Overcoming these difficulties, designers and test pilots gradually moved forward and, in September 1961, first made the transition from the regime of evaporation in horizontal flight mode and back again. The tests were successful, and the pilots take off compared plane with a smooth glide on the ice surface. The most fully the remarkable quality of the aircraft revealed during tests of short takeoff and landing. But wrong to assume that the entire process of testing and improve the prototype took place smoothly and without hassles. The most significant incidents include the loss of the second prototype, tail number XP836 and an emergency landing of the first prototype at the Paris XP831 Air Show in 1963. In both accidents the aircraft was piloted by Bill Bedford, who managed to survive and escape serious injury. But these accidents can be considered the price that had to pay for technological progress and its embodied in new machines.
Many of the lessons learned from testing the prototype Hawker P.1127, then were taken into account in the development of more advanced aircraft Kestrel, which has successfully tested joint aviation group, which united Britain, Germany and the United States, 1964-1965. Finally, in February 1965, based on the results of successful tests of prototypes and positive feedback from experts, UK Ministry of Defence has placed its first order for batch of aircraft with vertical takeoff and landing. This aircraft combines the best qualities of the prototype, had a low price and highest level of security, and became known around the world called Harrier. C photographs and descriptions of aircraft and the Hawker P.1127 Harrier can be found at “Pie in the sky.” References: Braybrook, Roy. Harrier: The Vertical Reality.