Download or read book Gloster Aircraft Since 1917 written by Derek N. James and published by Brassey's. This book was released on 1987 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This revised and updated edition reveals many new details about the construction, development and operational history of Gloster aircraft. Appendices provide information on more than 100 Gloster projects.
Download or read book Gloster Aircraft Company written by Derek James and published by Fonthill Media. This book was released on 2014-03-24 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Gloster Aircraft Company had its foundation in 1917 and in 1934 the company was taken over by Hawker Aircraft, though it continued to produce aircraft under its own name. In that same year the company produced the famous Gladiator biplane. Having no modern designs of its own in production, Gloster undertook manufacture for the parent company Hawker. During the Second World War it built more than 6,000 Hurricanes and Typhoons. The Gloster Meteor was the first operational Allied jet fighter aircraft of the Second World War, commencing operations in mid-1944, only some weeks later than the world's first operational jet, the German Messerschmitt Me 262. In 1945 a Meteor gained a World Airspeed Record of 606 mph. Meteors remained in service with several air forces and saw action in the Korean War. In 1952, the two seat, delta winged Gloster Javelin was developed as an all-weather fighter that could fly above 50,000 feet. In 1961, the company was merged with Sir W. G. Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft Limited to form Whitworth Gloster Aircraft Limited. Following re-organisation, the firm became part of the Avro Whitworth Division of Hawker Siddeley Aviation in 1963, and the name Gloster disappeared.
Download or read book Gloster Aircraft Company written by Derek N. James and published by . This book was released on 2015-03-19 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Gloster Aircraft Company had its foundation in 1917 and in 1934 the company was taken over by Hawker Aircraft, though it continued to produce aircraft under its own name. In that same year the company produced the famous Gladiator biplane. Having no modern designs of its own in production, Gloster undertook manufacture for the parent company Hawker. During the Second World War it built more than 6,000 Hurricanes and Typhoons. The Gloster Meteor was the first operational Allied jet fighter aircraft of the Second World War, commencing operations in mid-1944, only some weeks later than the world's first operational jet, the German Messerschmitt Me 262. In 1945 a Meteor gained a World Airspeed Record of 606 mph. Meteors remained in service with several air forces and saw action in the Korean War.
Download or read book Gloster Accomplishment written by and published by . This book was released on 1947 with total page 33 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Gloster Aircraftt Company written by Derek James and published by . This book was released on 2011-09 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between 1917 and 1963, the Gloster Aircraft Company, with its forebears H.H. Martyn & Co. and Gloucestershire Aircraft Co., produced some 10,000 aeroplanes at Brockworth and Hucclecote. It also provided employment for countless thousands of local people. During the Second World War alone, GAC employed 14,000 men and women at its main factory and at another forty sites dispersed in Gloucester, Cheltenham, Stroud and other more distant parts of Gloucestershire. Gloster designed a number of outstanding fighter aircraft some of which were built in large numbers. These included the Gloster Gladiator, Hawker Hurricanes under licence and the Meteor, Britain's first jet fighter. By chance, the company had been chosen to design and build the Meteor and followed by building 4,000 jet fighters for the Royal Air Force and a dozen air forces around the world. Gloster finally became the first victim of a rationalisation which has since decimated British aircraft manufacturing companies.
Download or read book The RAF and Aircraft Design 1923 1939 written by Colin Sinnott and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work describes the vitl role of the Air Ministry in the development of the RAF's fighters and bombers before WWII.
Download or read book Aircraft written by David Pascoe and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2004-09-03 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his celebrated manifesto, "Aircraft" (1935), the architect Le Corbusier presented more than 100 photographs celebrating airplanes either in imperious flight or elegantly at rest. Dwelling on the artfully abstracted shapes of noses, wings, and tails, he declared : "Ponder a moment on the truth of these objects! Clearness of function!" In Aircraft, David Pascoe follows this lead and offers a startling new account of the form of the airplane, an object that, in the course of a hundred years, has developed from a flimsy contraption of wood, wire and canvas into a machine compounded of exotic materials whose wings can touch the edges of space. Tracing the airplane through the twentieth century, he considers the subject from a number of perspectives: as an inspiration for artists, architects and politicians; as a miracle of engineering; as a product of industrialized culture; as a device of military ambition; and, finally, in its clearness of function, as an instance of sublime technology. Profusely illustrated and authoritatively written, Aircraft offers not just a fresh account of aeronautical design, documenting, in particular, the forms of earlier flying machines and the dependence of later projects upon them, but also provides a cultural history of an object whose very shape contains the dreams and nightmares of the modern age.
