by Dr Ron Smith FRAeS

Pioneering aircraft builders, 1908-14

European flying began in France in 1906 with the flights of Santos Dumont. By 1908 practical machines were being flown in France by such pioneers as Farman, Voisin and Blériot, whilst the performance and controllability of the Wright brothers’ aircraft astounded when it was publicly displayed at Le Mans in late 1908. This pioneering period was characterised by adventure, experiment and innovation. The pioneers had to solve numerous problems, including finding a reliable engine, building a light, safe structure and getting to grips with the control and stability of a marginal airframe. Success required time, money, energy and luck. Potentially good designs were let down by poor details, inadequate control arrangements, or heavy, inefficient and unreliable engines. Learning often came slowly. It took some time, for example, before the importance of pointing into wind for take-off and landing was understood.

The early experimenters included A V Roe at Brooklands, whose short flights in June 1908 failed to achieve official recognition. S F Cody flew at Farnborough in October 1908 and J T C Moore-Brabazon at Eastchurch in April 1909. By July 1909 A V Roe’s triplane was also performing well at Lea Marshes. Meanwhile, in February 1909, Short Brothers was licensed to manufacture Wright biplanes for the Aero Club of Great Britain, setting up the UK’s first aircraft factory at Leysdown on the Isle of Sheppey which within months had a workforce of 80. Enthusiasm for flying also resulted in the establishment of a number of flying schools, notably at Brooklands, Larkhill, Shoreham, and Hendon, which necessarily became adept at the repair, modification and re-building of aeroplanes. Other major centres for flying included Farnborough and many beaches around the British coastline.

Larkhill and Brooklands were easily the most important flying schools before the First World War and trained 309 of the 664 pilots to receive the Royal Aero Club of the United Kingdom aviator certificate. Many of the pioneer manufactures operated at Brooklands, including H J D Astley, A V Roe, Eardley Billing, Robert Blackburn, British & Colonial Aeroplane Co, Coventry Ordnance Works, L Howard Flanders, Handley Page Ltd, Hewlett & Blondeau, Humber Ltd, Martin & Handasyde, E V Hammond, Charles Lane, J V Neale, Cecil Pashley, Thomas Sopwith, Herbert Spencer, Star Engineering Co, Vickers Ltd, Walton & Edwards and Howard Wright. The early success of British & Colonial Aeroplane Co as a manufacturer can be gauged by the fact that it built more than 100 aircraft in 1911 alone.

In this way by the outbreak of the First World War many of the great names of British aircraft manufacturing were already operating, including Short Brothers, A V Roe, C R Fairey, Frederick Handley Page, British & Colonial Aeroplane Co, Vickers Ltd, T O M Sopwith, Harry Hawker and Geoffrey de Havilland. Other notable individuals active prior to 1914 included Henry Folland (at Royal Aircraft Factory from 1912), John Dudley North (later of Boulton & Paul Ltd) and Noel Pemberton Billing (whose company later became Supermarine Aviation Works).

First World War mass production, 1914-18

The First World War saw an exponential growth in aircraft production. An early military use for aircraft was found in reconnaissance and artillery observation, and the use of fighters to prevent enemy reconnaissance operations was a natural development, followed by the application of the aeroplane to bombing operations, anti-submarine patrols and operations against airships. This growing use of aircraft required new pilots to be trained on a major scale. Changing operational roles meant new aircraft designs were essential and had to be rushed into large-scale production. Losses were high due to both enemy action and accidents.

All of this required a rapid expansion of aircraft production at existing aircraft companies and the placing of contracts with established industrial concerns which had relevant skills and tooling, particularly in the motor car, agricultural machinery, and furniture trade. Many new companies were also founded specifically to meet the growing demand and to provide a sub-contractor infrastructure. As aircraft and engines had short lives, there was an exponential growth of production which by 1918 – just ten years after the first aircraft flew in the United Kingdom – was running at the rate of 30,000 aircraft and 60,000 engines per year.

