The Bristol Gordon England biplanes were a series of early

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

military

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 ...

aircraft An aircraft ( aircraft) is a vehicle that is able to flight, fly by gaining support from the Atmosphere of Earth, air. It counters the force of gravity by using either Buoyancy, static lift or the Lift (force), dynamic lift of an airfoil, or, i ...

Eric Gordon England Eric Cecil Gordon England (5 April 1891 – February 1976) FRAeS, AFRAeS, FIMT,Gordon England Ltd. ''The Times'', Tuesday, 5 February 1929; p. 18; Issue 45119. was a British aviator, racing driver and engineer.Who Was Who, A & C Black, 1920–20 ...

for the

Bristol Aeroplane Company 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 ...

that first flew in 1912. Designed for easy ground transport, the aircraft could be quickly disassembled.

Design and development

The first Gordon England design, the G.E.1, was a two-bay equal-span

tractor configuration In aviation, a tractor configuration is a propeller-driven fixed-wing aircraft with its engine mounted with the propeller in front, so that the aircraft is "pulled" through the air. This is the usual configuration; the pusher configuration ...

biplane powered by a Clerget four-cylinder water-cooled engine, driving the two-bladed propeller via a

chain drive Chain drive is a way of transmitting mechanical power from one place to another. It is often used to convey power to the wheels of a vehicle, particularly bicycles and motorcycles. It is also used in a wide variety of machines besides vehicles. ...

giving a 2:1 speed reduction. The crew of two were accommodated side-by-side in a single

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 ...

, fitted with dual controls. The

empennage The empennage ( or ), also known as the tail or tail assembly, is a structure at the rear of an aircraft that provides stability during flight, in a way similar to the feathers on an arrow.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, third ed ...

consisted of a small triangular tailplane and

elevator An elevator (American English) or lift (Commonwealth English) is a machine that vertically transports people or freight between levels. They are typically powered by electric motors that drive traction cables and counterweight systems suc ...

s mounted on top of the rectangular-section fuselage and elongated triangular fins above and below the fuselage with the unbalanced rudder mounted on the trailing edge. After testing during May and June 1912 the fins were removed, and an enlarged aerodynamically balanced rudder fitted. The aircraft was sold to the Deutsche Bristol Werke. However it was found to be unsuitable for use as a trainer, and was returned to the Bristol works at

Filton Filton is a town and civil parish in South Gloucestershire, England, north of Bristol. Along with nearby Patchway and Bradley Stoke, Filton forms part of the Bristol urban area and has become an overflow settlement for the city. Filton has la ...

in September 1912 and scrapped. The G.E.2 was an enlargement and refinement of the previous design. The fuselage was carried on the innermost pairs of interplane struts, so that there was a gap between the fuselage and the lower wing, and a shallow curved fairing was added to the top and bottom of the fuselage. The tailplane was enlarged and mounted in a mid-fuselage position. Two examples were built, one powered by a Gnome double Omega twin-row

rotary engine The rotary engine is an early type of internal combustion engine, usually designed with an odd number of cylinders per row in a radial configuration. The engine's crankshaft remained stationary in operation, while the entire crankcase and its ...

and the other with a 70 hp (53 kW) four-cylinder inline water-cooled Daimler. Both were entered in the British military aeroplane trials held in August 1912, the first to be flown by Gordon England and the other by

Howard Pixton Cecil Howard Pixton (14 December 1885 – 7 February 1972) was a British aeronautical engineer, test pilot and air racing pilot who was most famous for winning the 1914 Schneider Trophy seaplane race. Early life Howard Pixton was the youngest ...

but were unsuccessful, completing only the quick-assembly tests. The Daimler-engined version proved underpowered, and the other aircraft was damaged in an accident early in the competition, which was won by the

Cody V biplane The Cody V was a single-engined biplane built by the British-based American aviation pioneer Samuel Franklin Cody in 1912. It was built from the remains of two of Cody's earlier aircraft, and won the 1912 British Military Aeroplane Competition, ...

.Bruce 1982, pp. 13–14, 200. Bristol did have some success, however: their monoplane design being placed equal third. The design was further refined in the G.E.3, of which two were built for the

Turkish Turkish may refer to: * Something related to Turkey ** Turkish language *** Turkish alphabet ** Turkish people, a Turkic ethnic group and nation *** Turkish citizen, a citizen of Turkey *** Turkish communities in the former Ottoman Empire * The w ...

government. This had a fuselage faired to a circular cross-section with the crew in two tandem cockpits, with fuel and oil tanks sufficient for three hours flight between them, and was powered by an

Gnome Lambda The Gnome 7 Lambda was a French designed, seven-cylinder, air-cooled rotary aero engine that was produced under license in Britain and Germany. Powering several World War I-era aircraft types it was claimed to produce from its capacity of alt ...

single-row rotary engine threequarters enclosed in a circular cowling. The continuous inmost interplane struts were replaced by short struts between the lower

longerons In engineering, a longeron or stringer is a load-bearing component of a framework. The term is commonly used in connection with aircraft fuselages and automobile chassis. Longerons are used in conjunction with stringers to form structural frame ...

and the lower wing and a cabane consisting of two sets of inverted V struts supplemented by a single strut between the centre of the upper wing and the nose of the aircraft. Trials of the aircraft revealed that the wing spars were too flexible, and although an attempt was made to address this problem by adding short kingpost-bracing to the rear spar, by this time the Italian

blockade A blockade is the act of actively preventing a country or region from receiving or sending out food, supplies, weapons, or communications, and sometimes people, by military force. A blockade differs from an embargo or sanction, which are ...

of Turkey made delivery difficult, and no further development was carried out.Barnes 1988, p. 68.

Variants

;G.E.1 :One built. Powered by 50 hp (40 kW)

Clerget Clerget-Blin (full name being ''Société Clerget-Blin et Cie'') was a French precision engineering company formed in 1913 by the engineer and inventor Pierre Clerget and industrialist Eugène Blin. In 1939, the company was absorbed into the ' ...

inline engine: length 29 ft (8.84 m), wingspan 33 ft 8 in (10.26 m).Barnes 1988, p. 69. ;G.E.2 :Two built — one with a 100 hp (80 kW)

Gnome A gnome () is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and widely adopted by authors, including those of modern fantasy literature. They are typically depict ...

engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power ge ...

, the other with a 70 hp (53 kW) Daimler ;G.E.3 :Two built. Powered by an 80 hp (60 kW)

engine, length 28 ft 5 in, (8.63 m), wingspan .

Specifications (G.E.2, Gnome engine)

References

Citations

Bibliography

* * * *

External links

The Transport Archive
{{Bristol aircraft Single-engined tractor aircraft Biplanes 1910s British military utility aircraft Gordon England Rotary-engined aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1912