English Electric Canberra
Britain's first jet bomber, designed by English Electric to a 1944 requirement for a Mosquito successor and first flown on 13 May 1949. The unarmed Canberra relied on speed and altitude for protection, set world records in the 1950s, and was built in Britain (901 aircraft), assembled under licence in Australia (48), and produced in the United States, much modified, as the Martin B-57. Exported to more than fifteen countries, it flew in wars from Suez to the Falklands, and the RAF's last reconnaissance Canberras retired only in 2006.
Why It Mattered
The Canberra was the first jet-powered bomber to enter service with the Royal Air Force, a step from piston-engined wartime bombers to the jet age taken only seven years after the requirement that produced it was written. It arrived with performance its predecessors could not approach: in February 1951 a Canberra became the first jet to fly the Atlantic nonstop, and for most of the 1950s it could fly higher than any other aircraft in the world. In 1957 a Canberra set the world altitude record at 70,310 feet. It was also an export success, sold to more than fifteen countries and licence-built on two other continents. Its reconnaissance versions were still flying operational sorties in 2006, when the RAF retired the type 57 years after its first flight.
Design Notes
The Canberra was designed by a team led by W. E. W. Petter, who joined English Electric in December 1944 to develop a jet bomber study begun at Westland. The Air Ministry's requirement was for a successor to the de Havilland Mosquito, and Petter answered it with an aircraft carrying no defensive armament at all. Survival was to come from performance instead: the Canberra relied on high speed to escape enemy fighters, and on the altitude its two Rolls-Royce Avon turbojets could reach. Petter judged that the performance could be had without swept wings, setting a straight wing midway up the fuselage with an engine nacelle in each wing. The production B.2 carried a crew of three, its bomb aimer in a glazed nose added after the intended automatic radar bombsight fell behind schedule.
Operational History
The Canberra entered RAF squadron service in May 1951, No. 101 Squadron receiving the type first. British production reached 901 aircraft, shared between English Electric and, as orders surged during the Korean War, Avro, Handley Page and Short Brothers. The United States ordered 403 aircraft, licence-built by Martin as the B-57 Canberra, and the Government Aircraft Factories in Australia assembled a further 48. At the Suez Crisis in 1956 the RAF employed around 100 Canberras from Malta and Cyprus, flying 278 sorties of bombing and reconnaissance. Canberras from Australia, New Zealand and Britain served through the Malayan Emergency, and the RAAF's No. 2 Squadron flew its aircraft in Vietnam from 1967 to 1971. Indian Air Force Canberras served in the Indo-Pakistani wars, and in the 1982 Falklands War Argentine Canberras flew 54 sorties against the British task force, 36 of them bombing missions, losing two aircraft in combat. The last operational RAF Canberras were photo-reconnaissance PR.9s, which flew over Iraq in 2003 and Afghanistan until June 2006.
Afterlife
The RAF retired its last three Canberras in June 2006, 57 years after the type's first flight. The Indian Air Force followed on 11 May 2007, retiring its fleet after fifty years of service. Survivors are preserved by museums in several countries; among them is the RAF Museum's PR.3 in London, the aircraft that won the 1953 London to New Zealand air race in 23 hours 51 minutes. The lineage still flies: NASA's programme page, updated in September 2026, describes three WB-57s — American-built derivatives of the design — based at Ellington Field in Texas and flying research missions, as they have since the early 1970s. One Canberra itself also remains airworthy: a former RAF aircraft restored in Australia, reported in May 2025 to be the only flying Canberra apart from NASA's three.