Dunsfold declared inactive in 1946 but was used again in 1948 and 1949 as part of the Berlin Airlift. In 1950 The Hawker Aircraft Company acquired the lease of the site. In October 1960 the then Hawker Siddeley flight tested its Hawker P.1127 prototype, the development aircraft that led to the Hawker Siddeley Harrier, the first VTOL jet fighter bomber. Final assembly of the Harrier and the Hawk trainer aircraft was at Dunsfold. Hawker Siddeley became part of British Aerospace in 1977. On 2 July 1986 British Aerospace's deputy chief test pilot Jim Hawkins was killed at Dunsfold when his developmental
Aircraft in fiction for the Decepticon Jetblade. A prototype Harrier was used in the TV series "The Saint" (1962–1969) in Season 5, Episode 13 "Flight Plan" (aired June 25, 1967). In the show Simon Templar has to retrieve a prototype aircraft called the "Osprey" that was stolen by its test pilot and flown to a middle eastern country. The "Osprey" is portrayed by a Hawker Siddeley P.1127 and a Hawker Siddeley Kestrel, both early versions of the Harrier. A Royal Air Force Harrier was used by MI6 in the 1987 James Bond film "The Living Daylights" to smuggle KGB defector Georgi Koskov out