AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 123 / 171

Plate 123 of 171 · Early jet age · Heavy tactical transport

Blackburn Beverley C.1

C.1, painted as XB259, the Solway Aviation Museum’s Blackburn Beverley C.1 and the only complete Beverley left of the 49 built, the first production aircraft (c/n 1002), first flown on 29 January 1955, which never joined an RAF squadron but flew trials with the A&AEE at Boscombe Down and then the Royal Aircraft Establishment, was sold to Court Line in the early 1970s, flown to Paull near Hull in 1974 and shown there and at Fort Paull for over forty years before Solway bought it at auction in 2020 and moved it to Carlisle in pieces: a heavy tactical transport of 162 ft span with four 2,850 hp Bristol Centaurus 173 radials, a high wing, a deep box-section hold with clamshell rear doors, a tail boom with its own passenger deck and windows, twin fins on a high tailplane and fixed undercarriage with four-wheel main bogies, shown standing level on its gear: the Royal Aircraft Establishment trials scheme the museum is restoring it to, painted from photographs of XB259, white upper fuselage and tail boom over silver hold sides, a dayglo-orange nose with a black anti-glare panel, black engine nacelles with a silver cowling band, orange outer faces on the fins with white rudders and red, white and blue fin flashes, a roundel on the boom between the words ‘ROYAL AIRCRAFT’ and ‘ESTABLISHMENT’, and orange outer panels, roundels and a large ‘XB259’ under the wings (no photograph shows the upper wing, so it is left silver with no roundels).

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as XB259, the Solway Aviation Museum’s Blackburn Beverley C.1 and the only complete Beverley left of the 49 built, the first production aircraft (c/n 1002), first flown on 29 January 1955, which never joined an RAF squadron but flew trials with the A&AEE at Boscombe Down and then the Royal Aircraft Establishment, was sold to Court Line in the early 1970s, flown to Paull near Hull in 1974 and shown there and at Fort Paull for over forty years before Solway bought it at auction in 2020 and moved it to Carlisle in pieces: a heavy tactical transport of 162 ft span with four 2,850 hp Bristol Centaurus 173 radials, a high wing, a deep box-section hold with clamshell rear doors, a tail boom with its own passenger deck and windows, twin fins on a high tailplane and fixed undercarriage with four-wheel main bogies, shown standing level on its gear: the Royal Aircraft Establishment trials scheme the museum is restoring it to, painted from photographs of XB259, white upper fuselage and tail boom over silver hold sides, a dayglo-orange nose with a black anti-glare panel, black engine nacelles with a silver cowling band, orange outer faces on the fins with white rudders and red, white and blue fin flashes, a roundel on the boom between the words ‘ROYAL AIRCRAFT’ and ‘ESTABLISHMENT’, and orange outer panels, roundels and a large ‘XB259’ under the wings (no photograph shows the upper wing, so it is left silver with no roundels). Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (1.5 MB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (); engine, crew and dimensions are for the C.1 modelled here.

History

The Beverley C.1

The Beverley began at General Aircraft Ltd at Hanworth as the GAL.60 Universal Freighter, a big, simple transport that could carry bulky army loads into short, rough airstrips and drop them by parachute. It had a deep box-shaped hold with clamshell doors at the back, a high wing and fixed undercarriage, and a tail boom above the hold carrying the twin-finned tail. General Aircraft merged with Blackburn in 1949, and the prototype was finished at Brough and first flew on 20 June 1950 with Bristol Hercules engines. A second prototype with the more powerful Bristol Centaurus followed in 1953.

The RAF ordered the type as the Beverley C.1, and the first production aircraft, XB259, flew on 29 January 1955. 47 Squadron at Abingdon received the first in 1956, and 53, 30, 84 and 34 Squadrons followed, at home and in Kenya, Bahrain, Aden and Singapore. It was the largest aircraft in RAF service when it arrived. The hold took vehicles, guns or heavy stores, the boom had its own deck with seats for 36 more troops, and paratroops could jump through a hatch in the boom floor while loads went out of the back.

Forty-seven production Beverleys were built. They did their most useful work overseas, supplying troops by air drop and landing on short strips in the Arabian peninsula, East Africa and Borneo, including the 1964 campaign in the Radfan mountains of Aden. Its slow speed and short range made it a theatre transport rather than a strategic one, and as the Armstrong Whitworth Argosy and then the Lockheed Hercules arrived it was withdrawn, the last squadrons giving up their aircraft in 1967.

This airframe

Beverley C.1 XB259

XB259The airframe modelled

XB259 was the first production Beverley and is the only complete one left. It never served with an RAF squadron: it flew trials with the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment at Boscombe Down and then with the Royal Aircraft Establishment, and in the early 1970s it was sold to Court Line, which never used it. In March 1974 it made the last flight by any Beverley, to the small airfield at Paull near Hull. It was shown there, at the Museum of Army Transport in the town of Beverley and at Fort Paull for more than forty years. After Fort Paull closed in 2020 the Solway Aviation Museum bought it and moved it to Carlisle in pieces, where it is being reassembled and repainted in its Royal Aircraft Establishment scheme. The model shows that scheme, painted from photographs of XB259: white and silver with a dayglo-orange nose, orange fins and the words ‘Royal Aircraft Establishment’ on the boom.

See it at Solway Aviation Museum

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

The gazetteer records the Beverley C.1 in 3 UK collections. The airframe modelled here is marked.

Every airframe and serial All 171 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.