The Gloster Aircraft Company was a British aircraft manufacturer from 1917 to 1963.

Founded as the Gloucestershire Aircraft Company Limited during the First World War, with the aircraft construction activities of H.H. Martyn & Co. of Cheltenham, England, it produced fighters during the war. It was renamed later as foreigners found 'Gloucestershire' difficult to pronounce. It later became part of the Hawker Siddeley group and the Gloster name disappeared in 1963.

Gloster designed and built several fighters that equipped the British Royal Air Force (RAF) during the interwar years, including the Gladiator, the RAF's last biplane fighter. The company built most of the wartime production of Hawker Hurricanes and Hawker Typhoons for their parent company, Hawker Siddeley, while its design office was working on the first British jet aircraft, the E.28/39 experimental aircraft. This was followed by the Meteor, the RAF's first jet-powered fighter and the only Allied jet fighter to be put into service during the Second World War.

History

1917 – Formation

In 1917, during the midst of the First World War, the Gloster Aircraft Company Limited was formed under the name The Gloucestershire Aircraft Company Limited. At the time of its creation, its owners were Hugh Burroughes (1884–1985) and H H Martyn & Co. Limited, who held a 50 per cent share between them; the aircraft manufacturer Airco held the other 50 per cent. On the company's board were A W Martyn, Burroughes, and George Holt Thomas of Airco.

right|thumb|A [[Bristol F.2 Fighter|Bristol F.2B Fighter of No. 1 Squadron, Australian Flying Corps flown by Ross Smith in Palestine, February 1918.]]

The firm rented facilities at Sunningend in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire to serve as their works. By the spring of 1918, the company was producing 45 new Bristol Fighter aircraft per week.

On 15 May 1941, the first official test flight of the Gloster E.28/39 W 4041/G with a turbo-jet engine, invented by Sir Frank Whittle took off from RAF Cranwell (earlier taxying trials, in which the E.28/39 briefly became airborne, and therefore "flew", were carried out at the company's airfield at Brockworth).

Although the E.28.39 could in theory be used as a fighter, a specific fighter design was required and Gloster began work on a twin engine jet design. Once the E.28/39 had flown, the Air Staff told Gloster to stop work on their F.18/40 nightfighter (other aircraft could be adapted to replace it) to concentrate on the jet fighter. The jet design became the Gloster Meteor, the only jet to be used in combat by the Allied Forces during the Second World War.

First flying with the RAF in 1943, the Meteor commenced operations in mid-1944, only some weeks later than the world's first operational jet, the German Messerschmitt Me 262. Crucially, it became the first RAF aircraft with a high enough top speed to enable it to fly alongside V1 flying bombs and tip them under the wing so as to render the V1's gyro incapable of recovery. This made the V1s crash prematurely to earth in open countryside before they could reach London.

1945 – Setting world airspeed records

thumb|Meteor F.8 in flight at [[RAF Greenham Common, May 1986]]

In 1945, a Meteor F Mk.4 prototype, stripped of armament, achieved a World Airspeed Record of with Group Captain H. Wilson at the controls. During early 1946, another F Mk.4 prototype was used to set a world air speed record of true airspeed with Group Captain "Teddy" Donaldson flying the highly modified Meteor, nicknamed "Yellow Peril." The second pilot in the High Speed Flight, Bill Waterton achieved 614 mph. During the record attempt Donaldson became the first man to break the 1,000 km/h barrier, winning the Britannia Trophy and a Bar to his AFC. Meteors remained in service with several air forces for many years and saw action in the Korean War with the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). Eventually, Gloster Meteors in fighter, trainer and night fighter versions were in operational use by 12 nations.

1947 – Gloster's heyday

During Gloster's heyday, in 1947, S/L Janusz Zurakowski was employed as an experimental pilot. In the following years, he became one of the world's most famous experimental and aerobatics pilots. He developed a new aerobatic manoeuvre, the "Zurabatic Cartwheel", which held the audience captivated as he suspended the Gloster Meteor G-7-1 prototype he was flying, in a vertical cartwheel at the 1951 Farnborough Air Show, a manoeuvre the announcer declared to be "Impossible!" Serving for a brief period as the chief test pilot, he tested the many experimental versions of the Gloster Meteor, Javelin and E.1/44 fighters. During the Gloster years, "Zura" as he came to be known, set an international speed record: London-Copenhagen-London, 4–5 April 1950 at Gloster's instruction to sell the aircraft to the Danish Air Force.

thumb|Javelin FAW 7s of [[No. 64 Squadron RAF in 1959.]]

