Bristol Aircraft Company
| Bristol Aircraft Company | |
|---|---|
| legal form | |
| founding | 1910 |
| resolution | 1966 |
| Seat | |
| Branch | Aircraft construction , automobile manufacturer |
The Bristol Aircraft Company was a British manufacturer of aircraft , aircraft engines and motor vehicles .
The beginnings
The company was founded in 1910 by Sir George White as "The British and Colonial Airplane Company". The production facilities were located near Filton Airfield in the north of the city of Bristol .
Initially, the company produced the “Zodiak” model developed by French aviation pioneer Gabriel Voisin under license, but was not particularly successful with this machine.
White recreated the very successful Farman III as a Bristol Boxkite in a modified version. After some time, Henri Farman took action against White for copyright infringement, but White was able to show that he had significantly improved Farman's basic design, and the dispute between the two was settled.
Henri Marie Coandă , the builder of the first jet aircraft, worked as technical director at British and Colonial Airplane Co. from 1911 to 1914 .
The two world wars
In the years that followed, White's company developed a number of other aircraft. The most famous military type used by the company at the time of the First World War is likely to have been the Bristol Scout , a single-engine reconnaissance aircraft.
Since the aircraft had always been called Bristol, it was decided in 1920 to rename the company to the Bristol Airplane Company . The name change went hand in hand with the takeover of the motor production of the bankrupt company Cosmos Engineering and thus also the rights to their Jupiter motor and its developer Roy Fedden . The Bristol Jupiter became one of the most successful aircraft engines in the 1920s. In future, engine production at Bristol was carried out by a subsidiary, the Bristol Engine Company .
Even at the time of the Second World War , aircraft from the house of Bristol were used on the Allied side; The Bristol Blenheim and the Bristol Beaufighters are likely to be among the best-known designs .
Post-war period and end of the company
After the end of the war, mainly civil models emerged near Bristol, such as the Bristol Brabazon , a very large passenger aircraft for the time , but also helicopter designs such as the Bristol Belvedere .
In 1956, Bristol was split into two companies, the Bristol Aircraft and the Bristol Aero-Engines .
Bristol started producing automobiles as early as 1946. Initially, they closely followed pre-war designs from BMW, and later developed their own, which were of a high quality. In 1959 the automotive division was spun off from the company when its previous manager George White and Bristol dealer Tony Crook took over the business. The automaker has been called Bristol Cars since then . Auto production came to a standstill in 2011 due to the company's bankruptcy. The two-door coupés produced up to then were among the most exclusive cars in the world. With sales prices starting at £ 150,000, they were extremely expensive vehicles with very limited production. The production volume was recently around 20 vehicles per year.
Due to the concentration of the British aviation industry ordered by the British government, Bristol Aero-Engines merged with Armstrong-Siddeley to form Bristol Siddeley Engines Ltd. in 1959 . , and in 1960, for the same reason, Bristol Aircraft merged with English Electric and Vickers to form British Aircraft Corporation (BAC).
In 1961 took over Bristol Siddeley , the company de Havilland Engines and Blackburn Engines , 1966 disappeared the name Bristol Siddeley , when the company of Rolls-Royce was acquired.
Aircraft engines
The Bristol Engine Company built a number of aircraft engines.
Piston engines with valve controls
- Bristol Jupiter
- Bristol titanium
- Bristol Mercury
- Bristol Pegasus
- Bristol Draco
- Bristol Phoenix
- Bristol Hydra