The extent of contracted production is something that is not widely appreciated. For example, the firms of Clayton & Shuttleworth, Ruston Proctor & Co and Boulton & Paul Ltd built 3,800 Sopwith Camels between them – more than seven times the total built by Sopwith Aviation Co itself. Fifteen contractors in Central and Eastern England built more than 17,500 aircraft, one third of all the aircraft built in Britain during the First World War.

Collapse and re-birth in the interwar period, 1919-39

The interwar period was marked by the collapse of the military aircraft market. Once the war ended the Royal Air Force (RAF) contracted and the country had neither the resources, nor the need, to sustain the aircraft production juggernaut. Many orders were cancelled, and the enormous stock of war surplus aircraft was sold on favourable terms to The Aircraft Disposal Company at Croydon. As a result, any firm attempting a new aircraft venture in the immediate post-war period found itself competing with its own, or its competitors’, second-hand products. When this difficulty was combined with the effects of excess profits duty, it was not surprising that wholesale re-organisation took place. Most of the sub-contractors either went into liquidation or returned to their former trades. The prime contractors also re-organised, slimmed down or went into liquidation; many flirted with the motor trade and other forms of diversification. By the mid-1920s the industry had reduced to 16 major manufacturers.

Immediately after the First World War, there were limited attempts to generate an air transport market, with aircraft manufacturers like A V Roe & Co Ltd, Handley Page Ltd and The Aircraft Manufacturing Co (Airco) all starting airline services, mainly using converted military aircraft. These efforts were unsuccessful as, although small numbers of commercial aircraft were sold to independent airlines, there was no real demand for air travel.

Some companies were able to manage lengthy production runs, examples including the Fairey III series, the Westland Wapiti and Wallace, and the extensive Hawker Hart, Demon, Audax and Fury family. This were the exception and there was wasteful cutthroat competition for new orders. For example, the Air Ministry specification N21/26 to replace the Fairey Flycatcher resulted in 11 aircraft of 10 different types all designed, built, flown and tested – many on a private venture basis. Short Brothers built only 36 aircraft between 1920 and 1930 and Gloster Aircraft Co built just 26 aircraft between 1930 and 1934.

There was significant restructuring under these difficult circumstances. In 1928 Vickers Ltd acquired the Supermarine Aviation Works, leading to the creation of Vickers (Aviation) Ltd, which became Vickers Armstrongs Ltd in 1938. Also in 1928, Sir Alliott Verdon Roe took an interest in S E Saunders Ltd, leading to the formation of Saunders-Roe Ltd, and John Siddeley acquired control of A V Roe & Co Ltd (Avro), which joined with Sir WG Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft Ltd as Armstrong Siddelely Development Co Ltd. Hawker purchased Gloster Aircraft Ltd in 1934 and in 1935 the Hawker Siddeley Group was created. These aircraft companies – Armstrong Whitworth, Avro, Gloster and Hawker – continued to trade under their own names, but there was increasing co-operation in relation to production across the groups.

Even after the formation of Imperial Airways in 1924, airliner production in Britain was very restricted. The subsidies for flying schools and the increase in privately-owned aircraft light aircraft (following the proven success of the de Havilland Moth) resulted in some expansion of civil production in the 1930s and some new companies, such as Phillips & Powis (Miles Aircraft), Airspeed, Percival Aircraft, and Taylorcraft Aeroplanes (England), emerged. Military re-armament began in 1935 and provided a lifeline for the main manufacturers.

Second World War mass production, 1939-45

Government-sponsored expansion of aircraft production against the threat of war built up gradually from 1935. The first step was the adoption of an expansion plan in July 1934, known as Scheme A, to increase the size of the RAF. The real difficulty lay in the lack of investment in modern designs and technology, combined with the drastic reduction in production capacity caused by the lean years of the 1920s and early 1930s. The pace of re-armament in the aircraft industry quickened with Scheme C, which was instituted in May 1935 and which brought about further significant increases in both the size of the RAF and the production of new aircraft types. From October 1936 the need for increased production led to the formation of the ‘shadow factory’ scheme.

