Trident 3 G-AWZI, built by Hawker Siddeley at Hatfield, flew for the first time on August 4th 1971. It served BEA’s and BA’s domestic and European network until 1985, clocking up 23,209.57 flying hours and 19,482 landings, with an average flight time of 1hr 20mins.

The Trident had a sophisticated automatic blind landing system developed by the RAE, BEA/BA, Hawker Siddeley and Smiths
Industries. The system could guide the aircraft automatically during airfield approach, flare, touchdown and even roll-out from the landing. The Trident achieved the first automatic landing by a civil airliner in scheduled passenger service on 10th June 1965 and the first genuinely “blind” landing in scheduled passenger service on4th November 1966.

After retirement, Zulu India was broken up at Heathrow and its fuselage was sold as a classroom to the Surrey Fire & Rescue
Centre. Following disposal in 2002, the cockpit was purchased by Andrew Lee in July 2003 and moved to the FAST Museum.

It is fitting that this aircraft is displayed at the FAST museum as the RAE’s Blind Landing Experimental Unit (BLEU) carried out much of the development work on the Blind Landing system at RAE Bedford.

Technical Specifications

Crew : 3
Passengers : 180
Length : 39.98m (131ft 2in)
Wingspan : 30m (98ft 0in)
Height : 8.61m (28ft 3in)
Engine : 3 x Spey RB.163-25 Mk512-5
Thrust : 3 x 53.2kN (11,960 lbf)
Maximum Speed : 916 km/h (569mph)
Service Ceiling : 11,000m (35,000ft)
Empty Weight : 37,648kg (83,000 lb)
Loaded Weight : 68,038kg (150,000lb)
Range : 3,600km (2,237miles)