Bristol Boxkite | |
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1963 Replica of the Bristol Boxkite, now hanging in the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery | |
Role | two-seat trainer |
Manufacturer | British and Colonial Aeroplane Company |
First flight | 29 July 1910 |
Introduction | 1911 |
Primary users | Royal Flying Corps Royal Naval Air Service South African Army Australian Flying Corps |
Number built | 76 |
Unit cost | £1,000 with engine |
Developed from | Farman III, Zodiac Biplane |
The Boxkite was the first aircraft designed and built by the British and Colonial Aeroplane Company (later to be known as the Bristol Aeroplane Company). It was a biplane of wire-braced wood construction based on designs by Henri Farman powered by a 50 hp (37 kW) Gnome rotary engine driving a single pusher propeller. It was one of the first aircraft types to be built in quantity, and as the machine was used by Bristol for instruction purposes at their flying schools at Larkhill and Brooklands many early aviators first flew in a Boxkite, and a number of aviation 'firsts' were achieved using it. Four Boxkites were purchased in 1911 by the War Office and examples were sold to Russia and Australia.
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The Boxkite had an ususual origin. The first intention of Sir George White, the founder and chairman of Bristol Aircraft, was to build copies of the Zodiac biplane designed by Gabriel Voisin under license. One example of this design had been imported from France and exhibited by Bristol in the 1910 Aero show in London in March 1910, but attempts to get it to fly were entirely unsuccessful. This was largely due to its unsatisfactory wing section (the shallow camber of the Zodiac's wings had been commented upon by Flight magazine), but the aircraft was also underpowered for its weight. A new set of wings did little for its performance and after a single brief flight on 28 May it was abandoned, as was work on five more examples being built at Filton. Sir George was advised to build an aircraft modelled on the successful machines of Henri Farman, and so George Challenger, the chief engineer at Bristol's factory in Filton, set to work on drawings for a new aircraft, using details of a Farman machine published by the aeronautical press.
This was delivered to the company's flying school at Larkhill and first flew there on 30 July 1910, piloted by Maurice Edmond. Although Farman sued Bristol for patent infringement, the company's lawyers claimed substantial design improvements and the lawsuit was dropped. These improvements were matters of constructional detail: Bristol aircraft were to become well known for the quality of the workmanship. The first Boxkites constructed were equal-span two-bay biplanes with a single elevator carried on booms in front of the wings. Lateral control was effected by ailerons on both upper and lower wings. Behind the wings booms carried an empennage consisting of a pair of fixed horizontal stabilisers each fitted with an elevator with a pair of rudders between the trailing edges of the tailplanes. There were no fixed vertical surfaces. The wings were covered by a single layer of fabric, although the other surfaces were covered on both sides. Power was provided by a 50 hp (37 kW) Gnome rotary engine. Most of the aircraft eventually produced had an extended upper wing and were known as the Military Version. There were also a few modified 'Racers'. The 'Boxkite' went on to become Bristol's first successful production aeroplane. A total of 76 were built , 61 of which were the extended military version.
Although satisfactory by the standards of the day, the Farman design was obsolescent even in 1910, and no serious development of the Boxkite was attempted.
Being such an early aeroplane, it holds a number of "first" records:
Flight Lieutenant Pizey was one of the early pioneers of British flying, having gained his certificate No 61 in a Bristol Boxkite on Salisbury Plain on 14 February 1911. He also took place in the Daily Mail Air Race that year.[3]
It was also the first aeroplane to land upside down in the sewage farm at Brooklands, piloted by Flight Lieutenant Frederick Warren Merriam. The event was reenacted in the film Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines.[4]
No original Bristol Boxkites aeroplanes survive today, although three authentic flyable reproductions were created for the film Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines. One was sent to Australia, one to the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, and one to the Shuttleworth Collection in Bedfordshire which is still flown during their flying displays whenever the weather permits.
Data from Barnes, C. H. Bristol Aircraft Since 1910.
General characteristics
Performance
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