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BRISTOL AIRCRAFT

 
 

   
 

SMALL FIRM BRISTOLS

 
 

   
  In 1885 Mr George White and his City of Gloucester Tramways Company took over the six-year-old horse drawn tram network of the County City. By 1910 Sir George White’s Bristol Tramway & Carriage Company Limited was building its own motor buses and operating motor lorries, buses, taxis and hearses. The association with bus and car building continues to this day, but in that year Sir George White also founded a "flying machine factory" in a former bus depot and works at Filton.  
 

   
 

Bristol Fighter powered by a Rolls Royce engine at Grantham in 1930

 
 

   
 

Bristol Fighter powered by a Rolls Royce engine at Grantham in 1930

 
 

   
  By November 1910 the new British and Colonial Aeroplane Company had gained its first export order – eight Bristol Boxkite biplanes for Imperial Russia. But more substantial single-engined machines were to emerge during World War One. The Scout was followed by the Bristol Fighter, which stayed in RAF service until 1931. 1920 saw both a name-change to the Bristol Aeroplane Company and the acquisition of the Cosmos Engineering Company. Like de Havillands, Bristol could now equip its aircraft with its own aero engines: and continued to do so into the 1960s.  
 

   
 

In 1929 Bristol won the RAF contract to build the Bulldog biplane fighter – a type which also served with many other air arms around the World

 
 

   
 

In 1929 Bristol won the RAF contract to build the Bulldog biplane fighter – a type which also served with many other air arms around the World Click on picture for more about RAF aircraft of the 1930s

 
 

   
    Designed to Specification 2/34, the Bristol Type 138A single seat research monoplane (K4879) first flew on 11 May 1936 powered by a Bristol Pegasus IV engine.  
 

   
  Designed to Specification 2/34, the Bristol Type 138A single seat research monoplane (K4879) first flew on 11 May 1936 powered by a Bristol Pegasus IV engine.

Following flight tests with an oxygen pressure helmet, and the installation of a 500 bhp Pegasus PE VI S engine with two stage supercharger, driving a four bladed fixed-pitch wooden propeller, the Type 138A was flown by Squadron leader F.R.D. Swain to 49 967 feet on 28 September 1936 establishing a new World Altitude Record.

In May 1937 the record was beaten by Italy and the 138A - with a wingspan of 66 feet, the World’s largest single-engined aircraft - was modified with a finer pitch airscrew for a further attempt. On 30 June 1937 Flight Lieutenant M. J. Adams reached a record altitude of 53 937 feet that was not to be surpassed until after the Second World War.
 

 
  The first production Bristol Bombay flew in March 1939 and was to be the basis for the post War Bristol Type 170 Freighter, Wayfarer and Superfreighter
 

 
  The first production Bristol Bombay - K 3583 - flew in March 1939 and was to be the basis for the post War Bristol Type 170 Freighter, Wayfarer and Superfreighter. Click on picture for more details
 
 
  In 1933, Bristol had won its first order for a large twin-engined bomber / transport, the Type 130 Bombay, which in turn had been designed with lessons learned from the one-off twin-engined Bagshot monoplane fighter of 1927. However, by the time that the first production Bombay flew in March 1939 Filton was pre-occupied with a smaller but more celebrated twin engined bomber – the Blenheim!

This was based on the civilian Type 142: built by Bristol in 1935 for Lord Rothermere - proprieter of the "Daily Mail"newspaper - and named "Britain First". Powered by two 840hp Bristol Mercury VIII radial engines, the first chisel-nosed Blenheim 1 flew on 25 June 1936 and the type was exported to Finland, Yugoslavia, Turkey and Romania. A Mk 1F night fighter version followed, as did the Mark IV bomber version with the distinctive long scalloped nose and 920hp Mercury powerplants.

77373 (14) - displayed at Cheltenham in October 2006 and also pictured below, far right just below silver Hawker Hurricane K5083 - was in Free French Air Force markings and desert camouflage, reflecting the widespread use of the type in North Africa. Another distinctive feature of the Blenheim IV was the pair of rear-facing machine guns mounted under the nose.
 

   
  Bristol Beaufighters MB-T ( top, with D-Day invasion stripes ) and RD 147 (PLU) represent the Mark X version of Frank Barnwell’s design. RD 147 (PLU) combines a "thimble" nose cone containing Air to Surface Vessel (ASV) radar with rocket and torpedo armament and two 1750 hp Bristol Hercules XVIII engines.  
 

   
  Bristol Beaufighter RD 147 (PLU) represented the Mark X version of Frank Barnwell’s design, combining a "thimble" nose cone containing Air to Surface Vessel (ASV) radar with rocket and torpedo armament and two 1750 hp Bristol Hercules XVIII engines.  
 

