AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 14 / 215

Plate 14 of 215 · Pioneers · Single-seat cabin monoplane

Avro Type F

Type F (1912) replica, painted as BAPC.328, the full-size replica of the Avro Type F built by the Roe Heritage Group and shown at the Avro Heritage Museum, Woodford, on loan from the Science and Industry Museum, Manchester: A. V. Roe’s single-seat monoplane of 1912, the first aeroplane designed with a fully enclosed cabin, with a slab-sided fuselage, an aluminium-skinned cabin lit by celluloid windows, a porthole and a roof skylight, a constant-chord wing warped for roll control and braced from a cabane above and the chassis below, a tailplane with elevators and a rudder, a 35 hp Viale five-cylinder radial driving a two-bladed propeller, and a chassis of two wheels and a central ash skid, shown standing tail-down on its wheels and tail skid: bare aluminium cabin with black-framed windows, clear-doped linen elsewhere with the ribs and girder showing through, black steel struts and cabane, a mahogany propeller, ‘AVRo’ in black on the port side, ‘AVRO’ on the starboard side and ‘AV RO’ under the wings, with no serial or roundel (the shape follows the published three-view, scaled to the 23 ft length and 29 ft span, and checked against photographs of the replica).

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as BAPC.328, the full-size replica of the Avro Type F built by the Roe Heritage Group and shown at the Avro Heritage Museum, Woodford, on loan from the Science and Industry Museum, Manchester: A. V. Roe’s single-seat monoplane of 1912, the first aeroplane designed with a fully enclosed cabin, with a slab-sided fuselage, an aluminium-skinned cabin lit by celluloid windows, a porthole and a roof skylight, a constant-chord wing warped for roll control and braced from a cabane above and the chassis below, a tailplane with elevators and a rudder, a 35 hp Viale five-cylinder radial driving a two-bladed propeller, and a chassis of two wheels and a central ash skid, shown standing tail-down on its wheels and tail skid: bare aluminium cabin with black-framed windows, clear-doped linen elsewhere with the ribs and girder showing through, black steel struts and cabane, a mahogany propeller, ‘AVRo’ in black on the port side, ‘AVRO’ on the starboard side and ‘AV RO’ under the wings, with no serial or roundel (the shape follows the published three-view, scaled to the 23 ft length and 29 ft span, and checked against photographs of the replica). Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (805 KB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (fuselage); engine, crew and dimensions are for the Type F (1912) replica modelled here.

History

The Type F

Alliott Verdon Roe believed that a pilot sitting out in the open was exposed to wind, cold and the birds and insects met in flight, and early in 1912 his small firm began building an answer in the basement of Brownsfield Mill, Ancoats, the Manchester works that had already produced his triplanes. The Type F was a wire-braced single-seat monoplane whose slab-sided fuselage enclosed the pilot completely: the cabin was skinned in aluminium sheet and lit by celluloid windows, with a circular porthole on each side and a hatch in the roof through which the pilot could put his head out to see the ground when landing. The rest of the fuselage, the warping wing and the tail were covered in doped linen.

The aeroplane was taken by road to Brooklands, fitted with a second-hand 35 hp Viale radial, and first flown there by Wilfred Parke in early May 1912. It was the first aeroplane designed from the start with a fully enclosed cabin to fly, and it reached about 65 mph, but the Viale tended to overheat and lose power after half an hour or so. On 25 May Parke set off from Brooklands for Hendon; the engine failed soon after take-off, and in the forced landing at Weybridge the Type F struck a wire fence and turned over.

It was repaired, but in September 1912 it was wrecked in a heavy landing at Brooklands and was not rebuilt. Only one Type F was made: the firm put its effort into the Type G, a two-seat cabin biplane entered in the Military Aeroplane Trials that August, and into the Type E biplane, which grew into the Avro 504. The Type F’s Viale engine was kept, and was later fitted to the Bristol Babe biplane.

This airframe

Avro Type F replica BAPC.328

BAPC.328The airframe modelled

Nothing of the 1912 airframe survives; its Viale engine passed to the Nash Collection and is now displayed at the Science Museum in London. BAPC.328 is a full-size replica built by the Roe Heritage Group and owned by the Science and Industry Museum, Manchester, where it hung for some years; it is now on loan to the Avro Heritage Museum at Woodford, where it is suspended from the hall ceiling. The model shows it standing tail-down on its wheels and short tail skid, as it was photographed on grass: a bare aluminium cabin with black edge strips and black-framed windows, porthole and roof skylight, clear-doped linen elsewhere with the ribs and girder showing through, black steel struts and cabane, varnished ash skids, a mahogany propeller and black wire wheels, lettered ‘AVRo’ on the port side, ‘AVRO’ on the starboard side and ‘AV RO’ under the wings, as the original was. The shape follows the published three-view, scaled to the 23 ft length and a 29 ft span, and was checked against photographs of the replica.

See it at Avro Heritage Museum

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

The gazetteer records the Type F in one UK collection. The airframe modelled here is marked.

Every airframe and serial All 215 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.