Teach for the Sky - British Training Aircraft Since 1945 by James Jackson ('Hood')

[hesham]

The other unknowns might well be untendered designs but they might equally be other trainer designs not specifically intended for T.16/48 but lumped together by coincidence of date (and the fact that T.16/48 seemed to hoover up designs from every wannabe designer in the country).

Maybe,but as I said,they were un-official designs.

 

[Schneiderman]

Maybe,but as I said,they were un-official designs.

What do you mean 'unofficial designs'? They were either designs to meet the specification or they were not, in which case they could have been anything......if the existed. There have been many people, well respected people, who have researched both the work of these companies and the Air Staff requirements from that time, and they have found nothing. There are no projects of this type described in the main aviation magazines, no models shown at trade shows, no brochures, not even advertising artwork. Unless you know of something tangible I would suggest that the view presented by Hood is the one we should accept.

 

[hesham]

Of course I respect Hood and his search,but if we try to work our brain a little,
the author of the book British Aircraft Specifications file took those Infos from
where ????.

And was there archives to those companies; De Havilland,English Electric,Heston,Miles,General Aircraft and Slingsby ?.

 

[Apophenia]

... but if we try to work our brain a little, the author of the book British Aircraft Specifications file took those Infos from where ????.

Meekcoms had worked at the AID (Aircraft Inspectorate Department) so, perhaps, he still had access to some MoD file? Alas, we will never know. On vc10.net there is mention of photos "which came from the estate of Mr. K.J. Meekcoms...".

That's a pity because it seems that the book sprang primarily from Meekcoms' earlier article The Origins and Evolution of Design Requirements for British Military Aircraft in Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part G: Journal of Aerospace Engineering , Volume 204, July 1990.

So that leaves Eric Morgan. Maybe get in touch with Air-Britain (or Woodfield Publishing) for author contract details?

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Eric Morgan died some years back so you will struggle to get in touch.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

I've read the Meekcoms article mentioned above, it is nothing to do with the Air-Britain book being only concerned with air worthiness regulations. The author is quoted as

'K J Meekcoms, CEng, MTMechE, FRAeS, MIQA
Ministry of Defence, New Oxford Street, London"

 

[CJGibson]

Wow! Trainers getting the same heated discussions as TSR.2! Who would have imagined? Good job there wasn't a trainer version of TSR.2, that'd get really hot!

What's that? There was? Oh no! I'll get me coat.

Chris

 

[Hood]

Again, I must be a party pooper.

General Aircraft merged with Blackburn in January 1949, about 2-3 months after T.16/48 had been sent out to industry. In fact, if we "work our brains" as Hesham asks us too the blooper in Sturtivant's/Meekcom et al's list is glaringly obvious "...Avro, Blackburn & General B.80, Boulton Paul, General Aircraft..." - General appears twice and obviously cannot be two companies at once. I cannot imagine GAL would bother to submit a design in January 1949 just at the time it is being taken over.

Just for clarification on dates, the Tender Design Conference wax held on 14th April, 1949 - so Miles and General were both defunct as independent organisations before that date.

So of the 'missing' unknowns:
- De Havilland: no missing DH. designation gaps for this period of time. There is the possibility of Christchurch being a potential origin but Schneiderman is our resident Airspeed/Christchurch expert and if he says there is no trace I am inclined to believe him.
- English Electric: no missing P. designation gaps. The idea that EECo bogged down with Canberra variants and early P.1A development work suddenly started messing about with a small trainer seems a bit odd. Petter had bigger fish to try and EECo had plenty of lucrative manufacturing work already in hand.
- Heston: bit of mystery company, we have gaps in SBAC designations and very patchy coverage. They stopped design work sometime around 1948-50. I am sure they did not tender, whether they thought they might offer something is open to question. No evidence in the MoS files.
- Miles: I have already proven this is impossible on the dates alone
- General Aircraft: impossible on the dates alone as by the time of tender submissions was already being subsumed into Blackburn
- Slingsby: there is missing knowledge of some T. designations, T.33 for example would fit this timescale. I am sure they did not tender, whether they thought they might offer something is open to question. No evidence in the MoS files.

There are no projects of this type described in the main aviation magazines, no models shown at trade shows, no brochures, not even advertising artwork.

