De Havilland designed and manufactured a British tri-jet named (unsurprisingly) the Trident. During the design stage a plan was floated to collaborate on the project with Boeing, who had also come up with the 3-tail-mounted engines 130-seater concept. But the British government interfered, requiring DH to scale the aircraft down to meet the state-owned domestic airline's requirements so the two manufacturers went their separate ways. Result: Trident sales - 117, B727 sales - 1832.
The T-bird prototype flew a year before the 727. It was a delight to fly, with cruise M0.84 or more (gas-guzzling was OK in the days of cheap fuel). During descent it was permissible to select limited reverse on the pod engines (but not below 2000 ft AGL) so impressive plummets while decelerating were available if required.
Take-off performance wasn't so sparkling - the aircraft was affectionately known as the 'ground gripper'.
In its favour, the Trident was the first airliner in the world to be certified for autoland in low visibilities.