Bristol Aeroplane Company

thumb|Bristol Aeroplane Company advertisement (1920)

The Bristol Aeroplane Company, originally the British and Colonial Aeroplane Company, was both one of the first and one of the most important British aviation companies, designing and manufacturing both airframes and aircraft engines. Notable aircraft produced by the company include the 'Boxkite', the Bristol Fighter, the Bulldog, the Blenheim, the Beaufighter, and the Britannia, and much of the preliminary work which led to Concorde was carried out by the company. In 1956 its major operations were split into Bristol Aircraft and Bristol Aero Engines.

In 1959, Bristol Aircraft merged with several other major British aircraft companies to form the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC), which subsequently went on to become a founding component of the nationalised British Aerospace, now BAE Systems. Meanwhile Bristol Aero Engines merged with Armstrong Siddeley to form Bristol Siddeley, which was subsequently purchased by Rolls-Royce in 1966, who continued to develop and market Bristol-designed engines.

The Bristol works were at Filton Airport, about north of Bristol city centre. BAE Systems, Airbus, Rolls-Royce, MBDA and GKN still have a presence at the Filton site where the Bristol Aeroplane Company was located.

History

Foundation

The British and Colonial Aeroplane Company, Ltd was founded in February 1910 by Sir George White, chairman of the Bristol Tramways and Carriage Company, along with his son Stanley and his brother Samuel, to commercially exploit the fast-growing aviation sector. Sir George met with the American aviation pioneer Wilbur Wright in France in 1909 by chance, during which he became aware of aviation's business potential.

Unlike many aviation companies of the era, which were started by enthusiasts with little financial backing, British and Colonial was well funded from its outset.

The first batch equipped the two training schools, as well as serving as demonstration machines; the aircraft, which gained the nickname of the Boxkite, went on to become a commercial success, a total of 76 being constructed. Many served in the company's flying schools and examples were sold to the War Office as well as a number of foreign governments. Official War Office policy was to purchase only aircraft designed by the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE), and Bristol had already built a number of their B.E.2 two-seater reconnaissance aircraft. However, pressure from the pilots of the RFC and Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) led to orders being placed for a new aircraft manufactured by Bristol, known as the Scout. Barnwell was succeeded as Bristol's Chief Designer by Leslie Frise. By the time war broke out in 1939, the Bristol works at Filton were the largest single aircraft manufacturing unit in the world, with a floor area of nearly 25 hectares (2,691,000 square feet).

Second World War

thumb|The Bristol Beaufighter

During the Second World War, Bristol's most important aircraft was the Beaufighter heavy two-seat multirole aircraft, a long-range fighter, night fighter, ground attack aircraft and torpedo bomber.

thumb|left|The Bristol Britannia

In 1960, the founder's grandson, Sir George S.M. White, (3rd Baronet), was instrumental in preventing the car division being lost during the wider company's merger with BAC. Pre-fabricated buildings, marine craft and plastic and composite materials were also amongst the company's early post-war activities; these side-ventures were independently sold off.

Bristol was involved in the post-war renaissance of British civilian aircraft, which was largely inspired by the Brabazon Committee report of 1943–5. Bristol was also involved in helicopter development, with the Belvedere and Sycamore going into quantity production.

Another post-war activity was missile development, culminating in the production of the Bloodhound anti-aircraft missile. Upon introduction, the Bloodhound was the RAF's only long range transportable surface-to-air missile. None of these designs were built.

Merger into BAC

In 1959, Bristol was forced by Government policy to merge its aircraft interests with English Electric, Hunting Aircraft, and Vickers-Armstrongs to form the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC). Bristol formed a holding company which held a 20 per cent share of BAC, while English Electric and Vickers held 40 per cent each. In 1966, Bristol Siddeley was purchased by Rolls-Royce, leaving the latter as the only major aero-engine company in Britain. From 1967, Bristol Siddeley's operations became the "Bristol Engine Division" and the "Small Engine Division" of Rolls-Royce, identified separately from Rolls-Royce's existing "Aero Engine Division". A number of Bristol Siddeley engines continued to be developed under Rolls-Royce including the Olympus turbojet – including the joint development Bristol started with Snecma for Concorde – and the Pegasus. The astronomical names favoured by Bristol indicated their heritage in a Rolls-Royce lineup named after British rivers.

Helicopter Division

thumb|The Bristol 171

The Bristol Aeroplane Company's Helicopter Division had its roots in 1944, when the helicopter designer Raoul Hafner, released from the Airborne Forces Experimental Establishment (AFEE), came to Bristol along with some members of his team. Under Hafner's direction, the division produced two successful designs that were sold in quantity. The first, designated the Type 171, had a shaky start after the wooden rotor blades of the second prototype failed on its first flight in 1949.

