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Aviation History
1961
1961 - 0056.PDF
54 FLIGHT, 13 January 1961 The First Handley Page Transports - , G-EASL, one of the first two 0/1 Is; these aircraft were designed for pas- senger and freight duties operated by H.P.T., was converted into an O/700 in August, butit seems to have been the only one of its type to have been used on scheduled services in Europe. However, it was notable as probablythe first transport aeroplane to carry radio. The rest of H.P.T.'s fleet apparently consisted of O/400s until the spring of 1920. It is interesting that, as with the O/7, only one Vimy-Commer-cial—the famous G-EASI City of London, of the Instone Air Line Ltd—went into service with a United Kingdom airline, althoughboth types were operated in some numbers in China. Although it presumably did not go into service (no C of A wasawarded), there was one most interesting development of the O/400 series, apparently known as the W/4, which was flown forthe first time on August 22, 1919 by Lt-Col Sholto Douglas (now Lord Douglas of Kirtleside). There is, however, some mysteryabout diis prototype (it may have borne the "private" Handley Page markings HP-15 and seems to have been converted from an O/400with the serial number C9713) and, as far as is known, no photo- graph of it has ever been published. Mr Jackson does not evenmention it in his book (presumably because it does not seem to have been given civil registration markings), but Dr Highamclaims that it went into service with H.P.T. in December 1919. It would be interesting to know what evidence there is for thisassertion. The W/4 (it was later retrospectively given the Handley Page type designation H.P.16) seems to have consisted of an O/7fuselage fitted with new equal-span wings of 85ft span—possibly obtained by cutting down the outer bays of the wings of the muchlarger V/1500 four-engined bomber—and a new tail unit with single fin and rudder. The loaded weight was reduced from12,8001b for the O/7 to just under 10,0001b. The interesting thing about this design is that it was a most important intermediate stepbetween the O/400 series and the very successful W/8 design which, with its derivatives, was to succeed the O/400 in productionand provide the bulk of Handley Page's business for the next ten years. The W/4 does not seem to have been a success, but it was usedto try out various tail configurations. It was eventually handed over to the RAE after extensive test flying by Capt G. T. R. Hill.Experience gained with the W/4 contributed to the next Handley Page design, the W/8, which also had equal-span wings, althoughof ten feet shorter span. The W/8 bore the "private" Handley Page marking HP-15 and the civil registration G-EAPJ. It madeits first flight on December 4, 1919, and gained a C of A on August 7, 1920. The W/8 was designed to take Cosmos Jupiterengines, but because these were not ready in time it was fitted with 450 h.p. Napier Lions. These took the place of the 360 h.p.Rolls-Royce Eagles in the O/400s and O/7s. The W/8 had seats for 14 passengers. It went into production in 1922 in a modifiedform with Eagle engines and was then known as the W/8B. The W/8 prototype was, however, used in airline service from October21,1921, while the W/8B started scheduled flying on May 16,1922. The W/8A was a projected variant of the W/8 with Cosmos Jupiter radial engines in place of Napier Lions. No developmentof this variant took place, because the Cosmos Jupiter was never approved for normal service. By the time the first (Bristol) Jupitercleared a type test (in September 1921) the W/8B had already been chosen for production. Thus the later trial installation of Jupitersin an O/10, G-EATK, had no bearing on the W/8A project which preceded it, but was the first link in the chain which included theuse of the Bristol Freight Carrier (G-EBEV) on the Cologne route, the re-engining of the W/9, Hampstead and the eventual adoptionof Jupiters for the D.H.66 and Calcutta and thereafter for the Kent and H.P.42. The W/8 prototype, G-EAPJ, in its later life was used to test thegravity fuel-system for the W/8B. Like the W/8Bs, it had tanks on top of the upper wing. All cowlings were removed from thenacelles together with the nacelle fuel tanks. The installation of the Lions was then exactly the same as that in an earlier experi-mental O/400, G-EASO Carthusian II. About two months after the W/8 made its first flight, HandleyPage flew the first of a new development of the civil O/400 series. This was the O/ll, which was similar to the O/7 in havinga transport fuselage with the fuel tanks in the engine nacelles but with very much strengthened interplane strutting supporting thenacelles. The O/7 struts were the same as those of the original O/100, but the O/ll had a straight interplane strut supportingthe rear of the nacelle as well as vee struts. There were also two diagonal struts from the nacelles to the lower wing-root fittings.The O/ll had a mixed passenger/freighter interior with a freight hold amidships and a small passenger cabin with three seats aft.Two rectangular windows on each side lighted the passenger cabin while a number of small irregularly-placed windows further for-ward let light into the freight compartment. The first two O/ll s— G-EASL, "HP-30" and G-EASM, "HP-31"—gained their Cs of Aon March 23, 1920, and went into service with H.P.T. in the following month. Five O/lls were built. The O/10, an all-passenger version of the O/ll with seats for12 passengers, first appeared about a month after the first O/lls. Eight O/10s were built and went into airline service. They hadsimilar nacelle struts to the O/11 but could be distinguished by the five rectangular windows on each side of the fuselage. The cabinsof the O/ll and the O/10 did not extend as far aft as that of the O/7, but both had prominent ventilation scoops and extractors aftof their rear bulkheads. The first O/10—G-EASY, "HP-35"— gained its C of A on June 23, 1920, and went into service soonafterwards. The longest-lived, G-EATH, "HP-38," remained in use until September 1923. By then the W/8B had long beenestablished in service. Thereafter, Handley Page was to produce a succession of two- and three-engined further developments—the civil W/8E and F, W/9 and W/10 transports as well as the Hyderabad and Hinaidi bombers and Clive troop transport for theRAF—which were to maintain the W/8 series in use for more than ten years. A total of about 80 were built in all. The first O/W to go into service. It was an all- passengsr version of the O/ll, with seating for 12
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