The General Aircraft GAL.55 was a 1940s
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 training glider designed and built by
General Aircraft Limited
General Aircraft Limited was a British aircraft manufacturer from its formation in 1931 to amalgamation with Blackburn Aircraft in 1949 to become Blackburn and General. Its main products were military gliders and light transport aircraft.
His ...
.
Development
The GAL.55 was a two-seat training glider to meet
Air Ministry Specification TX.3/43,
and was selected ahead of the
Airspeed
In aviation, airspeed is the speed of an aircraft relative to the air it is flying through (which itself is usually moving relative to the ground due to wind). In contrast, the ground speed is the speed of an aircraft with respect to the sur ...
AS.54, with the British
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 ...
ordering three prototypes.
The requirement called for a glider for basic and advanced training transport of glider pilots.
The GAL.55 was a mid-wing
monoplane
A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple wings.
A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing con ...
of mixed construction, with a
plywood
Plywood is a composite material manufactured from thin layers, or "plies", of wood veneer that have been stacked and glued together. It is an engineered wood from the family of manufactured boards, which include plywood, medium-density fibreboa ...
-covered steel tube
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
spruce
A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' ( ), a genus of about 40 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal ecosystem, boreal (taiga) regions of the Northern hemisphere. ''Picea'' ...
and plywood wings. Pilot and instructor sat side-by-side under an enclosed canopy, and were provided with full dual controls. The aircraft was fitted with a fixed
tricycle landing gear
Tricycle gear is a type of aircraft undercarriage, or ''landing gear'', that is arranged in a tricycle fashion. The tricycle arrangement has one or more nose wheels in a single front undercarriage and two or more main wheels slightly aft of th ...
and had split trailing edge flaps and dive brakes.
Two gliders were built, with the first prototype making its maiden flight late in 1943 from Hanworth.
Formal handling and performance trials at the
Airborne Forces Experimental Establishment
The Airborne Forces Experimental Establishment (AFEE) was a branch of the British Air Ministry, that researched and developed non-traditional airborne applications, such as gliders, rotary wing aircraft, and dropping of personnel and equipment ...
(AAEE) at
RAF Beaulieu
Royal Air Force Beaulieu or more simply RAF Beaulieu is a former Royal Air Force List of former Royal Air Force stations, station in the New Forest, Hampshire, England. It was also known as Beaulieu airfield, Beaulieu aerodrome and USAAF Station ...
did not begin until November 1945. The type had light and sensitive controls, but had poor stability when being towed, and had much steeper gliding angles than the
Horsa
Hengist (, ) and Horsa are legendary Germanic peoples, Germanic brothers who according to later English legends and ethnogenesis theories led the Angles (tribe), Angles, Saxons and Jutes, the progenitor groups of modern English people, in thei ...
that the GAL.55 would train pilots for. The AAEE concluded that the GAL.55 was unsuitable as a trainer for contemporary troop- and cargo-carrying gliders.
By the time these tests had been completed, in July 1946, there was no longer a requirement to train large numbers of glider pilots, so no effort was made to resolve the GAL.55's problems, and no production followed.
Specifications
See also
References
Notes
Bibliography
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{{DEFAULTSORT:General Aircraft Gal.55
1940s British military trainer aircraft
Glider aircraft
GAL.55
Aircraft first flown in 1943