The Bristol Bloodhound was a British two-seat

reconnaissance In military operations, reconnaissance or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, terrain, and other activities. Examples of reconnaissance include patrolling by troops (skirmisher ...

fighter aircraft Fighter aircraft are fixed-wing military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat. In military conflict, the role of fighter aircraft is to establish air superiority of the battlespace. Domination of the airspace above a battlefield ...

designed and built by 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 ...

as a possible replacement for the

Bristol F.2 Fighter The Bristol F.2 Fighter is a British First World War two-seat biplane fighter and reconnaissance aircraft developed by Frank Barnwell at the Bristol Aeroplane Company. It is often simply called the Bristol Fighter, ''"Brisfit"'' or ''"Bif ...

for the

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 ...

. It was unsuccessful, only four prototypes being built.

Development and design

After the failure of the two-seat version of the

Bristol Bullfinch The Bristol Bullfinch was an experimental British military aircraft first flown in 1922. Variants were built as both parasol wing monoplanes and biplanes, but both versions proved unsuccessful, and only the three prototypes were built. Develop ...

, the requirement remained for an aircraft for the

to replace the

. The

Air Ministry The Air Ministry was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force, that existed from 1918 to 1964. It was under the political authority of the Secretary of State ...

therefore issued Specification 3/22 in 1922 for a two-seat fighter powered by a

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 ...

engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power gen ...

. Bristol's chief designer, Wilfred Reid (who had replaced

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 ...

when Barnwell emigrated to

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

), designed the Bristol Type 84 Bloodhound to meet this requirement, with Bristol deciding to build a

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 ...

as a private venture. The Bloodhound was a two-seat

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 ...

with swept two-bay wings, powered by a

Bristol Jupiter The Bristol Jupiter was a British nine-cylinder single-row piston radial engine built by the Bristol Aeroplane Company. Originally designed late in World War I and known as the Cosmos Jupiter, a lengthy series of upgrades and developments turn ...

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 ...

. It first flew at the end of May 1923. It was redesigned with a lengthened

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 ...

and revised wings when Frank Barnwell returned from Australia to resume his role as chief designer. The Air Ministry placed an order for three Bloodhounds to a revised specification ( 22/22), of which one was of all-metal construction and the other two fitted with wooden wings, the first of these flying on 4 February 1925. After evaluation by the

Aeroplane and 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 wo ...

at RAF Martlesham Heath and Farnborough, it was clear that the Bloodhound was not adequate for the role of replacing the F.2. The other aircraft being evaluated against the specification to replace the F.2 in the reconnaissance role, the

Hawker Duiker The Hawker Duiker was an unusual and unsuccessful aircraft. It was the first design at Hawker under a new chief designer, Captain Thomson, in 1922. Much of the equipment and parts were proprietary and made by another aircraft company, Vickers, w ...

, Armstrong Whitworth Wolf and de Havilland D.H.42 Dormouse, were also found lacking. The first prototype was fitted with a new Jupiter V engine, and received a civil

certificate of airworthiness A standard certificate of airworthiness is a permit for commercial passenger or cargo operation, issued for an aircraft by the civil aviation authority in the state/nation in which the aircraft is registered. For other aircraft such as crop-spraye ...

before being flown in the 1925

King's Cup air race The King's Cup air race Air racing is a type of motorsport that involves airplanes or other types of aircraft that compete over a fixed course, with the winner either returning the shortest time, the one to complete it with the most points, ...

. It was then fitted with a Jupiter VI engine and long-range

fuel tank A fuel tank (also called a petrol tank or gas tank) is a safe container for flammable fluids. Though any storage tank for fuel may be so called, the term is typically applied to part of an engine system in which the fuel is stored and propel ...

s as an engine testbed, proving the reliability of the Jupiter for

Imperial Airways Imperial Airways was the early British commercial long-range airline, operating from 1924 to 1939 and principally serving the British Empire routes to South Africa, India, Australia and the Far East, including Malaya and Hong Kong. Passenger ...

before finally being scrapped in 1931.

Operators

; *

Specifications (Bloodhound)

Notes and references

External links

''G-EBGG''

Bristol Bloodhound
– British Aircraft Directory
The transport Archive – Type 84 – Bristol Bloodhound

a 1926 ''Flight'' article {{Bristol aircraft 1920s British fighter aircraft 1920s British military reconnaissance aircraft

Bloodhound The bloodhound is a large scent hound, originally bred for hunting deer, wild boar and, since the Middle Ages, for tracking people. Believed to be descended from hounds once kept at the Abbey of Saint-Hubert, Belgium, in French it is called, ''l ...

Cancelled military aircraft projects of the United Kingdom Aircraft first flown in 1923