Pic of the day: a futuristic Nine Elms as seen from the 1960s

Thanks to Peter P for spotting this image on gizmodo showing the potential of Nine Elms as the site for an intercity VTOL (Vertical Take-Off & Landing) passenger service.

The idea of a passenger equivalent of the Jump Jet was a big thing in 60s aviation as it afforded the possibility of airports without runways, opening up the possibility of inner city locations.

There's a piece about VTOL (and the above picture) in this 1969 edition of Flight magazine.

The gizmodo piece says of the projecte: A project from Hawker Siddeley, of Harrier Jump-Jet fame, it was an attempt to make a passenger liner capable of vertical takeoff and landing, in the same vein as the Harrier. It was deemed too impractical in the end — unlike the Harrier (and like the current F-35 that Britain’s buying for its new carriers), the prototype used lift fans along the side for the vertical lift — the Harrier simply used ‘vectored thrust’, meaning the main engines it used for flight could be re-directed downwards to allow it to hover. Lining the plane with lift fans led to a serious amount of extra weight, which coupled with the extra fuel, made the plane financially impractical and unstable in flight.