Download or read book The RAF and Aircraft Design written by Colin S Sinnott and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-05-22 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work examines the evolution of the RAF's operational requirements for its home defence air force - for bombers to mount a deterrent counter offensive and for fighters to provide direct defence of Britain. It discusses the management processes, policies and decisions relevant to operational requirements on the basis of a detailed study of Air Ministry papers of the time. By tracing the development of operational requirements, the author exposes the thinking behind the RAF's quest for effective fighter and bomber aircraft. He describes the ideas and concepts of air warfare that were adopted in the 1920s, and shows how these evolved into the Air Staff's requirements for the aircraft which the RAF entered and fought in World War II.
Download or read book Westland Aircraft Since 1915 written by Derek N. James and published by Brassey's. This book was released on 1991 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text describes all the military and civil aircraft built by Westland since the N.1B single-seat seaplane. The helicopters, built now in close collaboration with Sikorsky, and used by armed forces throughout the world, are described in detail.
Download or read book The Jet Race and the Second World War written by S. Mike Pavelec and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2007-02-28 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the 1930s, as nations braced for war, the German military build up caught Britain and the United States off-guard, particularly in aviation technology. The unending quest for speed resulted in the need for radical alternatives to piston engines. In Germany, Dr. Hans von Ohain was the first to complete a flight-worthy turbojet engine for aircraft. It was installed in a Heinkel-designed aircraft, and the Germans began the jet age on August 27, 1939. The Germans led the jet race throughout the war and were the first to produce jet aircraft for combat operations. In England, the doggedly determined Frank Whittle also developed a turbojet engine, but without the support enjoyed by his German counterpart. The British came second in the jet race when Whittle's engine powered the Gloster Pioneer on May 15, 1941. The Whittle-Gloster relationship continued and produced the only Allied combat jet aircraft during the war, the Meteor, which was relegated to Home Defense in Britain. In America, General Electric copied the Whittle designs, and Bell Aircraft contracted to build the first American jet plane. On October 1, 1942, a lackluster performance from the Bell Airacomet, ushered in the American jet age. The Yanks forged ahead, and had numerous engine and airframe programs in development by the end of the war. But, the Germans did it right and did it first, while the Allies lagged throughout the war, only rising to technological prominence on the ashes of the German defeat. Pavelec's analysis of the jet race uncovers all the excitement in the high-stakes race to develop effective jet engines for warfare and transport.
Download or read book Jet Pioneers written by Tim Kershaw and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2004-03-18 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In April 1941 Britain's first jet left the ground at a grass airfield 4 miles from Gloucester Cathedral. It was the start of a revolution in air travel, military and civilian. During the 1940s Britain's first-ever jet aircraft, the world's first jet fighter in squadron service and the first jet to hold the world air-speed record were all designed, built and flown in the Gloucester and Cheltenham area. The story of Frank Whittle's invention and dogged development of the jet engine is well known. But the account of how his invention was put into the air has never been fully told. This book tells the story of how the men and women of north Gloucestershire made Whittle's engine fly.
Download or read book Roskam s Airplane War Stories written by Jan Roskam and published by DARcorporation. This book was released on 2002 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book International Warbirds written by John C. Fredriksen and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2001-08-01 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In depth descriptions and photographs of the aircraft of 21 nations presented with a unique human dimension that goes behind the machines to the people involved. Invaluable for specialists, accessible to enthusiasts, International Warbirds: An Illustrated Guide to World Military Aircraft, 1914–2000 puts the most legendary fighter aircraft of the 20th century developed outside the United States on vivid display. It offers 336 illustrated "biographies" of the most significant warplanes used in squadron service from World War I to the Balkan conflict, including numerous models from Great Britain, France, Russia, and Japan, as well as notable machines from Israel, Canada, China, India, Brazil, and other nations. Entries span the history and scope of military aircraft from bombers and fighters to transports, trainers, reconnaissance craft, sea planes, and helicopters, with each capsule history combining nuts-and-bolts technical data with the story of that model's evolution and use. Together, these portraits offer an exciting, well-researched tribute to visionary designers and builders as well as courageous pilots and crews across the globe, and tell a vivid tale of how air power became such a decisive factor in modern warfare.