The early expansion schemes favoured light day bombers such as the Fairey Battle and Vickers Wellesley. Although the initial aircraft selected were to prove of limited operational value, the critical factor was the creation of industrial capacity and the mobilisation of skilled manpower. From 1936 onward types such as the Blenheim, Wellington, Hurricane and Spitfire began to be ordered in quantity through parent and shadow factories. Later the focus switched to heavy bomber production (particularly the Halifax and Lancaster), anticipating the need for a bomber offensive against Germany. In 1935 893 military aircraft were produced. By 1939 this figure reached 7,940, more than 20,000 in 1941, and exceeded 26,000 by 1944. The risk of bomb damage to main factory sites led every firm to set up dispersed operations. By mid-1939 some 1,200 companies were involved in sub-contract aircraft production. Indeed, Second World War production was carried out by several different types of concern, the most important of which are summarised below under the following headings: major design firms, shadow/dispersed factories, smaller concerns and civilian repair organisation.

Unlike the First World War, there was a general policy of limiting the number of types in production. The increased efficiency and output volume that resulted offset the loss of some potentially outstanding designs the production of which was blocked. As production gathered momentum, a number of companies were diverted from building their own types, in favour of the standardised designs, whilst progressive engine development allowed aircraft such as the Spitfire to maintain their operational effectiveness. Standardisation also suited the needs of the dispersed production, repair and sub-contractor organisation.

Post-war developments, 1945-60

During the war the development of military transport aircraft was allocated to the United States of America’s industry, leading to the production of aircraft ranging from the ubiquitous C-47, to the four-engine C-54, and C-69 Constellation. In Britain the Brabazon Committee, set up in 1942 to investigate the British Empire’s future needs for civilian airliners, had created forward-looking plans, but initially Britain had to rely on converted bombers such as the Halton, Stirling V, York and Lancastrian and flying boats – Hythe, Sandringham and Solent. A rush of new types followed, including the Tudor, Brabazon, Princess, Marathon, Ambassador and Hermes, but all either failed or had limited success. Britain’s lead in gas turbine propulsion should have placed it at the forefront of airliner development. The Bristol Freighter, Viking and Dove were reasonably successful but, in the event, only the Viscount was outstanding, with the long gestation of the Britannia and the structural failures suffered by the Comet ultimately ceding transport domination to America and the Boeing 707.

On the military side, Britain during the Cold War produced a series of outstanding designs, including the English Electric Canberra, the V-bomber force – Valiant, Vulcan and Victor – and the Hawker Hunter. These five extraordinarily successful types first flew in the period from May 1949 to December 1952 (with the English Electric P.1 flying in 1954) and it was remarkable that Britain’s post-war economy could put all three V-bombers and the Hunter and the Swift simultaneously into production and into service. However, by the late 1950s multiple duplication of supply was apparent across most classes of aircraft. For example, five different companies were building transport aircraft and six different companies were building fighter aircraft. That this was unsustainable was recognised by the government, if not by the industry itself.

The Duncan Sandys 1957 Defence White Paper was a major blow to the industry. This was born of the Cold War and the failure of Suez. The focus was firmly on nuclear deterrence and missile defence. The document famously stated that ‘…the RAF are unlikely to have a requirement for fighter aircraft of types more advanced than the supersonic P.1, and work on such projects will stop'. The Saunders-Roe SR.177 and Hawker P.1121 were cancelled as was the Avro 730 bomber project. The White Paper also anticipated the need for rationalisation in the industry.