After the Type 171, the Bristol Helicopter Division started work on a tandem rotor civil helicopter. The result was the 13-seat Type 173, which made its first flight in Filton in 1952. Five examples were built for evaluation purposes. Although no airlines ordered the Type 173, it led to military designs, of which the Type 192 went into service with the RAF as the Belvedere. First flying in 1958, 26 were built in total.

Pursuing the idea of a civil tandem rotor helicopter, Hafner and his team developed a much larger design, the Type 194. This was in an advanced state of design when the Bristol Helicopter Division was merged, as a result of government influence, with the helicopter interests of other British aircraft manufacturers (Westland, Fairey and Saunders-Roe) to form Westland Helicopters in 1960. When the competing Westland Westminster was cancelled, the management of the combined company allowed development of the Type 194 to continue, but it too failed to find a market.

The Helicopter Division started out at the main Bristol Aeroplane Company site in Filton, but from 1955 it was moved to the Oldmixon factory in Weston-Super-Mare, which had built Blenheims during the War. The factory is now the site of The Helicopter Museum.

Products

Bristol did not systematically assign project type numbers until 1923, starting with the Type 90 Berkeley. In that year, they also retrospectively assigned type numbers in chronological order to all projects, built or not, from August 1914 onwards. Thus the Scouts A and B did not get a type number but the Scout C did and was the Type 1. The final Bristol project, numbered Type 225, was an unbuilt 1962 STOL transport. Of these 225 Types, 117 were built. This list does not include the unbuilt "paper aeroplanes"; it does include the pre-August 1914 aircraft.

Aircraft

thumb|UK Ministry of Defence Bristol Britannia makes a visit to the maker's factory at Filton in 1983. As a civil airliner it had flown for BOAC, British Eagle, and Air Spain.

thumb|The [[Bristol Belvedere twin-rotor helicopter, designed as a general-purpose land-based helicopter for the Royal Air Force. Twenty-six were built.]]

Pre-World War I

Bristol Boxkite
Bristol Glider
Bristol Racing Biplane
Bristol Biplane Type 'T'
Bristol Monoplane
Bristol Prier monoplane - monoplanes designed by Pierre Prier
Bristol-Burney seaplanes - hydroplanes built to ideas by Dennistoun Burney
Bristol Coanda Monoplanes -series of monoplane trainers designed by Henri Coanda from 1912
Bristol Gordon England biplanes - series of biplane designed by Eric Gordon England from 1912
Bristol B.R.7
Bristol Hydro no.120
Bristol G.B.75 - derivative of TB.8 for Romania
Bristol T.B.8 - derivative of Bristol Coanda Monoplane as biplane
Bristol P.B.8
Bristol S.S.A. - armoured biplane scout for France, first flight 1914, one built

World War I

Bristol Types 1–5 Scout A-D
Bristol Type 6 T.T.A.
Bristol Type 7 F.3A
Bristol Type 8 S.2A
Bristol Types 10, 11, 20, and 77 M.1 Monoplane Scout
Bristol Types 12, 14–17, and 22 F.2 Fighter
Bristol Type 13 M.R.1
Bristol Type 18 Scout E
Bristol Type 21 Scout F

Inter-war

Bristol Type 23 Badger
Bristol Types 24 Braemar and 25 Braemar II - triplane heavy bomber, 2 built
Bristol Type 26 Pullman - passenger derivative of Braemar, 1 built
Bristol Types 27–29, 47, and 48 Tourer
Bristol Types 30 and 46 Babe
Bristol Type 31 Grampus - unbuilt passenger aircraft
Bristol Type 32 Bullet - biplane racer, one built
Bristol Type 36 Seely - short takeoff and slow landing speed competition entrant
Bristol Type 37 Tramp - steam powered passenger derivative of Pullman, 2 built but not flown
Bristol Types 52 and 53 Bullfinch - convertible monoplane/biplane. prototypes only
Bristol Type 62 and 75 Ten-Seater and Type 79 Brandon
Bristol Type 72 Racer
Bristol Type 76 Jupiter Fighter - conversion of F.2 fighter to use Jupiter engine
Bristol Type 73 Taxiplane and Type 83/183 Primary Trainer
Bristol Type 84 Bloodhound - two-seat reconnaissance/fighter, 4 prototypes built
Bristol Type 90 Berkeley
Bristol Type 91 Brownie
Bristol Type 92 'Laboratory' biplane
Bristol Types 93 Boarhound and 93A Beaver

Bristol Type 95 Bagshot
Bristol Type 99 Badminton
Bristol Type 101
Bristol Type 105 Bulldog
Bristol Type 107 Bullpup
Bristol Type 109
Bristol Type 110A
Bristol Type 118
Bristol Type 120
Bristol Type 123
Bristol Type 130 Bombay - troop transport-medium bomber for use in Middle East and India
Bristol Type 133
Bristol Type 138 - high-altitude monoplane research aircraft, 1 built
Bristol Type 142 'Britain First' - high speed passenger aircraft
Bristol Type 143 - parallel development of Type 142 with Aquila engine
Bristol Type 146
Bristol Type 148
Bristol Types 142M, 149, and 160 Blenheim

