The Armstrong Whitworth Awana was a British prototype troop-

transport Transport (in British English) or transportation (in American English) is the intentional Motion, movement of humans, animals, and cargo, goods from one location to another. Mode of transport, Modes of transport include aviation, air, land tr ...

aircraft built to meet a 1920

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 and civil aviation that existed from 1918 to 1964. It was under the political authority of the ...

requirement.

Design and development

The Awana was designed in response to Air Ministry Specification 5/20 for a twin-engined ''Troop Carrying Aeroplane'', able to carry 25 fully equipped troops for a distance of 400 miles. Any design was to be capable of landing on rough terrain, other requirements being folding wings and the ability to fly on one engine.Meekcoms/Morgan 1994, p. 35 One of the largest landplanes of its time, it was a large, twin-engine four-bay staggered

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 ...

with a box-like

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French language, French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds Aircrew, crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an Aircraft engine, engine as wel ...

, and a three-

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

, biplane

tail The tail is the elongated section at the rear end of a bilaterian animal's body; in general, the term refers to a distinct, flexible appendage extending backwards from the midline of the torso. In vertebrate animals that evolution, evolved to los ...

. The

pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its Aircraft flight control system, directional flight controls. Some other aircrew, aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are al ...

and

navigator A navigator is the person on board a ship or aircraft responsible for its navigation.Grierson, MikeAviation History—Demise of the Flight Navigator FrancoFlyers.org website, October 14, 2008. Retrieved August 31, 2014. The navigator's prim ...

sat in open

cockpit A cockpit or flight deck is the area, on the front part of an aircraft, spacecraft, or submersible, from which a pilot controls the vehicle. The cockpit of an aircraft contains flight instruments on an instrument panel, and the controls th ...

s atop the nose, while the 25 troops it was to carry entered through a hatch in the floor and sat in two rows of "bus"-style seats with a centre aisle. It was of composite construction, with a tubular-steel-framed fuselage and wooden wings incorporating substantial hinges to allow them to be folded for storage. The Napier Lion engines were supported on tubular-steel supports between the wings and housed in streamlined cowlings with retractable radiators on the underside. The three cylindrical main petrol tanks were slung under the floor in an aluminium fairing, and fed fuel via windmill-driven pumps to header tanks on the underside of the upper wing.''Flight'' 3 April 1924 page187 ''et seq'' Two prototypes were ordered by the Air Ministry on 27 June 1921, and the first prototype,

serial number A serial number (SN) is a unique identifier used to ''uniquely'' identify an item, and is usually assigned incrementally or sequentially. Despite being called serial "numbers", they do not need to be strictly numerical and may contain letters ...

''J6897'', first flew on 28 June 1923. Evaluated at

Martlesham Heath Martlesham Heath is a village in Suffolk, England. It is east of Ipswich, This was an ancient area of heathland and latterly the site of Martlesham Heath Airfield. A "new village" was established there in the mid-1970s and this has developed in ...

, control during landing was found to be poor, and the structure overall too flimsy. The second prototype addressed some of these concerns, but the

Vickers Victoria The Vickers Type 56 Victoria was a British biplane freighter and troop transport aircraft used by the Royal Air Force. The Victoria flew for the first time in 1922 and was selected for production over the Armstrong Whitworth Awana. Design and ...

was selected for production instead.Tapper 1988, p.192.

Specifications

References

;Notes ;Bibliography * * * * * {{Armstrong Whitworth aircraft

Awana Awana is an international evangelical Christian nonprofit organization in child and youth discipleship. The headquarters are in St. Charles, Illinois, United States. History In 1941, the children's program at the North Side Gospel Center in Chic ...

1920s British military transport aircraft Cancelled military aircraft projects of the United Kingdom Biplanes Aircraft first flown in 1923 Twin piston-engined tractor aircraft

Design and development

Specifications

See also

References