Rationalisation, British Aircraft Corporation and Hawker Siddeley, 1960-77

The next step was TSR.2, a strike and reconnaissance aircraft. The project originated from a 1956 requirement for a Canberra replacement. It survived Sandys’ White Paper, but was used as an instrument to re-structure the industry, directly leading to the formation of the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC). The year 1960 saw wholesale rationalisation across the industry. The new British Aircraft Corporation (BAC) was made up of Bristol, English Electric, Hunting Aircraft, and Vickers and its later products – Concorde, Jaguar, Tornado – introduced significant European collaboration. The same year Westland took control of the helicopter interests of Fairey, Bristol and Saunders-Roe. Meanwhile, Folland, Blackburn and de Havilland joined Hawker Siddeley Aviation Ltd, the aviation division of Hawker Siddeley Group. Hawker Siddeley Aviation offered a mix of civil and military products and made the significant decision to participate in Airbus (and to remain in after the withdrawal of government funding).

Both BAC and Hawker Siddeley Aviation continued to develop their product portfolios until nationalisation in the form of British Aerospace in 1977. However, the cancellation of TSR.2 in April 1965 with the P.1154 and HS.681 was an enormous blow and led to a time of great uncertainty. This was a period of politicisation surrounding the aircraft industry which produced the decision to order the Skybolt missile (cancelled without consultation by the United States) and the (on and off) order for F-111 and the eventual decision to order an expensively anglicised version of the F-4 Phantom.

On the civil side, the next generation of airliners were the Vickers VC10 and Vanguard, the Trident and the BAC One-Eleven. The first three were designed to the very specific requirements of the state airlines BOAC and BEA and failed to achieve significant export sales. The BAC One-Eleven was more successful, but did not receive sustained investment, unlike its competitor, the DC-9, which was developed into the MD80 and MD90 series and, ultimately, the short-lived Boeing 717.

British Aerospace and modern times, 1977-date

British Aerospace was created in 1977, adding Scottish Aviation to the companies previously within BAC and Hawker Siddeley Aviation. The BAC, Hawker Siddeley and Scottish Aviation products that continued in production under British Aerospace were the Jaguar, Tornado, Harrier, HS125, HS146, Hawk, Airbus, Jetstream and Bulldog. British Aerospace went on to develop its regional turbo-props, the Jetstream 41 and ATP (later Jetstream 61). Meanwhile, the HS146 was upgraded to become the Avro RJ (and the short-lived RJX). The major military programmes in which it was involved were Eurofighter (with Germany, Italy and Spain) and F-35 Lightning II with Lockheed Martin. The company also collaborated with McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) on the T-45 Goshawk and the Harrier II and II Plus. The development of Nimrod into the MRA.4 variant was cancelled after the completion of three development and two production aircraft.

In 2000 British Aerospace merged with the defence interests of GEC-Marconi to form BAE Systems. This produced a much wider base in the defence sector with land, naval and submarine systems being added to the primarily aircraft interests of British Aerospace. Other events of note in the industry at this time were the sale of Shorts to Bombardier in October 1989; the sale of British Aerospace Corporate Jets to Raytheon in June 1993; the cessation of Jetstream 41 production at the end of 1997; cancellation of the Avro RJ / RJX programme in November 2001; and the sale of BAE Systems’ 20% stake in Airbus in April 2006.

Rotorcraft, 1945-date

On the Rotorcraft side, the immediate post-war products of the industry were the production by Westland Aircraft of Sikorsky machines under licence (S51 as Dragonfly, S55 as Whirlwind and S58 as Wessex), whilst Bristol Aeroplane Co under the design leadership of Raoul Hafner produced the Bristol 171 Sycamore and Bristol 192 Belvedere. Saunders-Roe (whose rotorcraft origins derived from the Cierva Autogiro Co) produced the Skeeter and the P.531 which was developed into the Wasp and Scout. Fairey Aviation produced three innovative experimental designs, the Ultralight, Gyrodyne and Rotodyne. After the merger under Westland Helicopters of Bristol, Sanders-Roe and Fairey in 1961, the Scout was built in the ex-Fairey Hayes factory.

