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Aviation History
1958
1958 - 0321.PDF
FLIGHT, 14 March 1958 335 THE CANBERRA STORY ... Government Aircraft Factories at Fishermen's Bend, Melbourne.The Australian version, the B.20, was modelled on the B.2 and used Commonwealth-built Rolls-Royce Avon engines. By 1957fifty B.20s had been built. At the end of 1952 the first contract for the export of British-builtCanberras was signed—an order for six B.2s for Venezuela. This welcome sale on January 27, 1953, was made at a comparativelyearly stage in the life of the aircraft, and it augured well for future overseas sales which have now gone on steadily for six years.This, incidentally, was a sale which reflected fairly directly on the value of the S.B.A.C. display at Farnborough, for it was atthe 1952 show that the Venezuelans first saw the Canberra's remarkable qualities and so began negotiations to buy it. Sincethen a second Venezuelan order has been placed, and delivered, this time for a larger number of B.8s and T.4 dual-control trainers.It was while delivering the final one of the latter versions last month that Mr. John Hackett and Mr. Peter Moneypenny, withLt. Antonio Leyba of the Venezuelan Air Force, established the official point-to-point record mentioned earlier in this article, fromWashington, D.C., to Caracas. Overseas interest continued, no doubt encouraged by the orderto extend production in Britain and by the decisions of the Australians and Americans to make the Canberra under licence.The next country to order from Britain was France, which took delivery of six B.6s during 1954 and 1955 for special flight testingduties at the Centre d'Esscds en Vol, Bretigny. The next Latin- American order was for six B.6s from Ecuador in May 1954, andthen came Peru with an order for eight B.8s in November 1955. The largest order of all came from India in January 1957 for asubstantial number of B.8s, PR.7s and T.4s. The number of Indian aircraft involved has not been given by English Electric, butit is reported in New Delhi to total 68, worth more than £20,000,000. In March 1957 the second Venezuelan order wasplaced and the latest addition to the Canberra customer is the New Zealand Government which last month placed an order,via the Ministry of Supply, for nine B.8s and two T.4s. That is the export total so far, but the order book is not yet closed. The vast majority of sales in Britain have, of course, beento the Royal Air Force. In all more than 500 Canberras have been built by English Electric at Preston and Accrington (com-ponent manufacture) and Samlesbury aerodrome (final assembly); Short Brothers have now produced well over 100 and have a largecontract for PR.9s in hand, and A. V. Roe and Handley Page each made 75 aircraft. Over 750 Canberras represent a substantialoutlay, but for value for money they are unrivalled. First flight dates: A.1 (B.I prototype VN 799), May 13, 1949;B.2 VX165, April 23, 1950; PR.3 VX 181, March 19, 1950; T.4 WM467, June 6, 1952; B.5 VX 185, converted B.I; B.6 WJ 754,January 26, 1954; PR.7 WH 774, October 28, 1953; B(I).8 VX 185 (ex-B.5), July 23, 1954; PR.9 WH 793 (converted PR.7), July 8, 1955. INTERNATIONAL CLASS RECORDS The Canberra now holds 20 international class records, which is more than any other jet aircraft. Included is the altitude record for aeroplanes of 70,310ft, which was the third successive altitude record set by the Canberra. Data 31. 8.51 18. 2.52 26. 8.52 26. 8.52 28. 9.52 27. 1.53 27. 1.53 8.10.53 8 9.10.53 8/9.10.53 17.12.53 19.12.53 27/28. 6.55 23. 8.55 23. 8.55 23. 8.55 16. 2.56 25. 5.57 28. 8.57 22. 2.58 Route Aldergrove—Gander London—Tripoli Ald'gve—Gander—Ald'gve Gander—Aldergrove. London—Nairobi London—Karachi London—Darwin London—Basra London—Colombo . London—Christchurch London—Capetown . Capetown—London . Ottawa—London London—New York . New York—London . '. N.Z London—New York—Londc Farn borough—Cairo... Tokyo—West Mailing n Altitude record 70,310ft* Washington—Caracas Distance (•t. mi.) 2,072 1,459.83 4,144 2,072 4,239 3,921 8,608 2.832 5,416 11.796 6,009.72 6,009.72 3,330.416 3,475.96 3,475.96 6,915.92 2.182.6 5,942.5 2,057.99 Time (h. m. s.) 4 18 24.4 2 41 49.5 10 3 29.3 3 25 18.1 9 55 16.7 8 52 28.2 22 0 21.8 5 11 5.6 10 25 21.5 23 SO 42 12 21 3.8 13 16 25.2 6 42 12 7 29 56.7 6 16 59.5 14 21 45.5 3 57 18.9 17 42 2.4 4 11 32 Spaad(m.p.h.) 481.12 538.12 411.99 605.52 427.3 441.8 391.2 544.3 519.5 494.48 487 452.8 496.825 461.12 550.35 481.52 551.8 335.7 490 * This Canberra was a 8.2 fitted with a Napier Double Scorpion rocket engine in the bomb bay. The aircraft has been used for the flight development of the Double Scorpion which is to be fitted to the English Electric P.1 B supersonic fighter. The Canberra in Detail ENGINEERING FEATURES OF THE B(I).8 AND OTHER VARIANTS AS "The Canberra Story" (pages 332-335) has made clear,/\ English Electric's versatile twin-jet stems from