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Bentley BR2
The Bentley B.R.2 was a nine-cylinder British rotary aircraft engine developed during the First World War by the motor car engine designer W. O. Bentley from his earlier Bentley BR.1. Coming as it did near the end of the war, the BR.2 was built in smaller numbers than the earlier BR.1 – its main use being by the Royal Air Force in the early 1920s. Design and development The initial variant of the BR.2 developed , with nine cylinders measuring for a total displacement of 1,522 cubic inches (24.9 L). It weighed , only more than the Bentley B.R.1 (A.R.1). This was the last type of rotary engine to be adopted by the RAF – later air-cooled aircraft engines such as the Cosmos Jupiter and Armstrong Siddeley Jaguar being almost entirely of the fixed radial type. With the BR.2, the rotary engine had reached a point beyond which this type of engine could not be further developed, due to its inherent limitations. Applications The type selected as the standard single-seat fighter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shuttleworth Collection
The Shuttleworth Collection is a working aeronautical and automotive collection located at the Old Warden Aerodrome, Old Warden in Bedfordshire, England. It is the oldest in the world and one of the most prestigious, due to the variety of old and well-preserved aircraft. History The collection was founded in 1928 by aviator Richard Ormonde Shuttleworth. While flying a Fairey Battle at night on 2 August 1940, Shuttleworth fatally crashed. His mother, in 1944, formed the Richard Ormonde Shuttleworth Remembrance Trust "for the teaching of the science and practice of aviation and of afforestation and agriculture." Collection Restoration and maintenance work is carried out by a staff of 12 full-time and many volunteer engineers. These volunteers are all members of the 3,000-strong Shuttleworth Veteran Aeroplane Society (SVAS). These dedicated enthusiasts are crucial to the preservation and restoration of the collection. In addition to the aircraft, the collection houses a nu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boulton Paul Bobolink
The Boulton & Paul P.3 Bobolink was a World War I British single-engined single-seat fighter aircraft. It was built by Boulton & Paul Ltd. Development and design The ''Bobolink'' was the first aeroplane designed by Boulton & Paul Limited of Norwich. The company was a manufacturer of wooden buildings but during World War I it, like many other companies, built aircraft under Ministry contracts. Aircraft built included the Sopwith 1½ Strutter and Sopwith Camel. The British Air Ministry requested proposals to replace the Sopwith Camel. Boulton & Paul designed and constructed the Bobolink and entered it in that competition. The prototype first flew in early 1918, undergoing official trials in March of that year. The Bobolink had two-bay biplane wings and was powered by the same Bentley BR2 rotary engine as used by the competing Sopwith Snipe. An unusual feature of the aircraft was the use of jettisonable fuel tanks. These were fitted behind the pilot and separated by a sheet of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Air Force Museum Cosford
The Royal Air Force Museum Cosford, located in Cosford in Shropshire, is a free (currently, 2022) museum dedicated to the history of aviation and the Royal Air Force in particular. The museum is part of the Royal Air Force Museum, a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Ministry of Defence and also a registered charity. The museum is spread over two sites in England; the other site is at the Royal Air Force Museum London at Colindale (near Hendon) in north London. History The London museum was officially opened at the Colindale (then part of Hendon) London site on 15 November 1972 by Queen Elizabeth II. The hangars housed just 36 aircraft at opening. Over the years, the collection increased and aircraft were stored at RAF stations around the country when they were not on display to the public. On 1 May 1979, the Cosford site was opened at RAF Cosford, one of the RAF stations which had been used to store the museum's collection of aircraft. On opening, the museum initi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Science Museum (London)
The Science Museum is a major museum on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, London. It was founded in 1857 and is one of the city's major tourist attractions, attracting 3.3 million visitors annually in 2019. Like other publicly funded national museums in the United Kingdom, the Science Museum does not charge visitors for admission, although visitors are requested to make a donation if they are able. Temporary exhibitions may incur an admission fee. It is one of the five museums in the Science Museum Group. Founding and history The museum was founded in 1857 under Bennet Woodcroft from the collection of the Royal Society of Arts and surplus items from the Great Exhibition as part of the South Kensington Museum, together with what is now the Victoria and Albert Museum. It included a collection of machinery which became the ''Museum of Patents'' in 1858, and the ''Patent Office Museum'' in 1863. This collection contained many of the most famous exhibits of what is now t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vickers Vampire
The Vickers F.B.26 Vampire was a British single-seat pusher biplane fighter built by Vickers during the First World War. Four were built by Vickers at Bexleyheath, one of these was subsequently modified to become the F.B.26A. Design and development The design was a development of the earlier Vickers F.B.12 prototypes;Lamberton, 1960. p 78. and was a two-bay biplane with a high-mounted nacelle for the pilot and an initial armament of two .303 in (7.7 mm) Lewis Guns. Behind this was a water-cooled 200 hp (150 kW) Hispano-Suiza engine driving the propeller. The tailplane was mounted on four booms with a single fin and rudder. After modifications to the radiator layout and wing structure and re-armed with three Lewis guns in an Eeman mounting capable of firing up at a 45° angle to engage enemy bombers from below, being numbered B1484, the FB.26 was passed to the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment at Martlesham Heath for evaluation. The pro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sopwith Gnu
