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Airborne Forces Experimental Establishment
The Airborne Forces Experimental Establishment (AFEE) was a branch of the British Air Ministry, that researched and developed non-traditional airborne applications, such as gliders, rotary wing aircraft, and dropping of personnel and equipment by parachute, in the period 1942–1950. Formation (1942) On 15 February 1942, the Airborne Forces Experimental Establishment was formed as a reorganisation of the Airborne Forces Establishment, that itself was a September 1941 renaming of the Central Landing Establishment. The AFEE was initially based at RAF Ringway as part of No. 70 Group RAF, with two flying units, A Flight and B Flight. At Ringway, one of the existing projects was the Hafner Rotachute, a rotor kite (unpowered autogiro) that was planned to deliver an armed soldier to a battlefield more accurately and reliably than conventional parachute methods. During 1941, unmanned models had already completed ground-based tests plus some releases from aircraft in flight.Sturtivant 20 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Air Ministry
The Air Ministry was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force and civil aviation that existed from 1918 to 1964. It was under the political authority of the Secretary of State for Air. Organisations before the Air Ministry The Air Committee On 13 April 1912, less than two weeks after the creation of the Royal Flying Corps (which initially consisted of both a naval and a military wing), an Air Committee was established to act as an intermediary between the Admiralty and the War Office in matters relating to aviation. The new Air Committee was composed of representatives of the two war ministries, and although it could make recommendations, it lacked executive authority. The recommendations of the Air Committee had to be ratified by the Admiralty Board and the Imperial General Staff and, in consequence, the Committee was not particularly effective. The increasing separation of army and n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
General Aircraft GAL
A general officer is an officer of high rank in the armies, and in some nations' air and space forces, marines or naval infantry. In some usages, the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colonel."general, adj. and n.". OED Online. March 2021. Oxford University Press. https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/77489?rskey=dCKrg4&result=1 (accessed May 11, 2021) The adjective ''general'' had been affixed to officer designations since the late medieval period to indicate relative superiority or an extended jurisdiction. French Revolutionary system Arab system Other variations Other nomenclatures for general officers include the titles and ranks: * Adjutant general * Commandant-general * Inspector general * General-in-chief * General of the Air Force (USAF only) * General of the Armies of the United States (of America), a title created for General John J. Pershing, and subsequently granted posthumously to George Washington and Ulysses S. Grant * (" general admiral" ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Raoul Hafner
Raoul Hafner, (1905–1980) FEng, FRAes, was an Austrian-born British helicopter pioneer and engineer. He made a distinctive contribution to the British aerospace industry, particularly in the development of helicopters. Life Born in 1905, he was educated in Vienna, first at the university and then at technical college where he became interested in rotary-wing concept as a means of making aircraft land more slowly and safely. He obtained a post with the Austrian Air Traffic Company, but his heart was in helicopter design. He gave up his job to concentrate on helicopters, designing and building the Hafner Nagler R.I Revoplane in 1929 in collaboration with Bruno Nagler, then the similar Hafner Nagler R.II Revoplane in 1931.''Bristol Sycamore'' Heli Archive [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Norman Coslett
Air Marshal Sir Thomas Norman Coslett, (8 November 1909 – 9 November 1987) was a senior Royal Air Force officer who served as Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief RAF Maintenance Command from 1963 to 1966. RAF career Coslett joined the Royal Air Force in 1926. He served as a pilot with No. 216 Squadron at the beginning of the Second World War and was then sent to the United States as Liaison Officer to the American aircraft manufacturers in 1942 before returning to join the India Office at the Air Ministry in 1943. After the war he was appointed Officer Commanding RAF Lüneburg and then became deputy director of Technical Training at the Air Ministry in 1947. He went on to be Commandant at the Airborne Forces Experimental Establishment in 1948, deputy director of Technical Planning at the Air Ministry in 1954 and Senior Technical Staff Officer at Headquarters Coastal Command RAF Coastal Command was a formation within the Royal Air Force (RAF). It was founded in 1936, when ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RAF Andover
RAF Andover is a former Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force List of former Royal Air Force stations, station in England, west of Andover, Hampshire. As well as RFC and RAF units, units of the Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps, Royal Canadian Air Force, United States Army Air Forces, and the Air Transport Auxiliary were also stationed at the airfield. The airfield has a notable place in history as the site of the first attempt to develop a viable long-range electronic navigation system, during the World War I, First World War, and also of the first British military helicopter unit and first European helicopter flying training school, during the World War II, Second World War. RAF Andover was also used before and after the Second World War for a variety of other aeronautical research and flight testing. The RAF Staff College, Andover was founded here in 1922, the first college to train officers in the administrative, staff and policy aspects of running an air force. RAF ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RAF Boscombe Down
