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Aviation History
1949
1949 - 0944.PDF
MAY 26TH, 1949 FLIGHT 611 J JET-BOMBER BACKGROUND Thirty-eight-year Record of the English Electric Company THOUGH a very large manufacturing organization,the English Electric Company is not widely knownas an aircraft constructor, and therefore the an- nouncement of its A.i. jet bomber (illustrated in Flight last week may have surprised the uninitiated. In fact, however, the Company has an association with design and production traceable back to 1911. In that year the Coventry Ordnance Works—one of five companies amalgamated to form the English Electric Company in 1918—designed, built and -entered an aircraft for the military trials and competitions. The other com- panies in the merger were Dick, Kerr and Co., Ltd., of Preston; the Phoenix Dynamo Manufacturing Co., Ltd., of Bradford ; Willans and Robinson, Ltd., of Rugby ; and Siemens Dynamo Works, Stafford. The first three of these companies built landplanes and marine aircraft to Government designs during World War 1 and Willans and Robinson made aircraft engines. Dick, Kerr and the Phoenix Dynamo Company were between them the largest producers of flying boats in this country, and from their works stemmed a variety of aircraft of from 7,000 lb to more than 30,000 lb gross weight. One of the last flying boats designed and built by the English Electric Company was the Cork, with a span of 85ft and a length of 49ft. One version was powered with two Rolls-Royce Eagle engines (360 h.p. each) and the second by 450 h.p. Napier Lions. The Kingston— likewise with Lions—was a development of the Cork. Especially interesting among the products of E.E.C. was the Ayr biplane flying boat of the early post-war years in which an attempt was made to solve the problem of stability on the water by making the lower wings as an extension of the hull. These were sharply stepped-up The dainty little Wren—an " ultra-light " fl SI M Wh Ld firsty g yg flown by SI. Maurice Wright. Latter-day aircraft produced by English Electric Company have included the Hampden, Halifax and Vampire. and displaced the wing floats. Reports of early trials indicated that the scheme was not without merit, but development was abandoned. The E.E.C. is perhaps best remembered for one of the smallest successful aircraft ever built in Great Britain— the delightful little Wren high wing monoplane, with an A.B.C. motor cycle engine of, nominally, 3 h.p. but developing 6-7 h.p. at 2,600 r.p.m. The Wren's first pilot was S/L. Maurice Wright, then an Air Ministry test pilot and now a Faiiey director. Frequently at the controls of the Wren was F/L. Walter Longton, a fighter pilot of World War I, whose aerobatics at R.A.F. displays in the early 1920s are still vividly remembered. In 1926, English Electric closed its aviation department, but during the rearmament period before the outbreak of the war, the company approached the Government with the offer of manufacturing facilities for aircraft at Preston, and in 1938 received a contract for the manu- The onty British single-seat fighter with twin prswrNengine* by thz R.A.F. during the war was the Whirlwind, designed by Mr. W. E. W. Petter, now chief engineer of English Electric. facture of the Handley Page Hampden medium bomber. An order for the Halifax heavy bomber followed. This aircraft was produced in large numbers and the entire Preston works was turned over to its manufacture. Later the production of the de Havilland Vampire was allocated to English Electric by the Ministry of Aircraft Production. This aircraft has been produced, and is continuing to be made, in considerable numbers for the Royal Air Force and for Dominion and foreign govern- ments. The Hampdens, Hal if axes, and Vampires have all been erected and flown at Salmesbury Airfield, some four miles outside Preston. At the end of the war the Company decided to remain in the aircraft field, and a technical staff was built up under the direction of Mr. W. E. W. Petter, B.A., F.R.Ae.S., formerly technical director of Westland Aircraft, as chief designer. »! A number of large hangars were taken over by the Company at Warton Airfield on the estuary of the >v€tibble, some nine miles from Preston, where the designoffices and experimental shops are established. Important new testing equipment for aircraft research and development work has also been installed at Warton. It includes a welded-steel atmospheric-pressure wi:ii tunnel, with motors arid control gear of English Electric manufacture. The tunnel itself is also of the firm's own design and construction, and the special six-component balance was designed by Mr. D. L. Ellis after close study of available data from English and German sources. There is also a large mechanical-testing rig for airframe structures. A Mgh-pressure tunnel is also available. AEROMATICS IN ENGLAND AT the S.B.A.C. Exhibition at Farnborough last year, anAeromatic .airscrew was included among the exhibits shown by Hordern-Richmond, Ltd., of Haddenham, Bucks.This company now announces that it has recently concluded an agreement with the American manufacturers, the Everel Pro-peller Corporation, to make Aeromatic airscrews under licence, the agreement covering world sales rights with the exceptionof the U.S.A. and South America, hut including Canada. Two models of this excellent little automatic v.p. airscrew willbe manufactured here, the F.200 suitable for engines ap to I55 h.p., and the F.220 for engines up to 350 h.p.
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