Westland continued with Sikorsky with a long production run of the Sea King, adding European collaboration in the form of the Anglo-French helicopter programme comprising Gazelle, Puma and Lynx. In recent times, the company developed the Westland 30, and continued Lynx development and production, joining with Agusta to produce the EH101/Merlin and to assemble the WAH-64 Apache. The company was purchased by GKN in 1994 to become GKN Westland Helicopters and AgustaWestland in 2001. The company became wholly Italian-owned as Finmeccanica Agusta Westland in 2005 and Leonardo Helicopters in 2017.

General aviation, 1945-date

General aviation has been a difficult sector for British industry in the post-war years. The major player was Auster Aircraft Ltd, particularly after the early failure of Miles Aircraft Ltd. It is easy to forget that Auster was relatively successful, building some 3,600 military and civil machines (many of the military aircraft being subsequently adapted for civil use). Auster was merged into Beagle, where the Pup and Beagle 206 promised great things. In the event only 152 of about 400 Pups that were ordered were completed before the company collapsed in 1969. The Bulldog, a development of the Pup, surviving to be taken over by Scottish Aviation.

There are plenty of promising projects that were not fulfilled, examples including the ARV Super 2, the FLS Sprint (also known as Holloway or Trago Mills SAH1) and Edgeley Optica. The real success stories were the Europa (with 1,000 kits sold) and the long-lived Britten-Norman Islander. Other products worthy of mention are the Slingsby Firefly and the CFM Shadow/Streak Shadow. Nearly every type mentioned has, however, faced financial and identity crises at some point in its lifetime.

 

Family tree of the major British aircraft manufacturers

 

Further information

Printed

Chant, Christopher, Aviation: an Illustrated History (1983)

Hayward, Keith, ‘Government and British Civil Aerospace 1945-64’, Journal of Aeronautical History, March 2018. Available at https://www.aerosociety.com/publications/jah-government-and-british-civil-aerospace-1945-64.

Penrose, Harald, British Aviation: The Pioneer Years 1903-1914 (1967)

Penrose, Harald, British Aviation: the Great War and Armistice, 1915-1919 (1969)

Penrose, Harald, British Aviation: Adventuring Years, 1920-1929 (1973)

Penrose, Harald, British Aviation: Widening Horizons, 1930-1934 (1979)

Penrose, Harald, British Aviation: The Ominous Skies, 1935-1939 (1980)

Reese, Peter, The Men Who Gave Us Wings (2014)

Reese, Peter, Transforming the Skies (2018)

Reese, Peter, In Turbulent Skies (2020)

Smith, Ron, British Built Aircraft: Greater London (2002)

Smith, Ron, British Built Aircraft: Volume 2, South West and Central Southern England (2003)

Smith, Ron, British Built Aircraft: Volume 3, South East England (2004)

Smith, Ron, British Built Aircraft: Volume 4, Central and Eastern England (2004)

Smith, Ron, British Built Aircraft: Volume 5, Northern England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (2005)

For a guide to the Putnam Aeronautical Series see http://www.specialcollections.uws.ac.uk/documents/Ptnintro.pdf.

Podcasts:

Hayward, Keith: The rise, fall and rebirth of UK commercial aircraft development 1945-1978 at https://www.aerosociety.com/news/audio-classic-lecture-series-the-rise-fall-and-rebirth-of-uk-commercial-aircraft-development-1945-1978-by-prof-keith-hayward/

Reese, Peter: The men who gave us wings: Britain and the aeroplane 1796-1914 at https://www.aerosociety.com/news/audio-classic-lecture-series-the-men-who-gave-us-wings-britain-and-the-aeroplane-1796-1914-by-peter-reese/

Reese, Peter: Transforming the skies: pilots, planes and politics in British aviation 1919-1940 at https://www.aerosociety.com/news/audio-transforming-the-skies-pilots-planes-and-politics-in-british-aviation-1919-1940/

Smith, Ron: The evolution of the British aircraft industry at https://www.aerosociety.com/news/audio-classic-lecture-series-the-evolution-of-the-british-aircraft-industry-by-dr-ron-smith/