Avro

Back from Manchester now, Among other things I've been nosing around museums and looking at a bit of the city's aviation heritage. Here are three products of the A V Roe (Avro) company over the years.

The flimsy Heath Robinson device in the first picture is a replica of the 1909 Avro triplane - according to the exhibit label, the first British designed and made aircraft to fly (although not very well, according to a contemporary report).

The biplane in the foreground of the second picture is an Avro 504. The type first flew in 1913 and had a brief combat career in the first world war (including bombing the Zeppelin works on the shores of Lake Constance). Soon withdrawn from combat, due to the rapid development of fighting aircraft, it served as a trainer with the RFC and RAF until 1933. Over 8,000 were produced and some of these found their way into civil use for such things as training, banner towing and pleasure flights - my grandfather was taken up for a joy ride in one of these in the 1930's.

The final picture is of the Avro 707, an experimental jet which first flew in 1949, as a testbed for the delta wing design to be used in the Avro Vulcan bomber. A tremendous looking little plane, looks like something out of The Eagle comic.

Avro ceased to be an independent company in 1963, the year I was born, one stage in the consolidation of British aircraft manufacturers.