The Bristol Seely was entered into an

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 Stat ...

competition for safe civil aeroplanes held in 1920. It was a single-engine

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 a ...

with accommodation for one passenger. After the competition, the single Seely was used as a testbed for the

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 ...

engine development programme.

Development

The 1920 civil aeroplane competition emphasised safety in terms of a short takeoff and slow landing speed as well as useful load and economy. The rules of the competition were released in July 1919 and Bristol decided that a modification of the

Tourer Touring car and tourer are both terms for open cars (i.e. cars without a fixed roof). "Touring car" is a style of open car built in the United States which seats four or more people. The style was popular from the early 1900s to the 1930s. Th ...

was their best hope. The single passenger was enclosed in a cabin immediately behind the pilot's open

cockpit A cockpit or flight deck is the area, usually near the front of an aircraft or spacecraft, from which a pilot controls the aircraft. The cockpit of an aircraft contains flight instruments on an instrument panel, and the controls that e ...

, with a raised roof and windows in the decking where the second seat in the Tourer had been. In addition, the

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 ...

was deepened by dropping the lower

longeron In engineering, a longeron and stringer is the load-bearing component of a framework. The term is commonly used in connection with aircraft fuselages and automobile chassis. Longerons are used in conjunction with stringers to form structural ...

s and floor to the lower wing

spar SPAR, originally DESPAR, styled as DE SPAR, is a Dutch multinational that provides branding, supplies and support services for independently owned and operated food retail stores. It was founded in the Netherlands in 1932, by Adriaan van Well, ...

. Ahead of the pilot, the fuselage bays were built from steel rather than wood spars. The single-axle main undercarriage carried wheels with disc brakes; there was a central skid to prevent nosing over and fenders under the wingtips. The tailskid was steerable and sprung. The Seely was a three-bay biplane with greater wing area than the Tourer, with

aileron 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 roll (or movement around ...

s on both upper and lower wings. The

rudder A rudder is a primary control surface used to steer a ship, boat, submarine, hovercraft, aircraft, or other vehicle that moves through a fluid medium (generally air or water). On an aircraft the rudder is used primarily to counter adve ...

was horn-balanced and the fin area generous. For the competition, it was powered by a water-cooled upright inline 240 hp (180 kW) Siddeley Puma with a large nose

radiator Radiators are heat exchangers used to transfer thermal energy from one medium to another for the purpose of cooling and heating. The majority of radiators are constructed to function in cars, buildings, and electronics. A radiator is always ...

behind the wooden two-blade propeller. There were only two other aircraft in the competition, held at

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 o ...

in August 1920, the Westland Limousine and the

Sopwith Antelope The Sopwith Antelope was a British three-seat transport aircraft built after the end of the First World War. A single-engined biplane based on the Sopwith Wallaby long-range aircraft, only a single Antelope was built. Development and design In ...

. In the end, the Westland was the winner. After the competition, Bristol retained the Seely for general duties until 1923, when it was converted into a testbed for Jupiter development, being purchased by the Air Ministry for use with the

Royal Aircraft Establishment The Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) was a British research establishment, known by several different names during its history, that eventually came under the aegis of the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), before finally losing its identity in me ...

. It was fitted with a 435 hp (324 kW)

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousand ...

III nine-cylinder radial engine driving a steel two-bladed

Leitner-Watts The Metal Airscrew Company was formed in 1919 by Dr. Henry Charles Watts and Henry Leitner to produce hollow metal aircraft propellers with a method set out their joint patent. By 1928 the company name had changed to Metal Propellers Ltd. It re ...

propeller. The Jupiter had an exhaust-driven

supercharger 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 indu ...

to enhance high-altitude performance, raising the Seely's service ceiling from 18,000 ft (5,490 m) with the Puma to 24,000 ft (8,230 m). At these altitudes, the enclosed cabin provided the observer with welcome relief from the elements. Bristol Seely rear

The name

Seely is not a common English word, nor does it seem to be a place name. The Oxford English Dictionary has an entry for it marked as obsolete, except in dialect: like many words it lost its positive meanings as time went by, but in Early English (c.1200) it could mean either punctual, or fortunate /blessed. These are desirable characteristics of an airliner, though it is not known if Bristol had this in mind. Alternatively, the name may be in honour of Jack Seely who was Secretary of State for War from June 1912 to March 1914. He is credited with a keen interest in the infant

Royal Flying Corps "Through Adversity to the Stars" , colors = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = , decorations ...

, founded in May 1912.

Specifications (Puma)

References

Notes

Bibliography

* * {{Bristol aircraft 1920s British airliners

Seely Seely is a variation of the English and Anglo-Irish Sealy surname, and may refer to: * Brad Seely (born 1956), American football coach * Charles Seely (politician, born 1803) (1803–1887), British politician * Sir Charles Seely, 1st Baronet (1 ...