Blackburn Beverley
| Blackburn Beverley | |
|---|---|
|
|
| Type: | Heavy transport aircraft |
| Design country: | |
| Manufacturer: |
Blackburn Aircraft |
| First flight: |
June 20, 1950 (GAL.60) |
| Commissioning: |
March 12, 1956 |
| Production time: |
1950-1958 |
| Number of pieces: |
47 |
The Blackburn Beverley was a four-engine transport aircraft produced by the British manufacturer Blackburn Aircraft .
history
The chief designer of General Aircraft Limited (GAL) FF Crocombe foresaw the need for a new transport aircraft after the end of the Second World War . It should have good short take-off and landing abilities, even from unpaved runways. Corresponding experience was available in the company through the construction of gliders like the Hamilcar . Crocombe was able to convince the Aviation Ministry of the concept and in mid-1946 received the order to build a prototype of the machine called GAL.60 . It was to be powered by four Bristol Hercules engines and a civil version was also to be built.
In 1949, General Aircraft and Blackburn merged, and final assembly of the machine took place at their Brough plant . The first flight of the GAL.60 took place on June 20, 1950 with Harold Wood at the wheel. In the meantime, the Royal Air Force (RAF) had expanded its requirements to include a drop device for larger loads. In 1952 she ordered twenty appropriately modified machines. Parts of the planned second GAL.60 prototype were used to build a corresponding prototype. The new prototype was named GAL.65 and then, according to the Blackburn system, the B-100. The GAL.65 had its maiden flight on June 14, 1953. She was now equipped with the more powerful Bristol Centaurus 171 engines, removable rear doors and modified outer wing sections. In May 1954 the order was increased to 47 pieces. On January 29, 1955, the first Beverley C.1 of the production version, now equipped with four Bristol Centaurus 173s, made its maiden flight.
construction
The Beverley was an idiosyncratic-looking construction in shoulder -wing construction , with a double tail system at the stern, a cargo hold with two floors and removable cargo doors at the rear. Since only a low cruising speed and range was planned, the landing gear was not designed to be retractable, with the main landing gear attached to long struts under the wing. In return, the machine had very good short take-off, landing and slow flight characteristics. It could carry 58 passengers (or 40 parachutists) in the main cargo hold and 42 others (or 30 parachutists) in the upper part. During the test, a flight time of up to 13 hours 25 minutes was achieved.
A special feature in the handling of the Beverley was the sideskate procedure with which the aircraft had to be maneuvered into the hangar. With a span of 160 ft. It did not fit into the usual C-Type hangars, which had a clear width of only 150 ft. Most hangars of other designs were mostly even smaller. The sideskate device essentially consisted of two separate, wheeled ramps that could be mechanically linked. The individual landing gears were each pulled onto a device, the ramps folded up, the wheels turned 90 ° and the aircraft then pushed sideways into the hangar. In addition, the hangars only had a clearance height of 35 ft., While the tail unit was 39 ft. High. Therefore, the nose landing gear with the sideskate device also had to be raised significantly in order to be able to accommodate the aircraft completely in the hangar.
operator
Military use
The Royal Air Force took delivery of its first machine on March 12, 1956, which was sent to No. 47 Squadron in Abingdon . When it was commissioned, the Beverley was the largest aircraft in the Royal Air Force. Due to its payload of around 22 tons and its voluminous cargo space, it was regularly used to transport e.g. B. helicopters of the types Bristol Sycamore and Westland Whirlwind as well as 11 ton Saracen armored vehicles are used. A Folland Gnat training jet was also one of the loads. Even with a full loading space, it could still carry 42 people in the tail unit.
By 1960, five units had been equipped with the "great achievement" described, three squadrons of the RAF Transport Command in RAF Abingdon ( 30th , 47th and 53rd Squadron ) and one each in RAF Seletar ( 34th ) and RAF Khormaksar ( 84th Squadron ). The Beverley's airspeed was exceptionally low; it flew slower than the Avro York , Handley Page Hastings and the 15 to 20 years older war aircraft Douglas DC-3 , Avro Lancaster and Short Stirling . Its advantages lay in the very large cargo hold and the unrivaled short take-off and landing properties: after landing on a runway 500 m in length, it was able to roll backwards using reverse thrust and then continue its flight with a short take-off.
Despite the praise, the Beverley's service ended in 1967, not least because of the very high failure rate of the engines, with the entry into service of the Lockheed C-130 Hercules. The proposal to further develop the Beverley with Rolls-Royce Tyne turboprop engines into the B.107 with a range of 7800 km also found no support.
Civil use
The fourth machine from series production was used with the aircraft registration G-AOEK from September 22, 1955 for four months to transport heavy oil drilling equipment. The flights were commissioned by the Iraq Petroleum Co. Blackburn and Hunting Clan Air Transport done. On nine flights it transported material to a remote oil drilling site in Oman, which would otherwise have taken two weeks to get there.
In the spring of 1973 the British airline Court Line acquired the last aircraft still in Farnborough for test purposes (XB259). The company wanted to use this aircraft to transport jet engines. However, approval as a civilian cargo aircraft was not granted. On March 30th 1974 the machine flew for the last time and ended the active history of this aircraft. This machine is in the Fort Paull Museum in Kingston-upon-Hull , all others have been scrapped.
