Vickers V-1000 the world's first jet-powered commercial transport aircraft, the Vickers Viscount, the world's first turboprop-powered commercial airliner, and the Bristol Britannia, a turboprop-powered aircraft capable of conducting routine transatlantic flights; all of these designs had their origins in the specifications laid out by the wartime Brabazon Committee. With these aircraft, Britain appeared to be on track to capturing a large slice of the global demand for civil aircraft for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, the Royal Air Force (RAF) had been pursuing development of a new generation of strategic bombers, these being the Vickers Valiant, the Avro Vulcan, and the Handley Page
Three-surface aircraft canard foreplanes flew in 1985 and derivatives of this design became the only military types to enter production. Also in 1979, Piaggio began design studies on a three-surface civil twin turboprop which, in collaboration with Learjet, would emerge as the Piaggio P.180 Avanti. This type first flew in 1986 and entered service in 1990, with production continuing today. In the Avanti, the three-surface configuration is claimed to significantly reduce wing size, weight and drag compared to the conventional equivalent. Two experimental aircraft adopting this configuration were subsequently built by Scaled Composites under the lead of Burt Rutan and flown in