   
  Bristol Beaufighters NT 950 MB-T ( top, with D-Day invasion stripes ) and RD 147 (PLU) represent the Mark X version of Frank Barnwell’s design. RD 147 (PLU) combines a "thimble" nose cone containing Air to Surface Vessel (ASV) radar with rocket and torpedo armament and two 1750 hp Bristol Hercules XVIII engines.  
 

   
  From the Blenheim came the Beaufort torpedo bomber and, using the wings, rear fuselage, tail and landing gear of the Beaufort derived the long-range Beaufighter. RD 147 (PLU) represented the Mark X version of Frank Barnwell’s design, combining a "thimble" nose cone containing Air to Surface Vessel (ASV) radar with rocket and torpedo armament and two 1750 hp Bristol Hercules XVIII engines.

By 1945 the Bristol Aeroplane Company could boast 2 500 00 square feet of covered floor space at Filton, yet it was still a firm making relatively small aircraft. In the post-War era of the mighty Brabazon and Britannia however, this was soon to change.
 
 

   
  BIG FIRM BRISTOLS  
 

   
 

  Bristol Brabazon G-AGPW flies in formation with the much more successful twin engined Bristol Type 170 Mark 21 Freighter

 
 

   
  Bristol Brabazon G-AGPW flies in formation with the much more successful twin engined Bristol Type 170 Mark 21 Freighter. Click on picture for more on the Bristol Type 170 series  
 

   
  The years between the end of the Second World War and the formation of the British Aircraft Corporation in the 1960s saw Bristol products venture further than ever before – both in the skies with helicopters and missiles and on the road.

The key to this aviation expansion was the eight-Centaurus engined Bristol Brabazon. Construction of what was then the World’s largest landplane (and the third largest piston engined aeroplane ever built) involved the erection of vast new hangars at Filton and the expansion of the runway to obliterate the nearby village of Charlton. Just one Brabazon - G-AGPW - left the ground in 1949 but proved so underpowered that the whole project was abandoned by 1953 despite a second airframe - G-AIML - being on schedule for completion with turboprop engines. However, the Bristol Aeroplane Company now had the capacity to build the much more successful Britannia turboprop airliner and Filton - as part of the British Aircraft Corporation - went on to construct the Anglo-French Concorde.
 
 
   
 

Detail of dive brakes and tail of Bristol 188 XF926 on display at RAF Cosford

 
 

   
 

Detail of dive brakes and tail of Bristol 188 XF926 on display at RAF Cosford

 
 

   
  Indeed, the sole jet aircraft originated by the Bristol Aeroplane Company was to pave the way for Concorde too. Like so many post-War British experimental types, the Bristol Type 188 supersonic research aircraft was ahead of its time. Drawn up to Air Ministry requirement ER134T, the objective of the twin engined machine was to take off from a conventional runway, attain speeds beyond Mach 2 and explore the little known science of kinetics and the subsequent heating effects on airframes.

Several firms took interest in this very advanced specification and the eventual contract - numbered 6/Acft/10144 - was awarded to the Bristol Aeroplane Company in February 1953. Bristol gave the aircraft the type number 188, of which three aircraft were to be built. One was to stay on the ground as a pure test bed while the other two (Constructors numbers 13518 and 13519) were for flight testing. Under contract number KC/2M/04/CB.42(b) these were given serial numbers XF923 and XF926 on 4 January 1954. To support the development of the Vulcan replacement Avro 730 Mach 2 bomber another three Bristol 188s were ordered and allocated the serial numbers XK429, XK434 and XK436. However, this order was subsequently cancelled with the scrapping of the Avro 730 project in 1957, the year of the Duncan Sandys White Paper on Defence.

The very advanced nature of the Bristol 188 meant that 12% chromium stainless steel was used for the construction of the paint-free outer skin over a honeycomb centre - a similarly light but strong technique to that used in building the Handley Page Victor bomber. However, problems with a new Argon arc-welding technique - known as puddle welding - caused long delays and was less than satisfactory: the Bristol 188 weighing in at 40 000 lbs. Nevertheless, W.G. Armstrong Whitworth gave much technical support to Bristol and the resulting aircraft showed how Britain could have led the World in advanced aircraft design and manufacture. Indeed, special "gloves" were made for the thin - and potentially sharp - outer wing section edges to prevent Bristol employees from becoming injured by walking in to them!
 
 

   
 

Chief Test Pilot Godfrey L, Auty joined Bristol in 1951 and also flew the Britannia

 
 

   
 

Chief Test Pilot Godfrey L. Auty joined Bristol in 1951 and also flew the Britannia

 
 

   
  May 1960 saw the first airframe delivered to Farnborough for structural tests before moving on to Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) Bedford. XF923 undertook the first taxiing trials on 26 April 1961 but the first flight from Filton - with 41 year old Chief Test Pilot Godfrey L. Auty at the controls - was not until 14 April 1962. XF923 made its public debut at the SBAC Farnborough Air Show in September 1962 while XF926 had its first flight - escorted by a Hawker Hunter T7 - on 26 April 1963.

