The Gosport Aircraft Company was a short-lived

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

aircraft manufacturer based at

Gosport Gosport ( ) is a town and non-metropolitan borough on the south coast of Hampshire, South East England. At the 2011 Census, its population was 82,662. Gosport is situated on a peninsula on the western side of Portsmouth Harbour, opposite t ...

, Hampshire formed at the start of the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

by Sir Charles Allom of White, Allom & Company and

Charles Ernest Nicholson Charles Ernest Nicholson (12 May 1868 – 26 February 1954) was a British yacht designer. Biography He was born in 1868, one of four sons and six daughters of Benjamin Nicholson (1828-1906), also a yacht designer, and the original Nicholson of ...

Camper and Nicholsons Camper and Nicholson was a yacht design and manufacturing company based in Gosport, England, for over two hundred years, constructing many significant vessels, such as Gipsy Moth IV and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip's yacht Blood ...

boat-builders. The company built a number of flying-boats for the British government including the hull for the Fairey ''Atalanta'' which at the time was the largest flying-boat hull built in the world.

Aircraft

The hulls were built at the Camper and Nicholsons Gosport Yard and towed round to Northam to complete the assembly *

FBA Type B The FBA Type A and the similar Type B and C were a family of reconnaissance flying boats produced in France prior to and during World War I. Development All three were unequal-span pusher biplane flying boats with a single step hull with ash ...

pusher biplane patrol flying boat, flying surfaces for sixty built for the

RNAS The Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) was the air arm of the Royal Navy, under the direction of the Admiralty's Air Department, and existed formally from 1 July 1914 to 1 April 1918, when it was merged with the British Army's Royal Flying Corps t ...

. *

Felixstowe F.5 The Felixstowe F.5 was a British First World War flying boat designed by Lieutenant Commander John Cyril Porte RN of the Seaplane Experimental Station, Felixstowe. Design and development Porte designed a better hull for the larger Curtiss H-12 ...

tractor biplane patrol flying boat, cancelled by the

RAF 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 ...

in January 1919 after ten from an order of fifty delivered.

Projects

Gosport Aircraft Company advertisement 1919

Following the end of the

, the company proposed a number of designs published 31 July 1919 in ''

Flight Flight or flying is the process by which an object moves through a space without contacting any planetary surface, either within an atmosphere (i.e. air flight or aviation) or through the vacuum of outer space (i.e. spaceflight). This can be a ...

'' magazine: *Gosport Fire Fighter - a 10-seater flying boat designed to carry men and material to the scene of a

forest fire A wildfire, forest fire, bushfire, wildland fire or rural fire is an unplanned, uncontrolled and unpredictable fire in an area of Combustibility and flammability, combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire ...

or emergency based on the

. *Gosport Mail - a six passenger luxury flying boat for long distance passenger, mail and goods-carrying based on the Norman Thompson N.T.4A. *Gosport Patrol Boat - a two-seater flying boat for use as a fast patrol or police boat. *Gosport Two-seater Touring Boat - a flying boat with a tail boom for the American market. *Gosport Popular - a touring flying boat. *Gosport Shrimp - a single-seat flying boat. In December 1919 a number of larger flying-boats were proposed, designed by John Porte who joined the company in August 1919: *Gosport G5 - a twin-engined biplane flying boat with a 103 ft span and a length of 49 ft 3in, for two crew and six passengers or cargo based on the

. *Gosport G5a - a smaller variant of the G5 with a 97 ft 6in span and only 46 ft in length. *Gosport G8 - a biplane flying boat for one pilot and three-passengers. *Gosport G8a - a biplane flying boat similar to the G8. *Gosport G9 - a triplane three-engined flying boat for long distance cargo work or ten passengers with three crew, which would have had a 113 foot wingspan. A commercial version of Porte's

Felixstowe Fury The Felixstowe F.4 Fury ( serial ''N123''), also known as the Porte Super-Baby, was a large British, five-engined triplane flying-boat designed by John Cyril Porte at the Seaplane Experimental Station, Felixstowe, inspired by the Wanamaker Tr ...

''Flight'
"Felixstowe Flying Boats" p.931
23 December 1955 With the death of Porte in October 1919 none of the flying boats proposed were built, and by the middle of 1920 the company had closed.

References

{{Authority control Defunct aircraft manufacturers of the United Kingdom