BAC Drone

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BAC Drone
British Aircraft Company Super Drone G-AEDB 1982 at Duxford airfield (Cambridgeshire)
Super Drone G-AEDB 1982 in Duxford
Type: Microlight
Design country:

United KingdomUnited Kingdom United Kingdom

Manufacturer:

British Aircraft Company

First flight:

1932

Number of pieces:

33

The BAC Drone was an ultralight aircraft manufactured by the British Aircraft Company in the 1930s. After the dissolution of the company BAC, the successor Kronfeld Ltd. a few more copies.

history

The BAC Drone goes back to the BAC Planette , which was developed by CH Lowe-Wylde, the managing director and chief designer of the British Aircraft Company in Maidstone. A two-seat high-wing glider BAC VII served as the basis , on which he installed a motorcycle engine with a pusher propeller. In May 1933, Wylde was killed in an accident with this model.

BAC was then taken over by the Austrian glider pilot Robert Kronfeld , who revised the design of the Planette and replaced the previous engine with a more powerful 600 cm³ Douglas Sprite engine. After the company in Kronfeld Ltd. was renamed, the aircraft was renamed the Kronfeld Drone . However, the name BAC Drone is widely used in the literature . Of the total of 33 machines built, individual specimens were given as Super Drone and Drone de Luxe a slightly swept wing, slotted ailerons, an improved landing gear and a more powerful engine.

Special services

William Forbes-Sempill, who later became the 19th Lord Sempill, flew non-stop in a drone ( aircraft registration G-ADUA) from Croydon to Berlin in April 1936, covering the distance of 930 km in eleven hours. For the return flight the next day with a stopover in Canterbury, he only needed nine hours of flight time.

Whereabouts

G-AEKV at the Brooklands Museum

The following are preserved:

  • the Drone de Luxe G-AEKV equipped with a Carden-Ford engine , which was airworthy until 1984 and is currently (2014) owned by the Brooklands Museum in Surrey,
  • G-ADPJ with a Bristol Cherub engine,
  • G-AEDB in the Russavia collection in Duxford, which still flew in 1983.

Technical specifications

Parameter Data
crew 1
length 6.45 m
span 12.09 m
height 2.13 m
Wing area 16.0 m²
Wing extension 9.1
Climb performance 1.9 m / s
Empty mass 177 kg
payload 118 kg
Cruising speed 97 km / h
Top speed 113 km / h
Service ceiling 3800 m
Range 480 km
Tank capacity 45.4 l
Engines a Douglas Sprite two-cylinder engine with 17 kW (23 hp) output,
optionally also Bristol Cherub and Carden-Ford engines

See also

literature

  • Kronfeld Drone (planes from AZ) . In: AERO - the illustrated compilation of aviation, Marshall Cavendish, 1985, p. 2824
  • John Fricker: Those draughty drone days . In: AIR International August 1983, pp. 79-82

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Flight of November 12, 1936
  2. ^ Flight of March 18, 1937
  3. ^ AJ Jackson: British Civil Aircraft since 1919 - Volume 1 , Putnam & Company Ltd., 1973, ISBN 0-370-10006-9 , p. 174