
    * Rate of climb: 52,800 ft/min (270 m/s) : 2 min 12 sec from brakes to 50,000 ft
    * Wing loading: 67.2 lb/ft² (328 kg/m²)
    * Thrust/weight (jet): 0.52
    * Endurance at full power: 7 minutes[citation needed]

Armament

    * Missiles: 2 × de Havilland Firestreak infra-red guided missiles