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Aviation History
1951
1951 - 2397.PDF
690 FIGHTING BREED FLIGHT During the following year a Cygnet flown by F/L. Bulman (who, for many years to come, was to flight-test every one of Mr. Camm's prototypes) won the 100-mile international handicap race at 74 m.p.h. and gained other distinctions, and in 1926 a pair of Cygnets participated in the Daily Mail competition for light two-seaters. The first, entered by Mr. Sopwith and Mr. Sigrist, was flown by Bulman and the second, sponsored by the R.A.E. Flying Club, was in the hands of F/L. Chick and F/O. Ragg. Both machines had a Bristol Cherub 3 engine. Bulman proved the winner, averaging 65 m.p.h. over 1,944 miles, and the other Cygnet was placed second. The average fuel consumption was 39 m.p.g. Cygnets were flown with the A.B.C. Scorpion and inverted-vee- twin Anzani engine, but the sole remaining example (which, in the hands of Hawker test pilot Frank Murphy, has charmed a number of post-war flying assemblies) has a Cherub. During 1925 Woodcock production went ahead and in August of that year Mr. (now Sir Frank) Spriggs joined the board of directors, where he was able to cultivate those qualities which ultimately won him the managing directorship of the great Hawker Siddeley Group. He had joined Sopwiths in 1913. In 1926 Mr. Camm, who had been appointed chief designer during the previous year, undertook a redesign of the Woodcock to meet the requirements of the Royal Danish Naval Air Service. The span of the bottom mainplanes was reduced, the interplane struts were raked, and a two-row Armstrong Siddeley Jaguar engine was installed in place of the Jupiter, allowing a reduction in fuselage cross-section. Six machines, known as Danecocks, were ordered and the first three were delivered only five months after the redesign was put in hand. This order, incidentally, was the forerunner of numerous foreign contracts of major size. Greater achievements than the Danecock were to mark the year 1926, for this was the period of the Hornbill, Heron and Horsley, each, in its own field, a significant advance. The Hornbill was an intercepter, literally built round the 700 h.p. Rolls-Royce Condor engine—at that date the most powerful ever installed in a fighter. As demonstrated by F/L. Bulman at the R.A.F. Display in 1926, the HornbilPs flying qualities were as remarkable as its performance. The top speed fell only 4 m.p.h. short of the magic 200 m.p.h. for which designers were striving. Metal Construction ThetrimlittleHeron(toMr. Carter's design) had a Jupiter engine, and was notable in that it introduced a new form of metal fuselage construction, standardized, in its principles, for all subsequent Hawker types up to the Tempest. The longerons and struts of the fuselage were square metal tubes and the whole structure was braced by high-tensile wires and proved remarkably light and rigid. After the Woodcock and Danecock the next Hawker type to be built in quantity was the Horsley, a sturdy Condor-engined biplane of unequal span, which, in its little-known Mk I form, differed from its Mk II successors in that there was no sweepback on the upper wings and in having lateral radiators. The Horsley was first flown by Raynham, with Mr. Camm in the back seat, and after initial difficulties proved to be one of those designs naturally suited for development and adaptation. There was, for instance, a seaplane version, with four-blade airscrew and duralumin floats; an experimental variant with the 800-h.p. Armstrong Siddeley Leopard engine; another with a Condor compression ignition engine, and—even later—a Rolls-Royce Buzzard. The early machines were of composite construction but an all-metal struc- ture, to Mr. Camm's design, was later standardized. It is signi- ficant that six years after its inception the Leopard-Horsley was adopted by the Danish Government and re-named the Dantorp; it was manufactured in the Royal Naval Dockyard at Copenhagen and was employed both as a landplane and seaplane. The Coador- Horsley was adopted by the Greek Naval Air Service. In the R.A.F. the Horsley served not only as a day bomber but as a coastal defence torpedo/bomber, and such were its qualities of endurance and carrying capacity that it was an obvious choice The delightful little Tomtit trainer (Mongoose) of 1929. for an attempt on the world's long-distance record, then held by the Frenchman Costes, with a 3,390-mile flight from Paris to Jask, Persia. The original Horsley had an all-up weight of 7,800 Ib, but Mr. Camm and his staff calculated that the airframe was strong enough to permit loading to 14,2001b. The retanking of the long- distance Horsley recalled Sopwith's efforts with their Atlantic machine : three tanks were housed in the fuselage, two in the top centre-section and one in each of the top outer mainplanes. A special high-compression Condor was installed, the undercarriage was strengthened and, as the main fuselage tank was enlarged, the cockpits were moved aft. The selected pilot and navigator were F/L.s Can- and Gilbnan. A tyre-burst, as the machine was wheeled from its hangar, was not a happy augury, but on May 20th, 1927, the big biplane took off from Cranwell, in a veering wind, after a run of 792 yards. For two days there was no news; then it was learned that the Horsley had "ditched" in the Persian Gulf, after being airborne for 34J hr. and covering a straight-line distance of 3,420 miles. This unofficial record was to stand only for 2 hr—until Lindbergh landed at Paris after his 3,590-mile transatlantic flight. Without delay further preparations were put in hand but no success attended them, and finally, on June 18th, 1927, a third and last attempt was made. The machine was escorted at the outset by a second Horsley, flown by F/L. Bulman and with Flight's John Yoxall in the rear cockpit. Yoxall recalls how, as the pair approached Ipswich, he saw a tell-tale stream of oil leaving the cowling of Carr's machine. It was, of course, still very heavily overloaded, and, rather than risk disaster in attempting a landing, Carr and his navigator, Mackworth, had been instructed to take to their parachutes in such an event. Nevertheless, the Horsley was set down on the rough surface of Martlesham Heath in a perfect landing. The year 1927 saw Mr. Camm at work on designs for a new fighter to replace the ageing Siskin in R.A.F. squadrons and the outcome was the Hawfinch—a Jupiter-engined biplane tested with both single- and two-bay wing cellules. When the supercharged Jupiter VII was installed the new fighter was flown by "George" Bulman at 171 m.p.h. at 9,850ft. Handling qualities were excellent and hopes for a "contract ran high. The choice of several competi- tive designs was finally narrowed down to the Hawfinch and the Bristol Bulldog, and specimens of both types were sent to the squadrons for protracted trials under operational conditions. It would be pleasing here to record a Hawker victory; but this was not to be, for the Bulldog was ultimately declared the winner. This success of worthy rivals was ungrudgingly acclaimed by the Hawker team as they quietly went ahead with new projects. The Hawfinch, incidentally, was one of those prototypes which is able to earn its keep before being relegated to the scrap heap. At one stage it was adapted for the testing of an "anti-stall" wing, having a normal section between the root and mid-aileron, and a thickened, heavily cambered, section outboard to the tip. By this means lateral control at low speeds was increased, though there was a penalty in the form of high tip loads at top speed. During 1929 two new designs were taking shape at Kingston, the first for a high-altitude bomber, which materialized as the Harrier; the second, for a trainer, destined to make a name for itself as the Tomtit. Initially powered with a geared Jupiter VIII, the Harrier was developed for torpedo-carrying as well as bombing, the "tin fish" reducing the top speed of 136 m.p.h. by some 9 m.p.h. Experimentally, a Bristol Mercury was installed, and the same airframe was selected as a frying test-bed for the "hush-hush" Bristol Hydra 16-cylinder deubk-octagon radial. The Tomtit was an altogether delightful little single-bay biplane, Harrier high-akkude bomber or torpedo aircraft geared Jupker). A Pegasus-powered private-venture dive-bomber—the P.VA of 1935.
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