The Handley Page Hanley was a British
torpedo bomber
A torpedo bomber is a military aircraft designed primarily to attack ships with aerial torpedoes. Torpedo bombers came into existence just before the World War I, First World War almost as soon as aircraft were built that were capable of carryin ...
aircraft of the 1920s. A single-engine, single-seat
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 ...
intended to operate from the
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...
's
aircraft carrier
An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and hangar facilities for supporting, arming, deploying and recovering carrier-based aircraft, shipborne aircraft. Typically it is the ...
s, it was not successful, with only three aircraft being built.
Design and development
In late 1920,
Handley Page
Handley Page Limited was a British aerospace manufacturer. Founded by Frederick Handley Page (later Sir Frederick) in 1909, it was the United Kingdom's first publicly traded aircraft manufacturing company. It went into voluntary liquidation a ...
started design of a new single-seat torpedo bomber to meet the requirements of
Air Ministry Specification 3/20 for a carrier-based aircraft to replace the
Sopwith Cuckoo
The Sopwith T.1 Cuckoo was a British biplane torpedo bomber used by the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS), and its successor organization, the Royal Air Force (RAF). The T.1 was the first landplane specifically designed for carrier operations, but ...
, in competition with the
Blackburn Dart
The Blackburn Dart was a carrier-based torpedo bomber biplane aircraft, designed and manufactured by the British aviation company Blackburn Aircraft. It was the standard single-seat torpedo bomber operated by the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) between 192 ...
. The resulting design, the Type T, (later known as the H.P.19) and named the Hanley was a single-engine biplane of wooden construction. It, like the Dart, was powered by a
Napier Lion
The Napier Lion is a 12-cylinder, petrol-fueled 'broad arrow' W12 engine, W12 configuration aircraft engine built by D. Napier & Son from 1917 until the 1930s. A number of advanced features made it the most powerful engine of its day and kept ...
engine and had a crew of one. It had
folding
Fold, folding or foldable may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* ''Fold'' (album), the debut release by Australian rock band Epicure
* Fold (poker), in the game of poker, to discard one's hand and forfeit interest in the current pot
*Abov ...
three-bay wings which were fitted with full-span
leading edge slot
A leading-edge slot is a fixed aerodynamics, aerodynamic feature of the wing of some aircraft to reduce the Stall (flight), stall speed and promote good low-speed handling qualities. A leading-edge slot is a spanwise gap in each wing, allowing ai ...
s on both upper and lower wings in order to improve low-speed handling.
[Mason 1994, p.135-136.]
Three prototypes were ordered, the first of which (
serialed ''N143'') flew on 3 January 1922.
[Barnes 1976, p.219.] Initial testing revealed that performance was disappointing with low speed handling, and that the view from the
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 ...
was also poor.
[Mason 1994, p.136.] After being damaged in a crash landing, the first prototype was rebuilt with new wingtips, a revised two-bay wing and with the control cables for the
elevators
An elevator (American English) or lift (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English) is a machine that vertically transports people or freight between levels. They are typically powered by electric motors that drive tracti ...
enclosed in the rear
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 ...
to reduce drag, flying in December 1922 as the Hanley Mark II.
These changes improved performance, but handling was still poor. The third prototype was therefore fitted with revised slots, as well as the drag reduction changes tested on the Hanley Mark II, the revised aircraft being designated Hanley Mark III, demonstrating considerably improved handling.
[Barnes 1976, p.221-222.]
By the time that the Hanley Mark III was available for testing, the Dart, which was developed from Blackburn's earlier Swift, had already been ordered into service.
Specifications (Hanley III)
See also
References
Bibliography
* Barnes, C.H. ''Handley Page Aircraft since 1907''. London:Putnam, 1976. .
* Mason, Francis K. ''The British Bomber since 1914''. London:Putnam, 1994. .
* Lewis, Peter. ''The British Bomber since 1914''. London:Putnam, Third edition, 1980. .
*
External links
Handley Page Hanley– British Aircraft Directory
{{Handley Page aircraft
1920s British bomber aircraft
Hanley
Hanley is one of the Federation of Stoke-on-Trent, six towns that, along with Burslem, Longton, Staffordshire, Longton, Fenton, Staffordshire, Fenton, Tunstall, Staffordshire, Tunstall and Stoke-upon-Trent, amalgamated to form the City of Stoke- ...
Biplanes
Single-engined tractor aircraft
Carrier-based aircraft