The Boulton & Paul P.64 Mailplane also known as the Mail-Carrier was a 1930s British twin-engined all-metal

biplane A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While ...

transport aircraft designed for Imperial Airways and built by Boulton & Paul Ltd.

Development

The airline had a requirement, which was translated into Air Ministry specification 21/28, for a mailplane to carry a payload on a leg at a speed of at least . Boulton & Paul designed and constructed the

prototype A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and Software prototyping, software programming. A prototyp ...

P.64 Mailplane to address these requirements. The P.64 was a twin-engine two-bay equi-span

. It was powered by two

Bristol Pegasus The Bristol Pegasus is a British nine-cylinder, single-row, air-cooled radial aero engine. Designed by Roy Fedden of the Bristol Aeroplane Company, it was used to power both civil and military aircraft of the 1930s and 1940s. Developed from t ...

IM2

supercharged In an internal combustion engine, a supercharger compresses the intake gas, forcing more air into the engine in order to produce more power for a given displacement. The current categorisation is that a supercharger is a form of forced induct ...

radial engine The radial engine is a reciprocating type internal combustion engine configuration in which the cylinders "radiate" outward from a central crankcase like the spokes of a wheel. It resembles a stylized star when viewed from the front, and is ca ...

s rated at driving two-bladed fixed pitch propellers and mounted under the upper wings. The aircraft (registered G-ABYK) first flew in March

1933 Events January * January 11 – Sir Charles Kingsford Smith makes the first commercial flight between Australia and New Zealand. * January 17 – The United States Congress votes in favour of Philippines independence, against the wis ...

at the company

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...

. It was not a success, deemed to be expensive and unsatisfactory. It was destroyed during trials at Martlesham Heath when it struck the ground during an unexplained dive on 21 October 1933. The company then addressed the specification's requirements with a new design transport aircraft which was lighter, slimmer and longer (the Boulton Paul P.71A).

Specifications (P.64 Mailplane)

References

;Notes ;Bibliography * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Boulton and Paul Mailplane

Mailplane A mail plane is an aircraft used for carrying mail. Aircraft that were purely mail planes existed almost exclusively prior to World War II. Because early aircraft were too underpowered to carry cargoes, and too costly to run any "economy class" ...

1930s British mailplanes Biplanes Aircraft first flown in 1933 Twin piston-engined tractor aircraft

Development

Specifications (P.64 Mailplane)

See also

References