This is true, but I would place one caveat - the Airtech, Chrislea, Elliotts, Portsmouth Aviation and Satellite tenders are equally as enigmatic. The MoS files give detailed technical information but not a visual trace of the actual designs seem to exist. Indeed histories of Chrislea, Portsmouth and Satellite never make any reference to the designs for T.16/48. For example, even a quite recent article (I think in Aeroplane) makes it sound like Major Dundas Heenan only ever designed the Satellite and the Firth Helicopter, but we now know he designed an entry to T.16/48 which was clearly not based on rehashing the Satellite's basic design. Likewise Portsmouth is only credited with the Aerocar.
It would be easy to dismiss them as chimeras too but for the fact the MoS evidently read through a stack of technical documents on them and indeed Chrislea even asked the MoS to advise them on the export potential of their design!

So yes, caveats from me but I am 100% sure all the submitted tenders are known and those few generic "Basic Trainer T.16/48" entries are either incorrect or guesswork.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Again, I must be a party pooper.

General Aircraft merged with Blackburn in January 1949, about 2-3 months after T.16/48 had been sent out to industry. In fact, if we "work our brains" as Hesham asks us too the blooper in Sturtivant's/Meekcom et al's list is glaringly obvious "...Avro, Blackburn & General B.80, Boulton Paul, General Aircraft..." - General appears twice and obviously cannot be two companies at once. I cannot imagine GAL would bother to submit a design in January 1949 just at the time it is being taken over.

Just for clarification on dates, the Tender Design Conference wax held on 14th April, 1949 - so Miles and General were both defunct as independent organisations before that date.

So of the 'missing' unknowns:
- De Havilland: no missing DH. designation gaps for this period of time. There is the possibility of Christchurch being a potential origin but Schneiderman is our resident Airspeed/Christchurch expert and if he says there is no trace I am inclined to believe him.
- English Electric: no missing P. designation gaps. The idea that EECo bogged down with Canberra variants and early P.1A development work suddenly started messing about with a small trainer seems a bit odd. Petter had bigger fish to try and EECo had plenty of lucrative manufacturing work already in hand.
- Heston: bit of mystery company, we have gaps in SBAC designations and very patchy coverage. They stopped design work sometime around 1948-50. I am sure they did not tender, whether they thought they might offer something is open to question. No evidence in the MoS files.
- Miles: I have already proven this is impossible on the dates alone
- General Aircraft: impossible on the dates alone as by the time of tender submissions was already being subsumed into Blackburn
- Slingsby: there is missing knowledge of some T. designations, T.33 for example would fit this timescale. I am sure they did not tender, whether they thought they might offer something is open to question. No evidence in the MoS files.

There are no projects of this type described in the main aviation magazines, no models shown at trade shows, no brochures, not even advertising artwork.

This is true, but I would place one caveat - the Airtech, Chrislea, Elliotts, Portsmouth Aviation and Satellite tenders are equally as enigmatic. The MoS files give detailed technical information but not a visual trace of the actual designs seem to exist. Indeed histories of Chrislea, Portsmouth and Satellite never make any reference to the designs for T.16/48. For example, even a quite recent article (I think in Aeroplane) makes it sound like Major Dundas Heenan only ever designed the Satellite and the Firth Helicopter, but we now know he designed an entry to T.16/48 which was clearly not based on rehashing the Satellite's basic design. Likewise Portsmouth is only credited with the Aerocar.
It would be easy to dismiss them as chimeras too but for the fact the MoS evidently read through a stack of technical documents on them and indeed Chrislea even asked the MoS to advise them on the export potential of their design!

So yes, caveats from me but I am 100% sure all the submitted tenders are known and those few generic "Basic Trainer T.16/48" entries are either incorrect or guesswork.

Another possibility I have seen at least once before is that these are companies which received copies of the specification rather than those which did work on it or submitted a tender.

 

[Schneiderman]

Schneiderman is our resident Airspeed/Christchurch expert and if he says there is no trace I am inclined to believe him.

There are no projects of this type described in the main aviation magazines, no models shown at trade shows, no brochures, not even advertising artwork.

This is true, but I would place one caveat - the Airtech, Chrislea, Elliotts, Portsmouth Aviation and Satellite tenders are equally as enigmatic. but I am 100% sure all the submitted tenders are known and those few generic "Basic Trainer T.16/48" entries are either incorrect or guesswork.

