A dull day in NSW.
Mel's silhouette is the Short SB-1 "Concept Bomber."
From here...
https://www.airvectors.net/avval.html
"Both Sperrin prototypes were scrapped in the late 1950s. Shorts also proposed a design based on the SA.4 for the more advanced B.35/46 specification, the "SB.1", featuring a fuselage like that of the SA.4 but with a "tailless" configuration, using the company's "aero-isoclinic" scheme. The outer sections of the wings were pivoted, allowing them to maintain the same incidence even as the wing flexed. The pivoted wingtips acted as both elevators, rotating together to control pitch, and ailerons, rotating in reverse direction to control roll. The SB.1 featured the engine arrangement of the SA.4, with twin Avons in nacelles arranged top and bottom of the wing, but with a fifth Avon added in the rear of the fuselage, with an intake on top.
The SB.1 was too daring for the Air Ministry, though the aero-isoclinic wing was tested on a small demonstrator, the "SB.4 Sherpa", in the early 1950s, with surprisingly good results. However, the aero-isoclinic configuration didn't really seem to have any major advantages over more conventional configurations, and that line of investigation proved a dead end. The Sherpa name would be recycled later for the Shorts 330 / C-23 light twin-engine light transport."
The Sherpa for comparison. Greg Goebel images I presume.
