A Beginners Guide
What Can You Expect to Find? My objective is to attempt to catalogue all aircraft designs that have emanated from the United Kingdom, whether
design projects that never left the drawing board, one off prototypes or mass production types. Basically an impossible task,
but hopefully this will provide a place where readers can improve on your authors works and expand our knowledge.
The site is divided into two parts, Projects and Production, as its name suggests. It is laid out alphabetically by company,
accessed by selecting the appropriate initial letter above. The term "company" is used for convenience and can mean
anything from the might of BAE Systems to John Smith producing a design in his bedroom office. It is the "family"
name by which any design or product is commonly known. Larger companies typically would both create and manufacture their
own designs. Smaller companies may design their own product whilst contracting out the manufacturing, or visa versa. For homebuilt
aircraft and alot of one-offs, the situation is even less clear, when the type may be known by a name related to neither designer
nor manufacturer. The author has used in all cases the most commonly used name to classify as "company". Where company
names have changed or products transferred to another company, data is listed only under one heading with suitable cross referencing.
Within each company web-page, a brief history is followed by a list all projects created by that company that this
author has managed to ascertain, whether it resulted in production or simply remained on paper. Anything that has received
serious design study is considered worthy of inclusion. Only the bare minimum of details are given for each, but, most importantly,
references are given where more extensive details may be obtained. These references are far from exhaustive and represent
only those this author has seen and verified. Not every available reference will be, nor is intended to be, included. The
reference must include details of the aircraft itself, rather than such subjects as service history, flying reports etc. and
include 'significant details' of the machine, typically a minimum of basic technical data plus an illustration. As to what
constitutes 'significant details' is subjective and rather dependent on the amount of available reference material. The Supermarine
Spitfire, for example, will have thousands of books and articles published about it, so only selected ones with the most information
are to be included, but those that have barely left a mark on history will have almost every discoverable reference given.
For those that this author has not found any published reference giving 'significant details', a reference is given in parentheses
showing the source used by the author to indicate the existence of that particular aircraft or project.
When any
of these projects resulted in actual hardware, production details of each type are given, along with a brief description of
variants, both produced and projected. For companies with minimal production, these details are given on the same web-page
as the project details, but for more extensive production, links lead to individual pages for each type produced.
What's In and Whats Out This site covers only heavier than air machines capable of controlled, repeatable, free flight. ICAO Annex 7 defines Lighter and Heavier than air aircraft thus: Lighter than air, and therefore
excluded from this site: Free Balloon, Captive Balloon and Airship. Heavier than air, and therefore included (but with
exceptions): Glider, Kite, Aeroplane, Rotorcraft and Ornithopter.
Exceptions: kites are excluded as they are not
free flying. Two further exceptions are hang gliders and flex-wing type microlights, though the latter may find inclusion
at a later date. As manned or unmanned is not a condition, UAVs are included; currently guided weapons are not,
since by definition their flight is not repeatable. They again may find inclusion at a later date. Satellites do
not meet the definition of an aircraft and are not included, though spaceplanes will hopefully be included in the future.
An Explanation of the Data Tables Project Data
The layout for the
Project Data Table, with an explanation of data presented, is shown below and is common for all entries. For those that have
Project or Type Number designations, this is used to order the list, otherwise they are listed approximately chronologically.
Project No | Type No | Name | Alternative Name(s) | Year | Spec | Status | Qty | Description | References | | | | | | | | | | | Project No : | Some companies used a Project Number as well as a Type Number to identify the study phase. | Type No : | The main identifying alpha/numeric sequence used by each company to identify its products. | Name
: | Unknown represents no record for this project or type number found. | | | Not
Identified represents a project with no known type no, name etc.. | Alternative Name(s) : | Italics represents an early name considered but not used. Names in parentheses represent colloquial or nicknames. | Year : | For projects that achieved flying status, the year represents that of first flight; otherwise it represents the
approximate begining of design studies. | Spec : | Appropriate Specification(s)
to which the design was submitted. | Status : | Proj: Project
Only | | | Pro(n): Prototype Only (Not Flown) | | | Proto:
Prototype Only | | | Prdn: Production | Qty : | Number of aircraft
produced. Numbers in parentheses represent conversions. | Description : | xS
= number of seats; xE number of engines, followed by a brief description. | References : | References are normally only given to sources that contain a significant amount of information (at least an illustration
and / or physical data). Where very little data has been found for | | | an entry, the reference source used
by the author to verify its existence is given in parentheses. |
Production Data
The presentation of Production
Data for Military and Civil aircraft differs.