World War II

thumb|right|The only flying Blenheim (Mk.1 L6739) displaying at Duxford in 2015

Bristol Fairchild Type 149 Bolingbroke - licence built Blenheim
Bristol Type 152 Beaufort - torpedo bomber
Bristol Type 156 Beaufighter - two engine fighter, and torpedo bomber
Bristol Type 159 - four engine heavy bomber, not built
Bristol Type 163 Buckingham - medium bomber
Bristol Type 164 Brigand
Bristol Type 166 Buckmaster

Post-WWII

thumb|right|Royal Air Force Bristol Britannia Spica

Bristol Type 167 Brabazon - very large airliner, one built
Bristol Type 170 Freighter and Wayfarer
Bristol Superfreighter
Bristol Type 175 Britannia
Bristol Type 188 high speed research aircraft

Helicopters

Bristol Type 171 Sycamore
Bristol Type 173 - twin rotor
Bristol Type 192 Belvedere - twin rotor

Engines

Bristol Engine designs include:

Original series:

Cherub
Lucifer
Jupiter
Titan
Mercury
Neptune
Pegasus
Phoenix
Hydra

Sleeve-valve engines:

Perseus
Aquila
Taurus
Hercules
Centaurus

Turbines'

thumb|The Bristol Pegasus

Theseus turboprop with heat exchanger
Proteus two-shaft turboprop
Olympus two-spool turbojet
Orpheus single-spool turbojet
Orion two-shaft turboprop
Pegasus two-spool vectored thrust turbofan
Cumulus APU for TSR-2
Bristol Janus small free-power turbine engine for Bristol Type 173 helicopter

Ramjet types:

BRJ.801
Thor
Odin

Missiles and rockets

thumb|The Bristol Bloodhound

Bristol missile designs include:

Blue Envoy – project for a surface-to-air missile to meet Operational Requirement 1140; did not enter production
Bloodhound – surface-to-air missile
Fulmar – research rocket
Skua – sounding rocket
Bristol 182 for the specification UB.109T, also known by MoS codename "Blue Rapier"

Aircraft turrets

Bristol began producing gun turrets with its Bristol Type 120 submission for an Air Ministry specification. The turret was a glazed cupola over a Scarff ring mounted Lewis light machine gun. Although it had to be rotated manually, it provided protection from the slipstream for the air gunner. and similar turrets were fitted to the Bristol Bombay.

The first powered turrets by Bristol used hydraulics. In the B.II nose turret and B.III tail turret, a Vickers K machine gun mounted in a narrow horizontal strip was linked to gunsight. A ram rotated the strip and hence the gun horizontally, the glazing remaining stationary.

The Bristol Type B.1 was more typical of later gun turret designs; the gun elevating through a slot in the glazing which rotated. The Type B.1 had two distinct features; the cupola could be lowered reducing drag and, though the single gun was centrally aligned, the gun cradle could be pivoted independently of the turret. The latter meant that the turret could be turned with sufficient offset that the gunner could fire along the side of the rudder and engage targets directly astern. The Type B.1 was fitted to Bristol Blenheim and Beaufort, and to the Avro Anson and Fairey Battle (with two Browning machine guns) when they were used as gunnery trainers.

The Type B.IV was a lightweight (66 kg) turret designed specifically for the Beaufort mid-upper position with one (B.IV Mk 1) or two (B.IV Mk 1E) Vickers K machine guns

Type X was a two 0.303-in Browning machine gun turret for the Blenheim Mk V.to replace the earlier design.

The Type B.11 was a four gun turret developed in 1940. It was intended for a dorsal position on a Beaufighter but the design was not put into position though it was also considered for the Douglas Boston and de Havilland Mosquito too.

The Type B.12 was another four gun dorsal turret, this time designed for the Bristol Buckingham. A particular requirement was that when not in use, crew could pass through the turret space to reach the bombardier position. It was successfully tested then redesigned to take two 0.5-inch Browning heavy machine guns as the Mark II variant. The Mark IV had two 0.303 guns.

The B.12 "Mark III" was a test of using electrical rather than hydraulic system to operate the turret; the system proved effective was adopted on the later B.16, B.17, B.18 and B.30 turrets.

A second turret was developed for the Buckingham to cover the rear below the aircraft. It was mounted at the back of the gondola type bomb aimer position under the fuselage and fitted with two Browning machine guns.

The "B.14" designation was used for a four gun remote controlled nose mounting rather than a turret. Another design intended for the Buckingham it was included on the pre-production mockup but not developed further.