The Westland Yeovil was a British
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 ...
bomber designed and built by
Westland Aircraft in 1923 to meet an
Air Ministry Specification for a single-engined day bomber.
Development
The Yeovil was designed to meet
Air Ministry Specification 26/23 for a single-engined day bomber, with a Rolls-Royce Condor engine specified by the ministry. It was a two-bay staggered biplane of composite wood and metal construction. It had a crew of two with the pilot in a cockpit at the front with the bomb aimer/gunner behind.
It was powered by a nose-mounted tractor
Rolls-Royce Condor IIIA piston engine, fitted with a Leitner-Watts metal propeller.
Three
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 ...
s were ordered, the first prototype ''J7508'' made its first flight in 1925 from
RAF Andover, with Captain Frank Courtney as the
test pilot. The prototype was delivered to
RAF Martlesham Heath
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 of ...
for evaluation against the other aircraft built to meet the specification, the
Hawker Horsley
The Hawker Horsley was a British single-engined biplane bomber of the 1920s. It was the last all-wooden aircraft built by Hawker Aircraft, and served as a medium day bomber and torpedo bomber with Britain's Royal Air Force between 1926 and 1935 ...
and the
Bristol Berkeley. After evaluation the Yeovil and Berkley were not ordered into production, the Horsley had already been given a contract against a different specification. The three Yeovil prototypes continued to fly for a few years for research and testing.
Specifications
See also
References
{{Westland aircraft
Yeovil
1920s British bomber aircraft
Biplanes
Single-engined tractor aircraft