Re: Airspeed - I wish this were true but actually all I have done is locate a few blueprints of known projects. The project list in the 23rd Feb 1951 issue of Flight appears to be complete, no missing numbers.

You are, of course, correct. That these minor companies never promoted their designs, which would presumably have had a potential market in the private market too, is interesting. Do the details presented to the MoS suggest a new design or an upgrade of something already in existence?

 

[Schneiderman]

Let me throw this into the mix.
Planet Aircraft were only a design company, they had no manufacturing facilities and the Satellite was built by Redwing Aircraft Ltd. Before the Satellite had proven a failure and the investors withdrew support Neville Cumming had joined the company in October 1948. He came from Straight Aviation Training, Whitney Straight's company, where he had been MD and which, pre-war, had sponsored the design and construction of the Miles 11a Whitney Straight. So if anyone wished to dig a bit deeper it is vaguely possible that might suggest a link between Miles, Planet and a new addition to Planet's management with extensive knowledge of trainers.
Just saying

 

[Hood]

Another possibility I have seen at least once before is that these are companies which received copies of the specification rather than those which did work on it or submitted a tender.

That is indeed a possibility. I haven't seen a complete list of those companies sent the specification, certainly no one was denied seeing a copy if they wished to.

Do the details presented to the MoS suggest a new design or an upgrade of something already in existence?

Chrislea - new design, low wing and single tail fin so unlike any of the Ace series/Skyjeep.
Elliots - I am convinced their design was based on the A.P.4/Eon 2, the dimensions are larger though plus it had a more powerful Gipsy Queen (they were working on giving the uncompleted second prototype a lower rear fuselage spine and revised clear-view canopy). So a scaled-up Eon perhaps?
Portsmouth - I would think a new design given the lack of any previous single-engined design.
Planet - definitely not a V-tailed pusher and the wings are longer span. The structure was conventional frame and stringer construction with Magnesium-Zirconium alloy sheeting rather than the true monocoque on the Satellite. Perhaps an indication the Satellite was difficult to build/repair, especially for a trainer with rough and tumble usage.

Before the Satellite had proven a failure and the investors withdrew support Neville Cumming had joined the company in October 1948. He came from Straight Aviation Training, Whitney Straight's company, where he had been MD and which, pre-war, had sponsored the design and construction of the Miles 11a Whitney Straight.

That is an interesting piece of information that I didn't know.
Strangely, if you take the take the M.11 and add 2ft wingspan, 3ft length and 15ft2 area you get something very close to the Satellite design, even the wing aspect ratio is very similar. Of course the engine is larger and the structure is heavier. So yes, it is conceivable that Cumming might have provided the Whitney Straight as an ideal layout to which Heenan added his magnesium cladding.

 

[hesham]

Another possibility I have seen at least once before is that these are companies which received copies of the specification rather than those which did work on it or submitted a tender.

I agree with my dear PaulMM about this.

For my dear Hood,I got a shock from your statement,for De Havilland,it submitted two proposals to N9/47 and N8/49,also a high speed unarmed
night bomber in 1941,and no missing numbers in its DH series,and about
English Electric,they started from 1945 to produce many proposals before
began to use P series ?!.

About Heston,we said generally,the MoS files is not evidence there was not
a design from it,and may it didn't enter the final evolution.

A good discussing,but we should end it,later I say,it's a very great work
of course my dear Hood.

 

[Schneiderman]

Its interesting that in your book you say that Folland were not invited to tender due to their limited production capacity, but compared to Chrislea, Elliots, Portsmouth and Planet they were big boys, albeit busy with a load of subcontract work including the control surfaces for the Brabazon. Some of those small companies were barely able to produce a single prototype without delay and severe financial stress

 

[Hood]

Its interesting that in your book you say that Folland were not invited to tender due to their limited production capacity, but compared to Chrislea, Elliots, Portsmouth and Planet they were big boys, albeit busy with a load of subcontract work including the control surfaces for the Brabazon. Some of those small companies were barely able to produce a single prototype without delay and severe financial stress

Yes, it is curious but Folland was not regarded very highly in the production stakes. At the Tender Design Conference they went as far as to say, "Folland are not organised for production."
The summary of the findings after the analysis go into more detail;