The layout for a typical Production Data Table for a military
aircraft, with an explanation of data presented, is shown here, though columns vary with each aircraft according to applicability. Data is given for manufacturer, contract (where known)
and delivery date, along with serial batches and c/ns (if applicable). No service details are given. The data is sorted
firstly by individual contract, where known, otherwise approximately in chronological groups. Within those groups, sorting
is by aircraft serial. Conversions to a different Type or Mark are included, either in the primary table or separately. Aircraft types that are predominantly military but have some individual aircraft that carried civil registrations (e.g.,
A.W. Siskin) use the military format. Aircraft that are supplied to other nations, or refurbished for export, have details
given in a separate table, listed in alphabetic order by country. Military aircraft converted for civil use have details
of their new civil registrations and initial owners/operators given.
The layout for a typical Production Data
Table for a civil aircraft, with an explanation of data presented, is shown here, though again columns vary with each aircraft according to applicability. Unlike the military tables, each entry is for a
single aircraft and the data is sorted by aircraft c/n. Typically, for any individual aircraft, details are only given of
the initial customer, but there are exceptions: British civil registered aircraft sold abroad have their new identity
and owner given. A change in aircraft Type, Mark etc. is identified with the registration applicable at that time (other
changes of ownership etc. before this are ignored). Aircraft types that are predominantly civil but have some
individual aircraft delivered for military use (e.g., Avro 748) are all included in a single table using the civil format,
with military aircraft additionally included in a separate table.
In all tables, figures for conversion quantities
are given in parentheses while figures for aircraft not built, for whatever reason, are shown in red.
The author
recognises that terms such as "registration", "serial number", "tail number" etc. have produced
many a heated debate. For simple consistency, this site will use the term "registration" when referring to civil
aircraft and "serial number" for military. Likewise, manufacturers have used a variety of terms for their own allocated
numbers but again for consistency the term C/n (Constructors number) will be used throughout. When the company's actual terminology
is known, this will be added as a footnote. Production
Data For Military Aircraft: | Production Data tables for military aircraft contain some or all of the following columns, as applicable. | Serial Range | C/n | Type | Batch Qty | Conv. | Canc'd | Notes | | | | | | | | Note: within the following, the term 'batch' is used to
define a group of aircraft of common type produced with a continuous run of serial numbers. It does not | refer to a production batch which may be one or more serial
batches. | | | | | | | | Serial Range : | The range of serial numbers applicable to a particular batch
of aircraft | C/n : | The range
of construction numbers (or equivalnt) applicable to the above serial range. | Type : | Identity of different Type Numbers, Marks etc. | Batch Qty : | Quantity of aircraft
produced new built within the batch. | Conv.
: | Quantity of aircraft produced as conversions within the batch. Figures for conversions are given in
parentheses. | Canc'd : | This
is something of a 'catch all', and refers to the quantity of aircraft not produced within the batch for
whatever reason. | Notes : | Somewhat
self-explanatory! | Production
Data For Civil Aircraft: | Production
Data tables for civil aircraft contain at least the following columns. | C/n | Initial Registration | Notes |
C/n : | The construction number
(or equivalent) applied to the aircraft. | Initial
Registration : | The civil registration applicable to the aircraft associated with its first customer
** | Notes : | Somewhat
self explanatory! | | ** Does
not included temporary registrations used prior to delivery. |
|