WG768

WG768 was the only Short SB.5, built by Short Brothers and Harland at Sydenham, Belfast, to specification ER.100. It was to test whether the swept wing planned for English Electric's P.1, the future Lightning, would handle safely below 350 knots. Wing sweep could be reset on the ground, and two rear fuselages gave either a T-tail or a low tailplane.

Shipped from Belfast, it first flew at Boscombe Down on 2 December 1952, with Tom Brooke-Smith at the controls, 50 degrees of sweep and the T-tail. A 60-degree wing followed in July 1953. Roland Beamont flew it that August and judged the T-tail unsatisfactory. A low tailplane, the P.1 layout, was fitted at Belfast in December 1953 and flown in 1954.

From September 1955 it flew at RAE Bedford. Shorts then rebuilt it with a Bristol Orpheus engine, 69-degree sweep, a Martin-Baker seat and gloss blue paint. Denis Tayler flew it in that form on 18 October 1960. By 1964 it was also gathering leading-edge airflow data for the Concorde programme.

In December 1965 it joined the Empire Test Pilots' School, teaching students to handle slender wings. Withdrawn in 1968, it was stored at Finningley and Topcliffe before going on show at Cosford in 1974, with the spare T-tail beside it. On 10 December 2025 the RAF Museum passed it to the Ulster Aviation Society.

In Hangar 1 at Maze Long Kesh, with its alternative high T-tail rear fuselage also held by the society.