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Aviation History
1938
1938 - 0088.PDF
b FLIGHT. JANUARY 13, 1938. over ^40,000 per annum profit on the Avro strainer for several years. This first machine was mounted on four small wheels, specially designed for use on the Brooklands Finishing Straight. The front wheels could be steered with the legs, which is rather interesting in view of the modern tricycle undercarriage. The 9 h.p. J.A.P., the first engine fitted to this machine, was not sufficiently powerful, although it gave me opportunities of testing propellers and taxy- ing. Early in 1908 a 24 h.p. Antoinette engine arrived, and on June 8 I managed to make several flights, accord- ing to witnesses, of from 75 to 150 feet, a few feet off the ground. These were really the first flights in England, although the first official one was not until nearly a year later. . The First Tractor I soon became dissatisfied with this machine, because it could obviously be improved upon. So when I received notice to leave the track soon after my effort on June S I decided not to spend any more time on this machine and to devote all my attention on building a small tractor triplane, which I did, and took to Lea Marshes early in 1909. I managed to make a number of small flights on this machine, fitted with a two-cylinder 9 h.p. J.A.P. engine, and subsequently with a 14 h.p. four-cylinder J.A.P. engine at Wembley Park, now difficult to recog- nise. The triplane had some novel features. It was designed originally to have the angle of both the main plane and tail adjustable, but trials were carried out with only the main planes controlled for warping and angular adjust- ment. The latter method was revived recently in the "Flying Flea." There are certainly advantages in being able to keep an aeroplane horizontal during take-off and landing and controlling the front plane. As my savings were coming to an end, my brother H. V. came to the rescue, and we formed A. V. Roe and Co., Ltd., with Colonel Grimble Groves as our first chairman— (Left.) Flying in 190S-69 : " A.V." pilotingone of his early triplanes with J.A.P. engine. The contemplated duration may be gaugedfrom the size of the streamline petrol tank (Below.) How it frequently ended. Thesmile indicates that the pioneer became a philosopher quite early in his career. Themetal airscrew looks pretty much as does a modern one after a crash.(Flight photographs.) a kindly and charming man, well-known in the Manchester district. Very unfortunately he died soon after the com- pany's inception. For a start, we built triplanes at my brother's quaint mills—Brownsfield Mills, Manchester. In 1911 we turned our attention to biplanes. I also designed an enclosed monoplane, which was flown by Lt. Parke, R.N., early in 1912, being the first enclosed monoplane in the world to fly. We also built a biplane version of the enclosed mono- plane, which was flown by Lt. Parke in the 1912 Military Aeroplane Trials on Salisbury Plain, when he did his famous spinning nose dive, just coming out in the nick of time after trying all sorts of manoeuvres. However, enclosed machines did not appeal at that time, so I designed a "clean" biplane fitted with a 50 h.p. Gnome, a number of which we supplied to the Government. I thought it was about time we gave our machines a type number, as I did not consider our early efforts as serious ones. Neither had we kept account of the number we had built. Therefore, it seemed we might as well start at a respectable number with the first serious effort, which I think was the enclosed monoplane ; so we called it the 500. It must have been at the end of 1912 that I designed the 504, and I have the original drawing in the safe at home. This machine was first seen in public at a Hendon meeting in 1913, and created quite a sensation when Raynham showed that it was one of the fastest machines there and 1911-2 1915-4 The family tree : These six sketches ot early types show quite clearly the natural evolution which culminated in the 504, the type which laid the foundation of the greatness of the house of Avro.
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