The Abbott-Baynes Scud 1 was a
parasol-winged single seat
glider
Glider may refer to:
Aircraft and transport Aircraft
* Glider (aircraft), heavier-than-air aircraft primarily intended for unpowered flight
** Glider (sailplane), a rigid-winged glider aircraft with an undercarriage, used in the sport of glidin ...
intended to introduce pilots to soaring flight. It was built in the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
and first flew in 1931.
Design and development
The Scud was the first of a series of gliders designed by Leslie Baynes, all of which used the same name. At the time of its first flight in 1931 it was referred to as the Brant Scud because the first prototype was built by Brant Aircraft Ltd. of
Croydon
Croydon is a large town in south London, England, south of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Croydon, a local government district of Greater London. It is one of the largest commercial districts in Greater London, with an extensi ...
.
[ Later aircraft were produced by Abbott-Baynes Sailplanes, a company founded for this purpose.][ It was designed to fill a gap in performance between the primary gliders and the true sailplanes of the day. Thus the Abbott-Baynes Scud 1, as it became known as after the appearance of the Scud 2 in 1932, was capable of soaring and was light and cheap, though its minimum sink speed of just under 1 m/s was higher than the 0.8 m/s or better expected of the competition sailplanes.][ Compared with them, the Scud's light weight and short span, combined with wing-tip and ]fuselage
The fuselage (; from the French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraft t ...
hand holds, made it easy for four people to carry on the ground.[
The Scud's wooden ]cantilever
A cantilever is a rigid structural element that extends horizontally and is supported at only one end. Typically it extends from a flat vertical surface such as a wall, to which it must be firmly attached. Like other structural elements, a canti ...
parasol wing had constant chord over about 60% of its span, with some taper outboard particularly on the trailing edge
The trailing edge of an aerodynamic surface such as a wing is its rear edge, where the airflow separated by the leading edge meets.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, third edition'', page 521. Aviation Supplies & Academics, 1997. ...
. It was built around two spar
SPAR, originally DESPAR, styled as DE SPAR, is a Dutch multinational that provides branding, supplies and support services for independently owned and operated food retail stores. It was founded in the Netherlands in 1932, by Adriaan van Well, ...
s, with stress bearing plywood
Plywood is a material manufactured from thin layers or "plies" of wood veneer that are glued together with adjacent layers having their wood grain rotated up to 90 degrees to one another. It is an engineered wood from the family of manufactured ...
skin forward of the rear spar forming a box spar. Aft, the wing and full span aileron
An aileron (French for "little wing" or "fin") is a hinged flight control surface usually forming part of the trailing edge of each wing of a fixed-wing aircraft. Ailerons are used in pairs to control the aircraft in roll (or movement around ...
s were fabric
Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not the ...
covered. On the prototype, all flying surfaces were edged with cord, resulting in a scalloped finish.[ All three all-moving, wood-framed and fabric-covered tail surfaces were identical and interchangeable, making the ]rudder
A rudder is a primary control surface used to steer a ship, boat, submarine, hovercraft, aircraft, or other vehicle that moves through a fluid medium (generally aircraft, air or watercraft, water). On an aircraft the rudder is used primarily to ...
appear unusually tall. Each surface, mounted on a short stub tube, had a straight leading edge and was tapered on the trailing edge, which had a central cut-out.[
The fuselage was also a wooden structure, square in section and built around four ]ash
Ash or ashes are the solid remnants of fires. Specifically, ''ash'' refers to all non-aqueous, non- gaseous residues that remain after something burns. In analytical chemistry, to analyse the mineral and metal content of chemical samples, ash ...
longerons
In engineering, a longeron and stringer is the load-bearing component of a framework.
The term is commonly used in connection with aircraft fuselages and automobile chassis. Longerons are used in conjunction with stringers to form structural ...
but unusually orientated with one diagonal vertical. It was plywood skinned throughout, apart from an inevitable break in the upper longeron and in the upper surface skin for the under-wing open cockpit. The wing was mounted by two parallel pairs of thin strut
A strut is a structural component commonly found in engineering, aeronautics, architecture and anatomy. Struts generally work by resisting longitudinal compression, but they may also serve in tension.
Human anatomy
Part of the functionality o ...
s from the mid-fuselage longerons to the two wing spars. The upper longeron loads were carried across the break via the wing structure by two pairs of struts, one well forward and one well aft of the cockpit to the mounting points on the wing spars, together with a near vertical pair just behind the cockpit. A landing skid extending from the nose to below the wing trailing edge was retained by leather straps very close to the lower longeron, with landing forces absorbed by rubber blocks.[
Contemporary accounts emphasised the ease with which the Scud with its two piece wing and readily removable tail surfaces could be dismantled for transport.][
]
Operational history
The Scud's first flight was on 11 January 1931 at Totternhoe
Totternhoe is a village and civil parish in the Manshead hundred of the county of Bedfordshire, England.
Overview
Totternhoe is an ancient village in southern Bedfordshire, near Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard. Totternhoe Knolls has been a fort ...
, piloted by Marcus Manton.[ By the Summer of 1931 it was in production in the Abbott-Baynes works.][ Production numbers are uncertain; it is known that a total of 12 Scud 1 and Scud 2 were built here, including Scud 1 ''BGA 300''. Another Scud was built before ]World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
in the Channel Islands
The Channel Islands ( nrf, Îles d'la Manche; french: îles Anglo-Normandes or ''îles de la Manche'') are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They include two Crown Dependencies: the Bailiwick of Jersey, ...
.[ The Scud 1 in the ]Brooklands Museum
Brooklands Museum is a motoring and aviation museum occupying part of the former Brooklands motor-racing track in Weybridge, Surrey, England.
Formally opened in 1991, the museum is operated by the independent Brooklands Museum Trust Ltd, a pri ...
is a replica built by the late Mike Beach
Mike may refer to:
Animals
* Mike (cat), cat and guardian of the British Museum
* Mike the Headless Chicken, chicken that lived for 18 months after his head had been cut off
* Mike (chimpanzee), a chimpanzee featured in several books and documenta ...
.[
One Scud crashed early in the aircraft's career. On 8 March 1931 Thomas Lander was killed immediately after a first attempt at a winch launching.][ A Scud 1 was on display at the Gliding Exhibition held at ]Islington
Islington () is a district in the north of Greater London, England, and part of the London Borough of Islington. It is a mainly residential district of Inner London, extending from Islington's High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the ar ...
in May 1931.[ Over the Summer of 1931 ''Flight'' recorded several meetings with Scuds in attendance, such as those at ]Portsmouth
Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council.
Portsmouth is the most dens ...
[ and ]Balsdean
Balsdean is a deserted hamlet in a remote downland valley east of Brighton, East Sussex, England, on record since about 1100. It was formerly a chapelry of the parish of Rottingdean, and its territory touched that of the mother parish only at ...
.[ A Scud continued in service in 1934 with the ]Guernsey
Guernsey (; Guernésiais: ''Guernési''; french: Guernesey) is an island in the English Channel off the coast of Normandy that is part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey, a British Crown Dependency.
It is the second largest of the Channel Islands ...
glider club.[
]
Specifications
References
{{Abbott-Baynes aircraft
1930s British sailplanes
Aircraft first flown in 1931