Load on Hand (Design Team): No experimental aircraft projects for complete aircraft for M. of S.
Load on Hand: Extensive sub-contracts for Vampire components in hand for de Havilland. Additional capacity at present occupied by commercial production of refrigerators and electric trucks but these commitments are terminating.
Plant and Equipment: Adequate. Very well equipped but might require some additional equipment.
Capacity: Adequate capacity will be available as the Vampire commitments will not occupy the full capacity of the firm.
Production Ability: Production personnel have had adequate experience of large scale production of aircraft components. In addition they have adequate capacity and experience to manufacture their own jigs and tools.

In all a positive report, but the detailed report is rather at odds with the conference's rather abrupt comment.
Folland's design scored best for "Productability" (ease of production) but they felt Folland couldn't get production up and running to meet the June 1952 in-service date.

Of course they might have been right, as previous experience had shown Blackburn had to be brought in as a second production line for the Prentice and Balliol due to the numbers initially wanted.
As you say, the smaller fry here were practically operating out of Nissen huts and quite how they thought it likely they would win an order on that basis is a mystery, they must have had massive doses of optimism!

 

[Schneiderman]

Harsh analysis but hard to argue with their conclusions. Their design capability had fallen apart after 1943 too.

 

[Schneiderman]

I'll throw in another odd link

After Frank Radcliffe left Folland under a cloud at the end of 1943 there was a brief hiatus before Stanley Evans was appointed as the next chief designer, but he quit after a year and was replaced by Bernard Leak. Leak had worked his way around various aircraft companies before becoming a director of Chislea. In 1938 he, along with Chistophorides, designed and flew the Chrislea Airguard, a low wing, side-by-side training aircraft. That aircraft could possibly have provided the inspiration for both the Folland and Chrislea contenders to T16/48.
However Leak died in October 1947 and was replaced by Arthur Beavan the following year, so any submission would have had his imprint upon it.

 

[Hood]

T.16/48 is becoming the Who's Who of the British aviation world of the 1940s!

I can't of any other specification that drew in so much interest and spawned so many designs.

If there is interest I am willing to transcribe up the industrial factors for all the tenders. It's a real snapshot of the industry circa 1949 (probably deserves its own thread though).
It would be interesting to compare MoS evaluations like this over different design conferences and across the years. It makes you wonder if there was a consistent approach and if subjective judgements altered depending on what the tender was for.

 

[alertken]

There was no consistency. There were precedent guidelines, all similar to any Committee: steered from the top and sometimes working backwards from a desired conclusion, secure in the 50-year rule (before open-access to the record).

One Attlee Cabinet Minutes has Secretary taking the voices: 20 Nay, 1 Aye...from PM. Secretary records Ayes have it.

 

[gatoraptor]

One Attlee Cabinet Minutes has Secretary taking the voices: 20 Nay, 1 Aye...from PM. Secretary records Ayes have it.

And that's supposed to be democracy at work?

 

[Schneiderman]

One Attlee Cabinet Minutes has Secretary taking the voices: 20 Nay, 1 Aye...from PM. Secretary records Ayes have it.

Date?

 

[alertken]

IIRC it's in Prof P Hennessy, the PM and its Holders.
Historians have Attlee's Cabinet style as...efficient...ruthless. He was said to have ejected from the table any Minister found not to have read the Agenda Papers (I think that's there too).

On gr's democracy point...maybe 7 resignations could be shrugged off by a PM without a majority of the Voices - Macmillan did so. But more...? Then the PM goes - Maggie T did so.

No critic of Sandys has chosen to note that no junior Minister or Senior Officer resigned, 4/57. In fact in my time only Navy Minister K.Speed and 1SL did so, over J.Nott's cuts, 1981. If cuts in budget are linked to cuts in Tasks - e.g East of Suez, Marshals must get on with it.

A point on umpteen schemes to T.16/48: the reason Meetings in those days were called Tender Design Conferences (which they were not), and were not called Tender Selection Conferences (which they were) was that only Departmental Contracts Branches (directly answerable to the Accounting Officer of MoS, who in turn was answerable to Treasury) could commit our money. In the days of T.16/48 brochures need not include £ numbers. Nor did Chairmen of such Meetings need to apply metrics of past performance to assess realism.
Hood #55 records Folland's Load on Hand being discussed. That was at discretion, choice of Chairman...looking for an excuse to decline: a busy firm cannot be entrusted with complex new work. An unbusy firm is clearly unqualified for complex new work.