MOD Boscombe Down ' is the home of a military aircraft testing site, on the south-eastern outskirts of the town of Amesbury, Wiltshire, England. The site is managed by QinetiQ, the private defence company created as part of the breakup of the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA) in 2001 by the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD). The base was originally conceived, constructed, and operated as Royal Air Force Boscombe Down, more commonly known as RAF Boscombe Down, and since 1939, has evaluated aircraft for use by the British Armed Forces. The airfield has one active runway in length. The airfield's evaluation centre is currently home to Rotary Wing Test and Evaluation Squadron (RWTS), Fast Jet Test Squadron (FJTS), Heavy Aircraft Test Squadron (HATS), Handling Squadron, and the Empire Test Pilots' School (ETPS). It will be home to an anti-jamming test facility by 2026. History First World War An aerodrome opened at the Boscombe Down site in October 1917 and operated as a R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aeroplane And Armament Experimental Establishment
The Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment (A&AEE) was a research facility for British military aviation from 1918 to 1992. Established at Martlesham Heath, Suffolk, the unit moved in 1939 to Boscombe Down, Wiltshire, where its work continues following privatisation as part of the Qinetiq company. History In 1917, the Experimental Aircraft Flight of the Central Flying School was transferred from Upavon, Wiltshire to a site on the heathland at Martlesham, Suffolk, and on 16 January 1917 Martlesham Heath Airfield was officially opened, as an experimental airfield. The unit was renamed the Aeroplane Experimental Unit, Royal Flying Corps. After the end of World War I the site continued to be used and was, once again, renamed as the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment of the Royal Air Force. At the outbreak of the Second World War, on 9 September, the A&AEE was removed to RAF Boscombe Down, Wiltshire, owing to the proximity of Martlesham Heath t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Focke-Achgelis Fa 223
The Focke-Achgelis Fa 223 ''Drache'' () was a helicopter developed by Germany during World War II. A single Bramo 323 radial engine powered two three-bladed rotors mounted on twin booms on either side of the cylindrical fuselage. Although the Fa 223 is noted for being the first helicopter to attain production status, production of the helicopter was hampered by Allied bombing of the factory, and only 20 were built. The Fa 223 could cruise at with a top speed of , and climb to an altitude of . The ''Drache'' could transport cargo loads of over at cruising speeds of and altitudes approaching . Design and development Henrich Focke had been removed by the Nazi regime from the company he had co-founded in 1936. Though the ostensible reason was that he was "politically unreliable", the RLM decision to phase Focke-Wulf into the production program of the almost-ready Messerschmitt Bf 109 necessitated an influx of capital to fund the immediate expansion of the company's produc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flettner Fl 282
The Flettner Fl 282 ''Kolibri'' (Hummingbird) is a single-seat intermeshing rotor helicopter, or ''synchropter'', produced by Anton Flettner of Germany. According to Yves Le Bec, the Flettner Fl 282 was the world's first series production helicopter. Design and development The Fl 282 ''Kolibri'' was an improved version of the Flettner Fl 265 announced in July 1940, which pioneered the same intermeshing rotor configuration that the ''Kolibri'' used. It had a 7.7 litre displacement, seven-cylinder Siemens-Halske Sh 14 radial engine of mounted in the center of the fuselage, with a transmission mounted on the front of the engine from which a drive shaft ran to an upper gearbox, which then split the power to a pair of opposite-rotation drive shafts to turn the rotors. The Sh 14 engine was a venerable, tried-and-true design with low specific power output and low power/weight ratio (20.28 hp/L, 0.54 hp/lb) which could (anecdotally) run for up to 400 hours without major ser ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cierva C
The Cierva Autogiro Company was a British firm established in 1926 to develop the autogyro. The company was set up to further the designs of Juan de la Cierva, a Spanish engineer and pilot, with the financial backing of James George Weir, a Scottish industrialist and aviator. History Juan de la Cierva's first British-built autogyro was the C.8 design. It and some other designs were built in conjunction with Avro. The pre-war Cierva C.30 proved popular. Nearly 150 were built under licence in the United Kingdom by Avro, in Germany by Focke-Wulf, and in France by Lioré-et-Olivier. On 9 December 1936, Cierva was killed in the Croydon KLM airliner accident when the aircraft in which he was a passenger crashed after taking off in fog. Dr. James Allan Jamieson Bennett was promoted to Chief Technical Officer of the company and remained in the position until leaving in 1939. In addition to making important contributions to autogyro controls while at Cierva Autogyro, Bennett carried ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sikorsky Hoverfly
The Sikorsky R-4 is a two-seat light helicopter that was designed by Igor Sikorsky with a single, three-bladed main rotor and powered by a radial engine. The R-4 was the world's first large-scale mass-produced helicopter and the first helicopter used by the United States Army Air Forces,"Sikorsky R-4B Hoverfly" ''National Museum of the United States Air Force''. Retrieved: 25 July 2016. the , the and the |
Cierva Air Horse
The Cierva W.11 Air Horse was a helicopter developed by the Cierva Autogiro Company in the United Kingdom during the mid-1940s. The largest helicopter in the world at the time of its debut, the Air Horse was unusual for using three rotors mounted on outriggers, and driven by a single engine mounted inside the fuselage. Only two aircraft were built, further development by Cierva was stopped after the crash of the first one and little work was done under Saunders Roe before the project was ended and the second aircraft was scrapped in 1951. Development The W.11 "Air Horse" heavy lift helicopter was developed by the G & J Weir, Ltd., Aircraft Department, reconstituted in 1943 as the Cierva Autogiro Company. The "W" in the designation is a continuation of the autogiro and helicopter series developed by G & J Weir, Ltd., during the period 1932–1940. The W.11 was a development of the Weir W.6 dual transverse rotor helicopter. It is the only helicopter of its type ever built and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
