The Bristol Type 143 was a British twin-engine

monoplane A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple planes. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing confi ...

aircraft designed by

Frank Barnwell Captain Frank Sowter Barnwell OBE AFC FRAeS BSc (23 November 1880 – 2 August 1938) was a Scottish aeronautical engineer. With his elder brother Harold, he built the first successful powered aircraft made in Scotland and later went on to a c ...

of the

Bristol Aeroplane Company The Bristol Aeroplane Company, originally the British and Colonial Aeroplane Company, was both one of the first and one of the most important British aviation companies, designing and manufacturing both airframes and aircraft engines. Notable a ...

. Developed alongside the more famous Bristol Type 142, which was developed into the Blenheim

light bomber A light bomber is a relatively small and fast type of military bomber aircraft that was primarily employed before the 1950s. Such aircraft would typically not carry more than one ton of ordnance. The earliest light bombers were intended to dro ...

, it used the same wing design and employed the same advanced (for the day) design features such as

stressed skin In mechanical engineering, stressed skin is a type of rigid construction, intermediate between monocoque and a rigid frame with a non-loaded covering. A stressed skin structure has its compression-taking elements localized and its tension-taking ...

, flaps, and retractable

undercarriage Undercarriage is the part of a moving vehicle that is underneath the main body of the vehicle. The term originally applied to this part of a horse-drawn carriage, and usage has since broadened to include: *The landing gear of an aircraft. *The ch ...

. The engine it was designed to use never entered production and only a single prototype was manufactured,

Design and development

Like the better-known Type 142 the Type 143 arose from the unbuilt Bristol Type 135 proposal for a civil twin-engine light transport aircraft. This was a low-wing twin-engined monoplane, seating six people and a crew of two, first sketched out by

, with the intention of using the smaller of the two engines then being developed by

Roy Fedden Sir Alfred Hubert Roy Fedden MBE, FRAeS (6 June 1885 – 21 November 1973) was an engineer who designed most of Bristol Engine Company's successful piston aircraft engine designs. Early life Fedden was born in the Bristol area to fairly weal ...

, the Aquila I. Although the manufacture of a second Aquila was authorised, nothing was done about the construction of an actual airframe.Barnes 1964, p. 257. Meanwhile, in early 1934

Lord Rothermere Viscount Rothermere, of Hemsted in the county of Kent, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1919 for the press lord Harold Harmsworth, 1st Baron Harmsworth. He had already been created a baronet, of Horsey in th ...

announced his intention to have 'the fastest civil aircraft in Europe' built for him. Barnwell proposed an aircraft based on the type 135 but using the more powerful Mercury engine in place of the Aquila, and this was accepted by Rothermere, the aircraft being ordered on 26 March 1934 and first flying on 12 April 1935.Barnes 1964, pp. 257–258. The Type 143 was very similar to the Type 135 design, although the cabin was enlarged to seat eight and some detail changes were made to optimise the use of common components with the Type 142: over 70% of components were shared.Barnes 1964, p. 258. The prototype 143 was accordingly built alongside the Type 142, receiving the civil registration G-ADEK on 22 March 1935 but had to wait until the end of the year before the engines had completed trials. It was first flown on 20 January 1936 without registration but bearing the mark R 14.Barnes 1964, pp. 259–260. Further flying continued at Filton, mainly as a testbed for the Aquila. It was put into storage when Aquila development was abandoned in 1938 and subsequently scrapped.Barnes 1964, pp. 260–261.

Specifications (Type 143)

References

Citations

Bibliography

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External links