That is why Conclusions are in the sense...seek Approval for 2 prototypes from firm X. And it is why Requiror's preferences may not be actioned - because a Bigger Picture prevails.

 

[Volkodav]

Anything on the A20 Wamira proposal/development in this?

Originally to have been called the Wombat until it was pointed out to be an acronym for Waste Of Money Brains And Talent

 

[GTX]

Originally to have been called the Wombat until it was pointed out to be an acronym for Waste Of Money Brains And Talent

Off topic: Dare I point out that the MRH90 was also nicknamed the "Combat Wombat" early on...

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Hood #55 records Folland's Load on Hand being discussed. That was at discretion, choice of Chairman...looking for an excuse to decline: a busy firm cannot be entrusted with complex new work. An unbusy firm is clearly unqualified for complex new work.

That is why Conclusions are in the sense...seek Approval for 2 prototypes from firm X. And it is why Requiror's preferences may not be actioned - because a Bigger Picture prevails.

Yes, in one design conference, firm A is too small for such an important job, then in the next, firm A is nimble and fast moving and just the team for the job. One wonders how much actual reality is behind these assessments. Given that MoS has the final say, it might be tempting to recommend a firm that MoS needs to find work for rather than the one that made the best proposal - the "buggins turn" method of contractor selection.

 

[Volkodav]

Originally to have been called the Wombat until it was pointed out to be an acronym for Waste Of Money Brains And Talent

Off topic: Dare I point out that the MRH90 was also nicknamed the "Combat Wombat" early on...

Now you mention it I do, and I even recall commenting about the implications of the name.

 

[Hood]

What an idiot! I had transcribed the wrong company!!
The Folland prognosis was much better than the Committee states. Indeed no other company is stated as being "Very well equipped." It makes you wonder why Folland didn't pick up more sub-contract work.

Load on Hand (Design Team): No experimental aircraft projects for M. of S.
Load on Hand: Extensive sub-contracts for Vampire components in hand for de Havilland. Additional capacity at present occupied by commercial production of refrigerators and electric trucks but these commitments are terminating.
Plant and Equipment: Adequate. Very well equipped but might require some additional equipment.
Capacity: Adequate capacity will be available as the Vampire commitments will not occupy the full capacity of the firm.
Production Ability: Production personnel have had adequate experience of large scale production of aircraft components. In addition they have adequate capacity and experience to manufacture their own jigs and tools.

 

[Hood]

A good discussing,but we should end it,later I say,it's a very great work
of course my dear Hood.

Here is proof that no tender was received from de Havilland, Armstrong Whitworth and Scottish Aviation.

 

[hesham]

Here is proof that no tender was received from de Havilland, Armstrong Whitworth and Scottish Aviation.

OK my dear Hood.

 

[Schneiderman]

It makes you wonder why Folland didn't pick up more sub-contract work.

Oh they were doing well enough - Comet, Brabazon, Vampire, Chipmunk, Viking, Brigand and a whole bunch of tools and transport trolleys,

 

[alertken]

Now, after an enjoyable pop at the process...does anyone want to Protest the outcome? Fly-off, HPR.2 v (to be) Provost, which then wins a fixed price R&D contract, then production batches priced in the then-normal way: loosely for early output till standard/learning curve data emerges, then fixed prices in mod-constant Lots. Engines were juggled before settling on new Leonides, not retread Cheetah.

We paid for all this ourselves with no US Defense Aid. SAAF, already by then encountering procurement hurdles, chose to fly its Harvards to about last week, and did forego a piston "advanced" trainer. We had enough Harvards in 1949 to cabal into a fair inventory for awhile. (motive to replace them was $-sparing on parts). Then presumably, no Jet Provost, so maybe a fresh round of tendering, 1955-ish?

 

[Hood]

I wouldn't protest the outcome.

