BIAS JOURNAL No 29 1996

BIAS JOURNAL No 29 1996 Plan of Rolls Royce West Works 1995. Drawing based on site plan date 4 March 1994 The Original hangar structures of c1915 are shown hatched Page No. 22 BIAS JOURNAL No 29 1996 Rolls Royce West Works Wooden construction continued to be standard practice Steph Gillett until around 1922. Official prejudice against the monoplane, combined with a lack of knowledge and materials for the construction of an unbraced cantilevered BIAS Brunel Prize Essay 1996 mainplane, ensured that manufacturers were held to biplane configuration. There was a gradual development Introduction of engine power and by the mid-1920s all-metal aircraft The focus of this paper is the former West Works, origi- began to be specified. However, it was not until the ad- nally the aero-engine works of the Bristol Aeroplane vent of Alc1ad in the early 1930s that improved methods Company Ltd and latterly occupied by Rolls Royce Mili- of stressed skin construction permitted development of tary Aero Engines Ltd. Research and fieldwork was car- monop1anes.6 ried out between January and December 1995, by which 1 date the site had been levelled. Early in 1936 it became clear that, even with expansion, the aircraft industry was unable to meet the demands of Development of the Aircraft Industry the 1935 re-armament programme. The assistance of the Aviation at the beginning of the twentieth century was automobile industry was again enlisted, through a pro- still at an experimental stage, following the American gramme of ‘shadow’ factories built beside car works at Wright brothers’ first flight in 1903, with little prospect government expense, to manufacture aero engines. The of commercial viability. Most of the early manufacturers scheme was further enlarged in 1937 to include complete of aeroplanes were engineers or enthusiasts, concerned aircraft.7 principally with experimentation.2 It was not until about 1906 that others in France, Germany and Britain began Aircraft construction after the 1939-45 war continued to to follow the Wrights’ example, Bleriot’s flight across comprise riveted assembly on manual lines, using metal the English Channel in 1909 being an important 3 or concrete jigs. However, as the size and speed of airliners achievement. developed, machined integral panels began to replace fabrication. Military aircraft also became more Early aeroplane production was on a small scale, con- sophisticated, especially with the advent of those capable struction being of lightweight steel or wood frames with of carrying nuclear warheads. Further technical fabric covering, requiring little skill in assembly; aero- 4 developments in materials and construction have involved engines being assembled by skilled engineers. Triplanes, computer-controlled milling machines and the use of biplanes and monoplanes were all represented. However, titanium and copper alloys. wing failures on monoplanes in 1912 caused the British authorities to ban the monoplane completely, although it remained popular in Europe.5 Page No. 23 BIAS JOURNAL No 29 1996 Despite the importance of the aerospace industry to was that Brazil Straker were not permitted to design a technological and economic development in the UK and liquid-cooled engine until seven years after ceasing to the wealth of material available about its products, com- manufacture Rolls Royce engines. In 1917, at the paratively little has been published on aircraft produc- invitation of the Air Ministry, they built an air-cooled tion itself.8 Industrial archaeologists are only recently radial engine with 14 cylinders arranged in two rows. beginning to pay attention to twentieth-century indus- The Mercury, designed by A.H. Roy Fedden, (later Sir tries, including aircraft.9 The standard regional texts, Roy Fedden), delivered 300hp and was successfully tested produced some time ago, do not include the significant in a Bristol Scout.13 The prototype nine-cylinder 450hp Bristol works.10 Jupiter engine was completed in 1918. There was close technical liaison between Fedden and Frank Barnwell The British and Colonial Aeroplane Company (1880-1938), chief aircraft designer of British and The precursor of the Bristol Aeroplane Company Ltd was Colonial and in 1919 the Bristol Bullet plane was designed founded in 1910 and was the first British aeroplane manu- specifically for testing the Jupiter. Aero engine production facturer established on a proper commercial basis. Sir was reorganised and renamed the Cosmos Engineering George White (1854-1916), founder and chairman of the Company, but went into liquidation in February 1920 due Bristol Tramways and Carriage Co Ltd, became convinced to the bankruptcy of Brazil Straker. After some persuasion of the potential of aviation having observed Farman and Bristol Aeroplane agreed to take over Cosmos, complete Voisin biplanes in France in 1909. with Fedden and 35 members of staff. Housed in