The Avro Burga was built by Avro for R.F. Burga to test his unique system of lateral control. It was a single-engined two-seat

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 ...

, fitted with differentially operated surfaces above and below the central fuselage.

Development

Since the Wright brothers' crucial work on aircraft control, lateral control has almost always been provided by moving the surface of the wing, either by

wing warping Wing warping was an early system for lateral (roll) control of a fixed-wing aircraft. The technique, used and patented by the Wright brothers, consisted of a system of pulleys and cables to twist the trailing edges of the wings in opposite direc ...

or with

ailerons An aileron (French for "little wing" or "fin") is a hinged flight control surface usually forming part of the trailing edge of each wing of a fixed-wing aircraft. Ailerons are used in pairs to control the aircraft in Flight dynamics, roll (or ...

. Lieut. R.F. Burga of the

Peruvian Navy The Peruvian Navy ( es, link=no, Marina de Guerra del Perú, abbreviated MGP) is the branch of the Peruvian Armed Forces tasked with surveillance, patrol and defense on lakes, rivers and the Pacific Ocean up to from the Peruvian littoral. Addit ...

made the radical suggestion that it might be better to effect lateral control with two rudder-like surfaces, mounted near the centre of gravity and at right angles to the wings. A roll would be initiated by turning these surfaces, one below and one above the fuselage, in opposite directions. Burga applied for a patent in 1910 and it was published on 2 November 1911. He approached A.V Roe & Co., who would build other people's designs for them, and in 1912 a single-engined shoulder-winged monoplane was produced with the novel control surfaces. It has been suggested that this aircraft may have been the Avro 502, about which all that is known is that it was a monoplane. The Burga monoplane was built at Avro's

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

factory at the same time as the prototype Avro Type E biplane, and it used the same tail unit and

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 ...

. Control surfaces apart, it differed primarily in being a monoplane, but also in having a more slender fuselage, though still a two-seater, and in using a less powerful but lighter engine, a Gnome rotary. The wings were braced from below to strong points on the undercarriage and from above to a pylon just ahead of the front cockpit. A vertical shaft attached to this pylon appears also to have carried the leading edges of the lateral control surfaces; the one below the fuselage was almost rectangular but the upper one was shaped to avoid the passenger's head.''Flight'', 23 November 1912, p.1086

Operational history

Though Avro aircraft had always been built in Manchester, they had never flown from there but rather from the Avro School's base at

Brooklands Brooklands was a motor racing circuit and aerodrome built near Weybridge in Surrey, England, United Kingdom. It opened in 1907 and was the world's first purpose-built 'banked' motor racing circuit as well as one of Britain's first airfields, ...

; in August 1912, however the school had moved to Shoreham on the south coast, which is where the Burga machine was test flown. The first flight was on 20 November 1912, piloted by H.R. Simms one of the School's pilots. The monoplane had been designed to take wings of different camber and incidence, and those chosen for the early testing were expected to give the highest speed. Simms reported that the aircraft was fast and had a good rate of climb, but no reports on handling with the new surfaces seem to have survived. After more flying, the aircraft was reported as back at the Avro factory for modification25 January 1913, p.96 but was not seen again.

Specifications

References

Notes

Bibliography

* * * * {{Avro aircraft 1910s British aircraft Burga Aircraft first flown in 1912