T.16/48 is such a strange beast. The Air Ministry lamented what they had been offered, in the main, was not what they wanted. They didn't want a Gipsy Queen powered light trainer, they wanted something beefy with 500hp but for some reason most of the tenders completely misread the Harvard replacement, perhaps because they followed the precedent of the Prentice too closely?
This makes it all the more baffling, as Schneiderman pointed out earlier there was no follow-up commercial push for these designs to enter the light aircraft market, so there was no advantage in offering most of these designs (except one which I will come back to).
Only Percival, HPR and Westland offered big radials (Westland's designs were super chunky).

Of course Percival had its private-venture work pre-dating T.16/48, I think the Air Ministry and MoS knew all along who would win, which is why they tried to limit circulation of the spec to avoid wasting time going through Dellboy Aviation's back-of-a fag packet designs.

So given the preference for radials, the choice was narrow. Portly Westland or HPR? Well the ex-Miles team looked good on paper, lots of experience - but the HPR.2 was a complete failure, fundamentally unsound in every way. Fly off trials were a joke in this case, but had the HPR.2 been a stunner it might have been a close call.

I am surprised that alertken has not put his finger immediately on why we didn't run on Harvards. First, we didn't have many, only those retained after Lend-Lease and most of those we had had been baked out in Rhodesia. Second it was $$$$! Costly US dollars and the MoS frantically trying to find caches of cheap US parts on the second-hand market, caches that soon became apparent did not exist. We even tried converting Martinets to fill the gap but alas the woodworm and termites beat us to it.

So what radial do we use? Suddenly years of churning out Merlins and Hercules came back to bite. The cupboards were bare. Wasps meant parting with dollars. What else was left? 1930s-era Cheetahs, tons of surplus and even still in build for Ansons but it was not a good choice for a 1950s trainer. Mercuries were also available. Thankfully Alvis saved the day with the Leonides, which in truth should have been adopted earlier in the spec, though timing was probably against that happening. Of course the main reason everyone had stuck a Gipsy Queen on the front end was that there was no other low-end piston engine to choose, which is why the tenders ended up being what the RAF didn't want. Had Alvis decided not to bother with aircraft engines and there had been no Leonides then we would have been stuck, although it's possible a Mercury could have been tried or just hope the Cheetah lasts out (as it was jet-power came sooner to Training Command than they thought likely).

I wouldn't want to dwell on AH jet trainers here too much (not being an AH topic), but I feel sure had there been no Provost (a highly unlikely event), the MoS would have issued a spec for a jet trainer circa 1954/55 and for that the Boulton Paul P.124 would be a front-runner in my view, ignoring what hypothetical non-Provost based offering Percival might have come up with.

 

[Schneiderman]

I would agree with all of that, why the engine preference was overlooked in many cases is indeed odd. The specification was not exactly demanding, all that was required, in essence, was an aircraft with benign flight characteristics, easy to maintain and cheap to build, so just how the HPR.2 got it so wrong is difficult to fathom.
Leonides was also a '30s era engine, the sole survivor of Alvis' ill-starred attempt to enter the engine market with a range of power outputs across the board. Wrong source designs, wrong timing and total lack of support from industry (except Folland) and government.

 

[VictorXL188]

So yes, caveats from me but I am 100% sure all the submitted tenders are known and those few generic "Basic Trainer T.16/48" entries are either incorrect or guesswork.

Umm just a small point, as well as the Aerocar, there was the ULRF from Portsmouth.

 

[Hood]

So yes, caveats from me but I am 100% sure all the submitted tenders are known and those few generic "Basic Trainer T.16/48" entries are either incorrect or guesswork.

Umm just a small point, as well as the Aerocar, there was the ULRF from Portsmouth.

The Portsmouth Aviation entry is included both in the text and data table. I didn't have a name for it though - do you know what does ULRF stands for (assuming its an acronym)?

 

[VictorXL188]

So yes, caveats from me but I am 100% sure all the submitted tenders are known and those few generic "Basic Trainer T.16/48" entries are either incorrect or guesswork.

Umm just a small point, as well as the Aerocar, there was the ULRF from Portsmouth.

The Portsmouth Aviation entry is included both in the text and data table. I didn't have a name for it though - do you know what does ULRF stands for (assuming its an acronym)?

Sorry Hood for the long pause in answering, but I have only just got back to this particular topic. ULRF stood for Universal Long Range Fighter and was covered here: https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/seaplane-jetfighters.645/#post-4869