one of the hangars at Filton aerodrome, they became the nucleus The company began producing biplanes under licence of the Bristol’s aero-engine department.14 from the French company Société Zodiac in the tramway company’s depot at its northern terminus in Filton Bristol Aeroplane Company (ST60l79l). By June 1910 the company had begun pro- When the Bullet finally appeared at the Aerial Derby in ducing an aeroplane to its own design, based upon one July 1920 it was the first aeroplane to combine a Bristol by Henri Farman. This was a 'curious contraption built airframe with Bristol engine.15 The Jupiter was the first of sticks and string, with cotton covered wings which had air-cooled engine to pass the Air Ministry type test. to be pasted with potato starch before every attempted flight'.11 Nevertheless the Bristol Boxkite, powered by a The aero-engine department was not dependent on Bristol Gnome 50hp rotary engine, was a success being produced airframes to carry its products, and was thus able to at a rate of two a week. maintain the company through an otherwise lean period with worldwide sales of the Jupiter. This income helped Although the company produced successful monoplanes, to develop manufacturing facilities for both engines and the War Office ban led to their accepting a contract to aircraft, especially improved methods for metal airframe build BE2a biplanes and their own single-seat biplane construction.16 Bristol Scout. But the aeroplane which most made the Bristol name famous at this time was the two-seater fighter In 1926 Fedden and his team had begun working on F2B, or Bristol Fighter. Originally powered by a Rolls alternatives to the standard poppet valves and in 1932 Royce Falcon water-cooled engine, over 3,500 ‘Brisfit’ the aero-engine department produced the first sleeve valve biplanes were produced between 1916 and 1927. radial, the nine-cylinder Perseus. Up to the end of 1916 construction had been of wooden The Air Ministry’s shadow industry programme of 1936 structural members with steel fittings. In 1917 the firm to increase capacity resulted in the erection and equipping produced its first all-metal plane, the MR1 or Type l3 of an assembly and testing factory for the construction of two-seater biplane. The fuselage was a tubular girder Bristol engines. The factory was situated on company- framework of high-tensile steel covered in aluminium owned land at Patchway to the east of Gloucester Road sheet. The wings had a steel framework covered in fabric (ST 606 804), the freehold of which the Air Ministry and power was provided by a l40hp Hispano-Suiza acquired. The East Works then became the main aero- engine. engine production shop, covering four and a half acres and housing over 1,000 machine tools.17 In order to avoid the punitive effects of the excess profits duty, for which the Treasury claimed payment in 1920, The merger of Bristol Aero-Engines and Armstrong the British and Colonial Aeroplane Co Ltd was wound Siddeley Motors in 1959 crested Bristol-Siddeley Engines, up and transferred its business to the Bristol Aeroplane whilst in 1960 Bristol aircraft Ltd became a partner in Co Ltd. In this way much of the wartime profits were the British Aircraft Corporation, now part of British Aero- retained.12 space.18 Further change took place in 1968 when Rolls Royce acquired Bristol-Siddeley engines.19 The Cosmos Engineering Company The motor car firm of Brazil Straker and Co Ltd at West Works Fishponds, Bristol, was engaged in 1915 on the production The origins of the West Works were three sets of hangars of Rolls Royce and Renault designed aero engines as part built c1916 and first used as an acceptance park for test- of the war effort. Part of the agreement with Rolls Royce Page No. 24 BIAS JOURNAL No 29 1996 ing aircraft produced by British & Colonial, Bristol Tram- and around the original structures.22 Most imposing of ways and Parnalls for the Royal Flying Corps and Royal these was a two-storey office block providing headquarters Naval Air Services.20 The hangars were reputedly built accommodation facing onto the Gloucester Road. The two by German and Austrian internees, but no conclusive evi- engine motifs which subsequently adorned the added third dence of this has yet been found. The hangars were lo- storey of this building have been saved, believed to be for cated to the west of the Gloucester road within the parish re-location on the Royal Mail sorting office being of Filton (ST604804). Indeed, nearly all of Bristol’s air- constructed on the site. craft industry has been located outside the city boundary. Behind the head office building a three-ridge range of The hangars, each of three bays, had brick piers and arches north-lit sheds filled the gap between the hangars. A supporting wooden roof trusses of lattice construction, further range of north-lit sheds was erected to the west of said to be of Canadian pitch pine.

Load more