Incidents
Of the 49 Beverleys built, 8 were destroyed, 2 of them in attacks on the ground. Full list:
Aviation accidents
- On March 5, 1957, the Beverley with the registration number XH117 crashed in Sutton Wick, 4 km south of Abingdon Air Force Base (England). The plane had started 18 minutes earlier for the flight to Akrotiri (Cyprus). A fuel valve was installed upside down, which led to the failure of two engines. On the approach to the emergency landing in Abingdon, the machine hit power lines, fell into a house and caught fire. Of the 22 inmates, 18 (according to other information 15) and two people were killed on the ground.
- On February 4, 1958, two engines failed in XH118 , presumably after the fuel supply was disrupted . During the emergency landing at Baihan Airport (Yemen), which was carried out with a tailwind , the aircraft got off the runway and overturned in a sand dune. One member of the ten-man crew was killed.
- On October 11, 1960, the XL151 was used to search for a missing Beechcraft C-45 Expeditor of the Somali Air Force, which was missing on a flight from Berbera to Aden. The Beverley flew 35 km north of the RAF base Aden / Khormaksar into a sand dune at night and exploded. None of the seven occupants survived the accident.
- On May 17, 1962, a non-extinguishable engine fire broke out on board the XL132 near Thorney Island , during which engine number 3 fell off and the machine became partially uncontrollable. The cause of the fire was defective cylinder bolts, which tended to break, which led to the cylinder explosion. The plane hit the water in Chichester Harbor , killing two people.
- On April 13, 1963, XB268 collided with the ground near El Adem during a night approach and was destroyed. Two of the four crew members were killed.
- On December 15, 1967, the XL150 of No. 34 Sqn. about 140 km north of Singapore-Seletar airport when flying in clouds with hilly terrain. The machine was on a training flight to drop supplies. All six people on board were killed.
attacks
- On October 6, 1961, the XM110 was so badly damaged by a time bomb hidden in the cargo hold of Kuwait Airport while parked in Bahrain that repairs were no longer carried out. People were not harmed.
- On June 21, 1967, XM106 rolled over a mine at the Habilayn-Thumier airfield (Habilayne? Partly incorrectly named as "Habulaya"), Radfan district (Yemen), with the right main landing gear destroyed and the right wing open hit the ground. There were no fatalities. Repairing the machine was rejected as impractical; the wreck was towed to the edge of the airfield, usable parts removed and the rest left there.
Technical specifications
| Parameter | Data |
|---|---|
| crew | 4 (2 pilots, radio operator and navigator) |
| Payload | 94 soldiers or max. 26,310 kg freight |
| length | 30.3 m |
| span | 49.5 m |
| height | 11.7 m |
| Wing area | 270 m² |
| Wing extension | 9.1 |
| Hold length | 12.2 m (bottom) 13.4 m (top) |
| Cargo hold width | 2.59 m (below) 3.05 m (above) |
| Cargo space height | 3.05 m (below) 1.83 m (above) |
| Empty mass | 37,273 kg |
| Max. Takeoff mass | 61,200 kg |
| Cruising speed | 278 km / h (150 kn) (optimal) |
| Top speed | 383 km / h (207 kn) at an altitude of 1,740 m |
| Service ceiling | 4875 m (16,000 ft) |
| Takeoff route | 408 m (up to 15 m height) |
| Landing route | 277 m (from a height of 15 m) |
| Range | 322 km with a 20 t payload 5,938 km with a 454 kg payload |
| Engines | 4 × 18-cylinder double radial engines Bristol Centaurus 173, each with 2,123 kW (2,800 PS) |
See also
literature
- AJ Jackson: Blackburn Aircraft Since 1909. Putnam Aeronautical Books, London 1989, ISBN 0-85177-830-5 .
- Bill Overton: Blackburn Beverley. Midland Counties, Hinckley 1990, ISBN 0-904597-62-8 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Charles Prower: Flying Pantechnicon - From Brisfit to Beverley Part 9 . In: Airplane Monthly January 1994, p. 43
- ^ Charles Prower: Beverley and beyond - From Brisfit to Beverley Part 10 . In: Airplane Monthly February 1994, p. 12
- ↑ a b Jackson, p. 472
- ↑ Dave Branchett: Database Blackburn Beverley - Big Aircraft, Big Problems, But Beautiful! . In: Airplane Monthly November 2001, p. 71 f.
- ^ Owen Thetford: Aircraft of the Royal Air Force since 1918. Putnam, London 1979, ISBN 0-370-30186-2 , pp. 106-107.
- ^ Overton, pp. 12-13
- ^ Overton, p. 144
- ↑ James J. Halley: Broken Wings. Post-War Royal Air Force Accidents . Air-Britain (Historians), Tunbridge Wells, 1999, ISBN 0-85130-290-4 .
- ↑ James J. Halley: Royal Air Force Aircraft XA100 to XZ999 . Air-Britain (Historians), Tonbridge, 2001, ISBN 0-85130-311-0 .
- ↑ Overton, pp. 151-153
- ↑ accident report Beverley XL151 , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on 17 December 2016th
- ↑ Jackson, p. 476
- ↑ accident report Beverley XM110 , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on 11 December 2018th
- ↑ Airfield Information Exchange ( Memento of 8 December 2015, Internet Archive ) (English) , accessed on November 29, 2015
- ↑ aviastar, see Thumier (English) , accessed on November 29, 2015
- ↑ FlugRevue July 2009, pp. 92–95, Supplies for the Empire - Blackburn Beverley
- ^ Overton, p. 154