I’m not trying to be harsh or argumentative.
Re: the P.1216 it may have worked and turned out to have been a perfectly reasonable combat aircraft.
But it was the riskier and probably the overall very slight inferior of the 2 competing UK designs that were overtaken by the UK Harrier II buy (which separated out the V/STOVL requirements) and by what evolved into the Eurofighter Typhoon. The latter of which is, apart from the V/STOVL capability, was and is far superior than either of those 2 original UK designs would have been.
And the Harrier II was at least as good in the air to ground role as the P.1216 ever would have been at much lower risk and cost.
And as previously mentioned (keeping on actual topic) it is not like the P.1216 would have been well matched to the then still relatively young Invincible classes.
And if built and technically successful and entered into service the P.1216 would have likely meant death before conception for the clearly better Typhoon and clearly entirely different league F-35 (at least re: UK service).
The UK couldn’t afford the P.1216 & Typhoon.
All so UK pilots could have had the satisfaction of flying around in 100 percent British but objectively inferior airplanes versus the ones they actually ended up flying which are somehow tainted by their lack of total UK “purity”.
Specifically re: the real P.1216 design I’d strongly recommend Tony Butlers UK secret projects fighter book (the recent 2nd addition).