Download or read book The Birth of Military Aviation written by Hugh Driver and published by Boydell & Brewer Ltd. This book was released on 1997 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A survey of the development of British military aviation from 1903 to 1914, revealing the consequences of its annexation by the state as a branch of armaments as an underlying cause of aircraft inadequacies on the outbreak of war. A mine of information, drawing on an impressive range of archives. It will become an important point of reference. ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW This book aims to demonstrate how the crisis evident in British military aviation in the early years of the First World War was inherent in the entire development of aviation in the years preceding the conflict. After outlining the work of the early pioneers and the growth of an aviation industry as a branch of armaments, Dr Driver considers the objectives of the War Office in increasingly seeking to divert design development to their research establishment at Farnborough. He shows how the resultant virtual state monopoly in designand procurement had disastrous consequences for aircraft innovation and development, suffocating both competition and initiative, and leading to the maintenance of inadequate aircraft by the Royal Flying Corps following the outbreak of war. The continuing dispute and its culmination in the "Fokker Scourge" controversy of 1915-1916 graphically characterise the strained development of military-industrial relations in this area. Dr HUGH DRIVER gained an MA in War Studies from King's College London, and a D.Phil in modern history at Oriel College, Oxford.
Download or read book The History of Air Intercept Radar the British Nightfighter 1935 1959 written by Ian White and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2007-05-30 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This detailed history of Air Intercept radar traces the development of this vital military technology with the Royal Air Force during WWII. In the years after World War I, the United Kingdom was desperate to develop some form of protection from an enemy air strike. As early as 1923, the British Army had devised “sound mirrors” that could detect aircraft up to twelve miles away. This technical history traces the development of military radar technology from this early, experimental phase to the creation of the first air-to-air radar systems and their uses in battle. Historian Ian White sets this fascinating narrative within the larger political, military, economic and technological context of the era. Through World War II, Air Intercept radar was a vital asset in protecting RAF bomber forces as well as the country itself. But developing the technology required the tireless work of physicists and engineers in the Air Ministry Research Establishment, particularly members of the Establishment’s Airborne Group working under Dr. Edward Bowen. Their Airborne Interception radars, such as the AI Mk. IV, were used in Blenheim night-fighters during the winter Blitz and by Mosquito during the Baedeker Raids. This in-depth history covers the introduction of centimetric technology at the Telecommunications Research Establishment, the creation of centimetric AI, and their installation in the Beaufighter and later marks of the Mosquito. It describes the creation of the Radiation Laboratory at MIT and concludes with a section on further developments during the Cold War.
Download or read book England and the Aeroplane written by David Edgerton and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2013-04-04 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of the strange mixture of romanticism, militarism and technology that has made planes so important to England, from the brilliant author of Britain's War Machine The history of England and the aeroplane is one tangled with myths - of 'the Few' and the Blitz, of boffins, flying machines, amateur inventors and muddling through. In England and the Aeroplane David Edgerton reverses received wisdom, showing that the aeroplane is a central and revealing aspect of an unfamiliar English nation: a warfare state dedicated to technology, industry, empire and military power. England had the strongest air force in the Great War, the largest industry in the world in the 1920s, outproduced Germany by 50% at the time of the Battle of Britain and was the third largest producers of aeroplanes well after this time. In a revelatory recounting of the story of aeronautical England, from its politics to its industry and culture, David Edgerton reconfigures some of the most important chapters of our history. Reviews: 'A brilliant polemic' Guardian 'Full of good stories ... an illuminating read' Spectator 'A tour de force, after which the history of the aircraft industry will never be quite the same again' Business History 'David Edgerton's sure-footed essay ... sees Britain from an unusual perspective ... His arguments provide sound backing for the idea that modern Britain is as much a warfare state as a welfare one' Economist About the author: David Edgerton is Hans Rausing Professor at Imperial College London, where he was the founding director of the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine. He is the author of a sequence of groundbreaking books on 20th century Britain: Science, Technology and the British Industrial 'Decline', 1870-1970; Warfare State: Britain, 1920-1970; and Britain's War Machine, published by Penguin. He is also the author of the iconoclastic and brilliant The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History Since 1900.
Download or read book From Nighthawk to Spitfire written by John K. Shelton and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2015-07-06 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: R.J. Mitchell was virtually self-taught and almost all his aircraft were slow-flying seaplanes. The story of how this man from the land-locked Midlands, apprenticed to a locomotive works, became responsible for the Spitfire is a great tale in itself. This detailed book tells us how Mitchell learned his trade – contributing to the production of the cumbersome Nighthawk (designed to combat the German Zeppelin threat) and gradually coming to produce record-breaking racing floatplanes that won outright the prestigious international Schneider Trophy. Mitchell was thus well placed to design a high-speed aircraft when war was imminent; however, as John K. Shelton reveals, the production of the famous fighter was by no means a certainty and its vital contribution to winning the Battle of Britain was 'a very close run thing'.
