The Avro 558 was a British single-engined ultralight

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 ...

built by

Avro Avro (an initialism of the founder's name) was a British aircraft manufacturer. Its designs include the Avro 504, used as a trainer in the First World War, the Avro Lancaster, one of the pre-eminent bombers of the Second World War, and the d ...

at Hamble Aerodrome.

Design and development

The Avro 558 was designed for the 1923 light aircraft trials for single-seaters at

Lympne Aerodrome Lympne Airport was a military and later civil airfield , at Lympne, Kent, United Kingdom, which operated from 1916 to 1984. The airfield was built out of necessity in the First World War. During the World War I, First World War RFC Lympne was ...

. Two Avro 558 biplanes were built, they were biplanes powered by motorcycle engines (one with a B&H twin-cylinder air-cooled engine, the second with a 500 cc

Douglas Douglas may refer to: People * Douglas (given name) * Douglas (surname) Animals * Douglas (parrot), macaw that starred as the parrot ''Rosalinda'' in Pippi Longstocking * Douglas the camel, a camel in the Confederate Army in the American Civil ...

engine). The first aircraft was modified with a 698 cc (42.6 in³)

Blackburne Tomtit The Blackburne Tomtit was a 670 cc V-twin aero engine for light aircraft that was designed and produced by Blackburne (motorcycles), Burney and Blackburne Limited. Burney and Blackburne was based at Bookham, Surrey, England and was a form ...

and both had modifications to the landing gear.

Operational history

The aircraft did not win the competition, but the second aircraft went on to establish a world record for its class of aircraft of 13,850 ft (4,222 m) over

Lympne Lympne (), formerly also Lymne, is a village on the former shallow-gradient sea cliffs above the expansive agricultural plain of Romney Marsh in Kent. The settlement forms an L shape stretching from Port Lympne Zoo via Lympne Castle facing Ly ...

on 13 October 1923.Jackson 1974, p.292. It is not known what happened to the two aircraft, not having been reported since 1923.

Operators

;

Specifications

References

* * * * *

External links

Avro 558
– British Aircraft Directory {{Avro aircraft 1920s British civil utility aircraft

558 __NOTOC__ Year 558 ( DLVIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 558 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe ...