P.Cater and A. Dyason, Top photo C. Hugo.

The DH/HS/BAe 125 was the first British 'biz jet', and has proved an enduring worldwide success. Alas, like a certain other pioneering Hawker jet (of the hovering variety), it was eventually taken over as an American product. This loss of a major element of the UK aviation industry happened with barely a murmur, despite job losses at Hatfield, and the 125 is now built in Wichita, Kansas as the Raytheon/Hawker(!) 800/1000. This aircraft was originally build by DeHavilland and turned out such a huge success that even after Hawker Siddeley took over DeHavilland, the aircraft was still marketed as DH 125 for a number of years. It proved very popular in USA. The latest variants, as build in the USA have a lengthened fuselage with turbofans in place of the turbojet engines. As well as the huge sales to the civil market, the HS125 was exported in military guise to a number of countries, including Eire, Brazil, Argentina, Malaysia, Malawi, Japan, USA, Saudi Arabia and… South Africa. In SAAF service it was known as the Mercurius and was the first jet-propelled aircraft of 21Sqdn for VIP transport. Curiously, the SAAF specification added an underwing rocket launching capability! It is not known if this was in fact used.