Shorts’ experience in the world of so-called small airliners began with the design, development and manufacture of Sky van (Fig. 1), a 12 500 lb STOL transport aimed particularly at the expanding market provided by the developing nations. To date some 120 have been sold. The disposition of these aircraft around the world is shown at Fig. 2. Two competitive aircraft of roughly the same size and developed at the same time are the Canadian de Havilland Twin Otter and the American Beech 99, the former having captured by far the largest slice of the market.

With this background the Company has naturally retained a keen interest in the business prospects afforded by the third level airline market. Indeed, the prospect of maximising the non-recurring investment already made in Skyvan provided a spur both to continued project design and to market studies in that segment of the airline industry bounded by the Islander at one end and the DC-3 at the other—say 10 to 30 seats capacity.