The Sopwith Gnu was a 1910s British touring biplane, designed and built by the Sopwith Aviation & Engineering Company of Kingston-upon-Thames. It was one of the first cabin aircraft designed for civil use. Design and development Designed for the postwar civil market, the Gnu was a conventional equal-span biplane. It had an open cockpit for a pilot with seating for two passengers under a hinged and glazed roof. Most of the aircraft were powered by a 110 hp Le Rhône rotary engine. The enclosed passenger cabin was cramped and unpopular, and most production aircraft had an open rear cockpit. One prototype and twelve production aircraft were built. A postwar slump ended production, and the company had problems selling the aircraft, although two aircraft were sold in Australia. Operational history The United Kingdom-based aircraft were mainly used to provide joyrides in the early 1920s. Two aircraft that were used for exhibition and stunt flying in the late 1920s crashed. Most of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sopwith Buffalo
The Sopwith Buffalo was a British armoured fighter/reconnaissance aircraft of the First World War. A single-engined biplane, two examples of the Buffalo were built by Sopwith to carry out reconnaissance missions low over the trenches while protected against machine-gun fire from the ground, but no production followed, with the end of the war removing the need for such an aircraft. Development and design In July 1918, the British Air Ministry requested Sopwith, who were already building the Sopwith Salamander armoured single-seat ground attack fighter, to build an armoured two-seat aircraft to carry out the dangerous contact patrol mission. This mission involved flying at low altitude over the battlefield to locate and keep in contact with attacking forces, therefore keeping commanders in touch with the progress of the battle. This exposed aircraft carrying out such missions to heavy small arms fire from enemy trenches, resulting in heavy casualties.Bruce 1957, p. 629.Mason 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parnall Panther
The Parnall Panther was a British carrier based spotter and reconnaissance aircraft designed and developed by Parnall and Sons in the latter years of World War I, continuing in service until 1926. A total of 150 Panthers were built by Bristol Aeroplane Company since after the end of World War I Parnall had stopped aircraft manufacture. Development The Parnall Panther was designed by Harold Bolas, who had joined Parnall and Sons after leaving the Admiralty's Air Department, where he had served as deputy chief designer under Harris Booth.Mason 1994, pp. 249, 250. It was planned to meet the requirements of Admiralty Specification N.2A for a two-seat reconnaissance aircraft capable of operating from aircraft carriers. The first prototype (serial ''N91'') flew in 1917, with a further five prototypes being produced.Thetford 1994 Design The Panther was a wooden, single-bay biplane, which, unusually for the time, was fitted with a birch plywood monocoque fuselage which could be folded ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nieuport Nightjar
The Nightjar was a British carrier-based fighter aircraft of the early 1920s. It was a modification of the earlier Nieuport Nighthawk fighter produced by Gloster after the Nieuport & General company, which designed the Nighthawk, closed down. Twenty-two were converted, serving with the British Royal Air Force from 1922 to 1924. Design and development The Nieuport & General Aircraft Co Ltd was formed before the start of the First World War to license-produce French Nieuport aircraft. During 1917, after hiring Henry Folland as chief designer, the company started to design its own aircraft, with the first type, the Nieuport B.N.1 fighter flying early in 1918. Folland designed the Nieuport Nighthawk fighter to meet the requirements of RAF Specification Type 1 which specified using the ABC Dragonfly radial engine, first flying in April 1919. During initial evaluation, this showed excellent performance, and was ordered into production. The Dragonfly engine, however, proved h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Handley Page Type S
The Handley Page Type S, or HPS-1 was a prototype British carrier-based fighter developed for the United States Navy in the early 1920s. A low-wing monoplane, it was unsuccessful, only two being built and flown. Development and design In 1921 the United States Navy drew up a specification for a single-seat fighter aircraft capable of operating either as a landplane from its aircraft carriers or from the water as a seaplane, seeking designs from both American and European companies. The British aircraft manufacturer Handley Page, which had recently developed the leading edge slot, realised use of slots and flaps could allow a high-speed monoplane to fly at the low speeds needed for carrier operations with a much higher wing loading than a normal biplane, and decided to develop an aircraft to meet this requirement. The resulting design, given the Handley Page designation Type S (and later retrospectively known as the H.P.21) was a small, low-wing cantilever monoplane, with full-sp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Port Victoria Grain Griffin
The Grain Griffin was a British carrier-based reconnaissance aircraft developed and built by the RNAS Marine Experimental Depot, Port Victoria, during the First World War. A development of the unsuccessful Sopwith B.1 bomber, the Grain Griffin was a two-seat single-engined biplane that was built in small numbers for Britain's Royal Naval Air Service, being used operationally during the British intervention in the Russian Civil War. Development and design In late 1916, Sopwith designed and built a prototype of a single-engined single-seat bomber, the Sopwith B.1. It had demonstrated good performance, and had been briefly evaluated by the RNAS in the bomber role over the Western Front in May–June 1917, but was rejected, with larger twin-engined bombers being preferred. After its return from France, the prototype B.1 (serial no. ''N.50''), was sent to the RNAS Marine Experimental Depot at Port Victoria on the Isle of Grain for conversion to a two-seat reconnaissance airc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gloster Sparrowhawk
The Gloster Sparrowhawk was a single-seat fighter aircraft designed and produced during the early 1920s by the British aircraft manufacturer Gloster. It was developed by aircraft designer Henry Folland, who had recently joined Gloster after the winding up of Nieuport & General; he used the earlier Nieuport Nighthawk fighter as the basis for the new aircraft. The Sparrowhawk was developed as a navalised fighter and trainer aircraft in response to the needs of the Imperial Japanese Navy, which sought to develop its naval air arm with British assistance through the Sempill Mission. A total of 50 aircraft were completed by Gloster within six months of the order's placement, while a further 40 were locally assembled in Japan at the Yokosuka Naval Air Technical Arsenal. The Sparrowhawk was operated by the Japanese Navy between 1921 and 1928. It was initially used onboard large capital ships, but was quickly displaced from ship-borne duties following the arrival of more capable car ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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