Handley Page Victor

The Victor was the third and last of the famous V-bombers - Valiant, Vulcan and Victor - to enter service with the RAF, between 1955-58. The idea was that it would fly so fast and high that nothing would be able to catch it, but in reality it was too long in development to be much use.

By the time it entered service, its top speed of 640 mph meant that the jet fighters of the time could easily catch it, and only 50 ever saw service as part of Britain's independent nuclear deterrent.

Soon after the arrival of the Victor, with its distinctive crescent-shaped wing, the idea of bombers delivering nuclear weapons to targets was dropped altogether in favour of unmanned ballistic missiles.

Nevertheless, the Victor found a new life in the mid 1960s as an air-refuelling tanker, a role in which it was to be used until the early 1990s, serving in the Falklands War and the first Gulf War.