design •L .m. thinking originated immediately after World War 2. Thebasic design, in fact, was completed more than ten years ago and the first prototype flew in the spring of 1949. The first markto go into service was the B.2; this was the first R.A.F. jet bomber and also the first British aeroplane to enter service with axialgas-turbine engines (Rolls-Royce Avon RA.3s). This journal pub- lished a description and cutaway drawing of the original Canberradesign on December 15, 1949. It is now possible for Flight to present a more detailed examina-tion of the most important current mark, the Canberra B(I).8, and to indicate in what respect the major variants at present inproduction differ. Throughout, it is clear that, like so many aeroplanes in the past, the Canberra is a design which, althoughby no means young from the structural and aerodynamic view- points, has remained highly competitive—and particularly attrac-tive to overseas air forces through its combined merits of low cost, proven efficiency and reliability, ease of conversion and operationand progressive improvement to fit it for widely differing roles. As a basic aeroplane it is singularly clean aerodynamically, andthe targets aimed at by Mr. Petter when he roughed out the basic design (page 333) were sufficiently modest for it to be capable ofmanufacture along traditional lines. It has, for example, been possible to employ quite conventional constant-thickness sheetthroughout the skinning, and heavy forgings and machined mem- bers are conspicuous by their absence, except in such obviousplaces as the undercarriage attachments and wing-root joints. It follows that the airframe weight is substantially lower than thatof similarly sized aircraft of later and faster design, and this fact, allied with the generous wing area of almost 1,000 sq ft, hasendowed the aircraft with quite remarkable flying qualities. In fact, bearing in mind the aggregate engine thrust of some 15,000 lb,the manoeuvrability and altitude performance of the Canberra are nothing short of remarkable. The latter aspect of performance hasbeen still further improved in the largely redesigned Mk 9 aircraft, as described later. Except for the Mk 9, all current Canberras have essentially thesame airframe. Principle features of the structure are evident from the drawing on pages 336 and 337. It is apparent, for example,that the fuselage is of substantially circular section throughout its length and is assembled from standard frames and longitudinals.Transport joints are provided to divide the structure into three roughly equal portions.The front fuselage incorporates the complete pressure cockpit, which is terminated at the rear by a flat pressure bulkhead mountedat an oblique angle and bearing the rails for the pilot's ejection seat. The main entrance door is near the nose on the starboardside. It opens outwards and upwards as a single unit, being hinged along its upper edge; in order to provide a dead-air region, andso permit the navigator to abandon the aircraft in emergency, a powered windbreak door is mounted immediately ahead of themain door. In all British-built Canberras the pilot is seated on the port side ot the aircraft. Earlier marks have a large symmetricalcut-out above this region, sealed by a clear canopy of blown Perspex, but current versions employ a fighter-type canopy offsetto port in line with the pilot's seat. This canopy does not open, but it can be jettisoned by ten explosive bolts and in dire emer-gency the pilot can fire his Mk 1C ejection seat through the canopy itself. Of almost uniform cross-section, the centre fuselage extendsfrom frames 12 to 31. Two heavy frames at station 21 are aligned with the main wing spar, and are separated by the spar centre-section forging which has attachment forks projecting on each side of the aircraft. Throughout the length of the centre fuselage, pro-vision is made for a bomb bay on the underside and fuel cells above, the two being separated by a strong floor structure ofdouble-skinned construction. Each bomb door is supported on forged brackets at its ends and by rollers operating in the chan-nelled ends of the transverse fuselage frames at seven stations along the bomb bay. The Mk 8 aircraft can be fitted with a gunpack, described later, by removing the bomb doors and installing flare-bay doors ahead of the pack and making other smallmodifications. The rear fuselage is of quite conventional construction. Itincorporates the stubs of the fin and tailplanes, and an extension at its rear end terminates in a dielectric cap associated with internalelectronic equipment. Aerodynamically related to that of the Meteor, the wing is com-pletely unswept, and outboard of the powerplants tapers sharply from the considerable root chord of 19ft. Port and starboard main- (Continued on p. 338, after double-page drawing of Canberra B(I).8)
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