Watch Cold War, Hot Jets

As an 'Iron Curtain' fell across Europe, the jet bomber came to define how the Cold War was fought. Able to fly faster, higher and further than ever before, and armed with a devastating new weapon, Britain's V Force became the platform for delivering nuclear Armageddon.

The jet engine is one of the most transformative inventions of the modern age. A crucial discovery in World War Two, flowing from a golden age of British inventiveness, energy and sheer derring-do, it was a technology that truly came of age in the 1950s during the early years of the Cold War.