Only two other men - fellow Bristol test pilot J. Williamson and Lt Cdr P. Millet of the Royal Aeronautical Establishment - were ever to fly the Bristol 188.

XF926 would eventually make 51 flights and eventually managed a speed of Mach 1.88 ( 2 300 km/h ) at 36 000' ( 11 km ). However, the fuel consumption of the two 10 000 dry thrust ( 14 000 with reheat ) De Havilland Gyron Junior DGJ.10R gas turbines was such that the Bristol 188 had an endurance of only 25 minutes: far too little time for any serious high speed research. Indeed, although Godfrey Auty reported that the Bristol 188 transitioned smoothly from subsonic to supersonic flight, the Gyron Junior engines were prone to surging beyond that speed, causing the aircraft to pitch and yaw.

As such, the special quartz-lined windscreen and canopy - and cockpit refrigeration system - were never tested in the environment for which they had been designed, although the innovation of flight test data being transmitted directly to the ground for rapid evaluation was later more widely copied. In fact the Bristol 188 was thirty years ahead of today's uninhabited aerial vehicles because the operations room receiving the downlinked data also housed a co-pilot in a replica cockpit who could remotely control many of the aircraft's systems, thus relieving the workload on the airborne pilot. Due to the lack of onboard plan position indicator radar too, the Bristol 188 pilot relied on data uplinked from the ground to navigate.

The longest subsonic Bristol 188 flight was only 48 minutes in length and 70% of the fuel load was expended reaching operational height. Had Bristol's "flaming pencil" been dropped from a larger aircraft - in the manner of the North American X-15 rocket planes - or been fitted for in-flight refuelling perhaps the outcome would have been different. As it was the Bristol 188 programme was eventually abandoned after the last flight of XF926 on 12 January 1964. By this time XF923 was being robbed of parts to keep XF926 flying.

In April 1966 both Bristol 188 fuselages were taken to the Proof and Experimental Establishment at Shoeburyness, Essex as targets for gunnery trials work but during1972 XF926 was dismantled and moved to RAF Cosford - minus engines - as instructional airframe 8368M. XF923 was subsequently scrapped at Foulness.

The knowledge and technical information gained was put to some use in the future Concorde programme, although the supersonic airliner would be built of more conventional metals than a stainless steel honeycomb. More practically though, experience with the Gyron Junior engine - the first British gas turbine designed for sustained supersonic working - helped the development of the Bristol ( later Rolls Royce ) Olympus 593 powerplant used on both Concorde and the BAC TSR2.

Despite this, XF926 remains one of the fastest aircraft ever built to operate from a conventional runway.
 
 

   
  Although the stainless steel Bristol Type 188 jet aircraft was only flying for two years, footage of XF923 appeared in a film very much of its time.

Clive Donner’s 93 minute movie "Some People" was produced by James Archibald for Vic Films and shot in Eastmancolor in 1962. Written by documentary filmmaker John Eldridge, "Some People" was - looking back - a clichéd depiction of 60s youth alienation and boredom told through the lives of three twenty-something bikers. Filmed on location in Bristol and making use of landmarks such as the Clifton Suspension Bridge, the production also featured some unabashed propaganda for the Duke of Edinburgh's social engineering award scheme – with film profits going to the organisation.

In the film – photographed by John Wilcox and edited by Fergus McDonell - three bikers; Johnnie (Ray Brooks), Bert (David Hemmings) and Bill (David Andrews) were banned from riding after their involvement in a speeding traffic accident. Bored, they wandered through the night-time streets of Bristol and ended up in an unlocked church where Johnnie begins to play rock and roll on the church organ. The sound heralded the arrival of an outraged vicar, but his liberal-minded choirmaster Mr Smith (Kenneth More) sensed the youth’s boredom and offered them use of the church hall to form a rock band.

Many of the other youngsters attending the church hall had participated in the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme, and gradually the trio became interested in the new pursuits that the scheme had to offer youngsters of initiative. But jealous Bert felt it all becoming too humdrum and that the friends should be rebelling – resulting in a break up of their camaraderie. Meanwhile, Johnnie had to contend with the affections of Terry (played by Angela Douglas), the bands attractive blonde female lead singer, and Anne ( played by Anneke Wills), the choirmaster’s adolescent daughter.

