The Handley Page HP.88 was a British research aircraft, built in the early 1950s for

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 ...

to test the aerodynamics of the Victor

crescent wing A crescent shape (, ) is a symbol or emblem used to represent the lunar phase (as it appears in the northern hemisphere) in the first quarter (the "sickle moon"), or by extension a symbol representing the Moon itself. In Hindu iconography, Hind ...

design, and was intended to be a scaled-down version of that aircraft.

Development

The single HP.88 aircraft was designed to Air Ministry Specification E.6/48, issued on 12 March 1948, for an aerodynamic testbed for the proposed

Handley Page Victor The Handley Page Victor was a British jet-powered strategic bomber developed and produced by Handley Page during the Cold War. It was the third and final ''V bomber'' to be operated by the Royal Air Force (RAF), the other two being the Vickers ...

V-bomber, and in particular the

to be used by Handley Page's jet bomber. To save time and cost it was decided to base the fuselage on the Supermarine Attacker. This was then changed to the Supermarine Swift which had already been redesigned with a swept wing. In the event, the many changes led Supermarine to give the design its own designation as the Supermarine 521. Detail design was contracted to General Aircraft (GAL) at Hanworth Aerodrome, but after GAL merged with Blackburn the work was moved to Brough Aerodrome and the design was given the Blackburn/ SBAC designation YB-2. The aircraft was allocated military serial ''VX330''. The HP.88 had a 0.36 scaled-down equivalent of the Victor's

and

T-tail A T-tail is an empennage wikt:configuration, configuration in which the tailplane of an aircraft is mounted to the top of the vertical stabilizer, fin. The arrangement looks like the capital letter T, hence the name. The T-tail differs fr ...

with slab tailplane. However where the Victor had a mid wing, the Type 521 set the wing low on the fuselage. Also, the Victor design continued to be refined, so the HP.88 was no longer representative of the Victor. The HP.88 wing featured inboard trailing-edge flaps, which badly affected trim when deployed. The tailplane was too small to counter the trim change, so a system was developed where the ailerons deflected upwards together to balance the trim forces. The system was wholly automatic with no pilot intervention, and in the event of any failure all surfaces would return to their normal positions. Uprigging the ailerons was a technique used during flutter testing on the second prototype Victor. The fin flutter speed was critically dependent on the steady airload on the tailplane. With both ailerons rigged in the up position the pressure distribution around the wing was altered and hence the trim load required from the tailplane. The Supermarine fuselage was delivered to the

Blackburn Blackburn () is an industrial town and the administrative centre of the Blackburn with Darwen borough in Lancashire, England. The town is north of the West Pennine Moors on the southern edge of the River Ribble, Ribble Valley, east of Preston ...

factory at Brough, where it was modified and the wing fitted. The completed HP.88 was taken by road to Carnaby near

Bridlington Bridlington (previously known as Burlington) is a seaside town and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is on the Holderness part (Flamborough Head to the Humber estuary) of the Yorkshire Coast by the North Sea. The town is ...

, where it was flown for the first time on 21 June 1951. Testing by Blackburn revealed pitching oscillations at speeds above 230 knots. Modifications to the tailplane gave acceptable behaviour, with only minor oscillation, up to 450 knots (Mach 0.82). The HP.88 was delivered to Handley Page and on 6 August 1951 was flown to Stansted for further testing. On 26 August 1951, in preparation for the 1951 SBAC Air Display at Farnborough, the HP.88 carried out a high-speed pass at 300 ft over Stansted, and was seen to start a pitching oscillation before breaking up in mid-air. The "black box" flight recorder subsequently showed pitching accelerations of +/-12g. The cause was traced to a

tailplane A tailplane, also known as a horizontal stabilizer, is a small lift (force), lifting surface located on the tail (empennage) behind the main lifting surfaces of a fixed-wing aircraft as well as other non-fixed-wing aircraft such as helicopters ...

control system servo instability involving a bob-weight that had been added as a safety measure.Bombers of the West, Bill Gunston 1997, Ian Allan Ltd., SBN 684-13623-6, p.84 The HP.88 had only flown 14 hours in 26 sorties over a lifetime of just 36 days, and had little time to gather useful information, but the loss of the aircraft was of little significance to the

V bomber The "V bombers" were the Royal Air Force (RAF) aircraft during the 1950s and 1960s that comprised the Nuclear weapons and the United Kingdom, United Kingdom's strategic nuclear strike force known officially as the V force or Bomber Command Mai ...

project; two prototype Victors were already nearing completion by the time of the HP.88's first flight.

Specifications (HP.88)

References

Notes

Bibliography

* Barnes, C. H. ''Handley Page Aircraft Since 1907''. London: Putnam & Company, Ltd., 1987. . *Buttler, Tony and Jean-Louis Delezenne. ''X-Planes of Europe: Secret Research Aircraft from the Golden Age 1946-1974''. Manchester, UK: Hikoki Publications, 2012. * Clayton, Donald C. ''Handley Page, an Aircraft Album''. Shepperton, Surrey, UK: Ian Allan, 1969. . * Hygate, B.; ''British experimental jet aircraft'', Argus, 1990, Pages 106-112. * * Taylor, John W.R. ''Jane's Pocket Book of Research and Experimental Aircraft'', London, Macdonald and Jane's Publishers Ltd, 1976. . {{British military aircraft since World War II HP.088 1950s British experimental aircraft Low-wing aircraft Single-engined jet aircraft Aircraft with retractable conventional landing gear T-tail aircraft Aviation accidents and incidents in England

Development

Specifications (HP.88)

See also

References

Notes

Bibliography