The Beardmore Inflexible, also known as the Rohrbach Ro VI, was a three-engined all-metal prototype bomber aircraft built by

William Beardmore and Company William Beardmore and Company was a British engineering and shipbuilding conglomerate based in Glasgow and the surrounding Clydeside area. It was active from 1886 to the mid-1930s and at its peak employed about 40,000 people. It was founded and ...

Dalmuir Dalmuir (; gd, Dail Mhoire) is an area northwest of Glasgow, Scotland, on the western side of Clydebank, and part of West Dunbartonshire Council Area. The name is a lowland Scots derivation of the Gaelic meaning Big Field. The area was ori ...

, Scotland.

Design and development

William Beardmore and Company had acquired a licence for the use of the

Rohrbach Rohrbach or Röhrbach may refer to: Places Municipalities in Switzerland *Rohrbach, Switzerland, in the canton of Bern Municipalities in Germany *Rohrbach, Bavaria, in the district of Pfaffenhofen, Bavaria *Rohrbach, Birkenfeld, in the district o ...

principle for stressed-skin construction. Using these principles and drawings supplied by Rohrbach for the RoVI, the Beardmore company built a massive all-metal three-engined transport, the ''Beardmore Inflexible''. The aircraft was built in sections at

between 1925 and 1927 which were shipped by sea to Felixstowe and from there delivered by road to the

Aeroplane & 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 ...

(A&AEE) at

Martlesham Heath Airfield Royal Air Force Martlesham Heath or more simply RAF Martlesham Heath is a former Royal Air Force station located southwest of Woodbridge, Suffolk, England. It was active between 1917 and 1963, and played an important role in the development o ...

where it first flew on 5 March 1928. It appeared at the

Hendon Hendon is an urban area in the Borough of Barnet, North-West London northwest of Charing Cross. Hendon was an ancient manor and parish in the county of Middlesex and a former borough, the Municipal Borough of Hendon; it has been part of Great ...

RAF Display later in the year. The aircraft was structurally advanced for its time and had good flying qualities. It was also a very large aircraft for the time, having a wingspan of - around greater than the

Boeing B-29 Superfortress The Boeing B-29 Superfortress is an American four-engined propeller-driven heavy bomber, designed by Boeing and flown primarily by the United States during World War II and the Korean War. Named in allusion to its predecessor, the B-17 Fl ...

heavy bomber of World War II. However, with an all up weight of it was underpowered and, with no interest forthcoming from the RAF for a production contract, the aircraft was dismantled at Martlesham Heath in 1930. It was then examined for the effects of corrosion on light-alloy stressed skin structures. One of the aircraft's wheels survives, and is on exhibit in the

Science Museum A science museum is a museum devoted primarily to science. Older science museums tended to concentrate on static displays of objects related to natural history, paleontology, geology, industry and industrial machinery, etc. Modern trends in mu ...

, London.

Operators

; *

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

Specifications

References

Notes

Bibliography

* * * * *

External links

Film clip
of the Inflexible taxiing and taking off at the Norwich Air Display, May 1929;

Pathé News Pathé News was a producer of newsreels and documentaries from 1910 to 1970 in the United Kingdom. Its founder, Charles Pathé, was a pioneer of moving pictures in the silent era. The Pathé News archive is known today as British Pathé. Its coll ...

online archive. {{Beardmore aircraft 1920s British military transport aircraft 1920s British experimental aircraft Inflexible Trimotors High-wing aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1928