In 1952, the two-seat, delta winged Gloster Javelin was developed as an all-weather fighter that could fly above at almost the speed of sound. This modern aircraft proved to be too heavy to take off from the short airfield in Brockworth, and was instead fitted out to the bare minimum and given a very small fuel load. It was then flown in a short hop to RAF Moreton Valence to the south west, where the aircraft would be completed. It was this shortcoming of facilities, along with the rationalisation of the British aircraft industry, that would lead to the demise of Gloster.

One blind alley was the work done (along with eight other British companies) on designing an aircraft to the same exacting Ministry specification that spawned the BAC TSR-2. The contract was issued to BAC but the Wilson Government cancelled the TSR2 project.

1960s – Demise

In 1961, the company was merged with Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft Limited to form Whitworth Gloster Aircraft Limited. Following another re-organisation, the firm became part of the Avro Whitworth Division of Hawker Siddeley Aviation in 1963, and the name Gloster disappeared as Hawker Siddeley rebranded its product line under its own name.

In the late 1960s/early 1970s, the Saunders-Roe Folly Works, by then owned by Hawker Siddeley, was merged with the Gloster works to form Gloster-Saro utilising both companies' expertise in aluminium forming to produce fire appliances and tankers in the Gloster factory at Hucclecote, mostly based on Reynolds-Boughton chassis. In 1984, Gloster Saro acquired the fire tender business of the Chubb group with the company merging in 1987 with Simon Engineering to form Simon Gloster Saro. The company eventually was used to manufacture both alloy and, later, fibreglass fuel tankers for Companies such as Shell/BP.

The site at Brockworth was sold in 1964. In recent years, the runway and old buildings have been demolished and replaced by standard modern industrial estate and office buildings.

Products

  • 1921 Gloster Mars – single-seat racing biplane later modified as the Gloster I
  • 1921 Gloster Sparrowhawk
  • 1922 Gloster Mars VI Nighthawk
  • 1922 Gloster Mars X Nightjar
  • 1923 Gloster Gannet – single-seat ultra light biplane
  • 1923 Gloster Grebe – single-seat day fighter biplane
  • 1923 Gloster Grouse
  • 1924 Gloster Gorcock – experimental single-seat fighter biplane
  • 1924 Gloster II – single-seat racing biplane
  • 1925 Gloster III – single-seat racing float biplane
  • 1925 Gloster Gamecock – single-seat day and night interceptor biplane
  • 1925 Gloster Guan – experimental single-seat high altitude fighter biplane
  • 1926 Gloster Goral – two-seat general purpose biplane
  • 1926 Gloster Goring – two-seat day bomber/torpedo biplane
  • 1927 Gloster IV – single-seat racing float biplane
  • 1927 Gloster Goldfinch – single-seat high-altitude day and night fighter biplane
  • 1927 Gloster Gambet – single-seat deck landing fighter biplane
  • 1928 Gloster Gnatsnapper – single-seat deck landing fighter biplane
  • 1929 Gloster VI – single-seat racing monoplane (world absolute speed record holder for a few hours in 1929)
  • 1929 A.S.31 Survey – two-seat photographic survey biplane
  • 1932 Gloster TC.33 – four-engined bomber/transport biplane
  • 1932 Gloster TSR.38 – three-seat torpedo/spotter/reconnaissance biplane
  • 1934 Gloster Gauntlet – single-seat day and night fighter biplane
  • 1934 Gloster Gladiator – single-seat day fighter biplane
  • 1937 Gloster F.5/34 single-seat day fighter monoplane prototype
  • 1939 Gloster F.9/37 twin-engined heavy fighter prototype
  • 1941 Gloster E.28/39 first British jet-engined aircraft
  • 1944 Gloster Meteor single-seat day fighter – only allied jet aircraft to see action during the Second World War
  • 1948 Gloster E.1/44 single-seat jet day fighter prototype
  • 1954 Gloster Javelin two-seat all-weather jet fighter
  • 1954 Gloster Meteor F8 "Prone Pilot" experimental conversion of Meteor

Chief Test Pilots

  • 1927–1935 Howard Saint
  • 1935–1942 Gerry Sayer
  • 1942–1944 Michael Daunt
  • 1945–1946 Eric Greenwood
  • 1947–1954 William Arthur Waterton
  • 1953–1960 Richard Frewen Martin
  • 1960–1961 Geoffrey Worrall

See also

  • Aerospace industry in the United Kingdom

Notes

References

Notes

Bibliography

  • Buttler, Tony. Secret Projects: British Fighters and Bombers 1935–1950 (British Secret Projects 3). Leicester, UK: Midland Publishing, 2004. .
  • James, Derek N. Gloster Aircraft since 1917. London: Putnam, First edition, 1971. .