Johnnie’s father was played by Harry H. Corbett and music for "Some People" was by Australian born composer Ron Grainer who – along with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop – also wrote the theme tunes for both "Dr Who" and "Steptoe and Son". Harold Steptoe himself was, of course, played by Harry H. Corbett while Anneke Wills played Polly, assistant to Patrick Troughton’s Dr Who. And among the stories that Polly appeared in was "The Faceless Ones", which also featured Bristol aircraft in the shape of a Britannia airliner!

Among the rest of the cast were Kenneth More ( no stranger to movies with aircraft, including "Angels One Five" - featuring Portugese Air Force Hawker Hurricanes - some of which may have been built by Gloster Aircraft at Hucclecote), Angela Douglas ( who would star again with Harry H. Corbett in 1966’s "Carry on Screaming") David Hemmings ( whose role in Antonioni’s film "Blow Up", also in 1966, encouraged me to pick up a camera.. ) and Ray Brooks, famous for his TV roles in "Cathy Come Home"and latterly Pauline Fowler’s husband in "Eastenders".

For my generation, Ray Brooks is also remembered as the voice of "Mr Benn", and just a few years after "Some People" was filmed in Bristol, Anthony Wedgwood Benn was making frequent visits to Filton to check progress on the new Concorde as Harold Wilson's Minister for Aviation!
 
 

   
 

This model shows off the plan view of Bristol's "Flaming Pencil" Type 188

 
 

   
 

This model shows off the plan view of Bristol's "Flaming Pencil" Type 188

 
 

   
 

Bristol Belvedere twin rotor helicopter XG 461 with the earlier version tailplane lifts a Bloodhound SAM mounted on a smaller variant trailer than that supplied with the Airfix kit.  Note the Land Rover in the left of the picture.

 
 

   
  Bristol Belvedere twin rotor helicopter XG 461 with the earlier version tailplane lifts a Bloodhound SAM mounted on a smaller variant trailer than that supplied with the Airfix kit. Note the Land Rover in the left of the picture.

Click on picture for more on the development of the Bristol Type 192 Belvedere.
 
 

   
  Perhaps best known among Bristol's uninhabited aerial vehicle products meanwhile was the Bloodhound surface to air missile (SAM). This was developed under the code name Red Duster during the early 1950s and was powered in accelerated flight by two 16" diameter kerosene burning Thor ramjets. Bristol Odin ramjets would later power the Sea Dart naval missile.

In 1957 an early Bloodhound became the first ever British SAM to down an aircraft when it intercepted an unmanned Fairey Firefly target over Cardigan Bay. Later the same year, the first RAF Bloodhounds became operational with 264 Squadron at North Coates, Lincolnshire. The last examples were not stood down until the early 1990s by which time Bloodhounds had also equipped 98, 112, 242, and 266 Squadrons RAF and the defence forces of Singapore.

The Mark 1 Bloodhound was the subject of a 1/72 scale kit by Airfix ( although first moulded by Frog ) which also featured a launcher, Royal Air Force crew ( complete with dog!) and transport trailer hauled by an early series soft-top Land Rover pick-up. Here is what the instruction sheet has to say. Note the unaltered use of the present tense and news of future ( now past ) upgrades:

"The Bristol / Ferranti Bloodhound is the surface-to-air guided missile system selected by the RAF for the defence of the United Kingdom and is now in service with Fighter Command. the Bloodhound, claimed to have the longest range of any semi-active homing missile in the Western World, has also been ordered by Sweden and Australia.
Bristol Aircraft Ltd have overall responsibility for Bloodhound, the ramjets are made by Bristol Siddeley Engines, the guidance and control systems by Ferranti and the ground radar equipment by AEI.

Upon detection of hostile aircraft the tactical approach radar would allocate targets to fighter aircraft and Bloodhound missiles. Target position data, switched to the fire unit, is used to point the target illuminating radar to its designated target, which then tracks and illuminates the target, providing data to the missiles and launchers.
When the firing button is pressed, Bloodhound's four rocket boosters accelerate it to supersonic speed in a few seconds, in which time the ramjets start and attain full power, the boosters then being jettisoned.

The radar signal from the target illuminating radar is reflected from the target, and this reflected signal is received by the missile. It is used by the missile's "brain" to compute the correct intercepting course, and the computer in turn actuates the wings to steer the missile on this course. The missile can counter evasion by the target, and the nearer the missile approaches the more accurate the information available for interception becomes
More advanced versions of the Bloodhound will enter into service with the RAF, indicating the intention to keep pace with the changing threat by development within the same missile family. The Bloodhound is 25' 3" long with boosters and has a wingspan of 9' 4 1/2". Range is at least 60 miles and speed over Mach 2."
 
 

   
 

RELL WHW 845 F waits in Gloucester Clarence Street with the 609 service to Tuffley. With the fleet number GRG1046, this Eastern Counties bodied vehile was powered with a 6 cylinder Leyland engine.

 
 
   
 

Click on picture for more about Bristol buses