AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 06 / 207

Plate 06 of 207 · Pioneers · Pusher biplane trainer

Bristol Boxkite

Boxkite (1910), flying reproduction, painted as G-ASPP, The Shuttleworth Collection’s flying reproduction of the Bristol Boxkite, built by F.G. Miles in 1964 for the film ‘Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines’ and still flown from Old Warden: the Farman-style pusher biplane with which the British & Colonial Aeroplane Company of Filton began building aeroplanes in 1910 and trained many of Britain’s first military pilots, with equal-span wings of 34 ft 6 in, a biplane elevator carried out in front on long booms, a biplane tail with twin rudders at the back, the pilot’s seat on the lower wing’s leading edge, a long plywood box behind it housing the replica’s Continental engine with a copper fuel tank strapped on top, a two-bladed wooden pusher propeller, and twin skids each carrying a pair of spoked wheels, shown standing tail-down on its skid as parked in the hangar with the ailerons hanging: clear-doped unbleached linen with the varnished ribs showing beneath and the trailing edges scalloped between them, orange varnished wooden struts, booms and skids, a varnished plywood engine box, black fittings, a small Union flag on the tail-skid post, and ‘THE BRISTOL’, the constructor’s panel and ‘Nº 12A’ on the outer faces of both rudders, as on the original No 12A (the geometry follows the Flight three-view of the standard Boxkite scaled to the published dimensions; the wing gap, ailerons, rudders and central tail fin are taken from photographs of G-ASPP).

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as G-ASPP, The Shuttleworth Collection’s flying reproduction of the Bristol Boxkite, built by F.G. Miles in 1964 for the film ‘Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines’ and still flown from Old Warden: the Farman-style pusher biplane with which the British & Colonial Aeroplane Company of Filton began building aeroplanes in 1910 and trained many of Britain’s first military pilots, with equal-span wings of 34 ft 6 in, a biplane elevator carried out in front on long booms, a biplane tail with twin rudders at the back, the pilot’s seat on the lower wing’s leading edge, a long plywood box behind it housing the replica’s Continental engine with a copper fuel tank strapped on top, a two-bladed wooden pusher propeller, and twin skids each carrying a pair of spoked wheels, shown standing tail-down on its skid as parked in the hangar with the ailerons hanging: clear-doped unbleached linen with the varnished ribs showing beneath and the trailing edges scalloped between them, orange varnished wooden struts, booms and skids, a varnished plywood engine box, black fittings, a small Union flag on the tail-skid post, and ‘THE BRISTOL’, the constructor’s panel and ‘Nº 12A’ on the outer faces of both rudders, as on the original No 12A (the geometry follows the Flight three-view of the standard Boxkite scaled to the published dimensions; the wing gap, ailerons, rudders and central tail fin are taken from photographs of G-ASPP). Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (660 KB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (flying reproduction); engine, crew and dimensions are for the Boxkite (1910), flying reproduction modelled here.

History

The Boxkite

In February 1910 Sir George White, the Bristol businessman who ran the city’s electric tramways, founded the British & Colonial Aeroplane Company in two tram sheds at Filton. Rather than design an aeroplane from nothing, his chief engineer George Challenger drew one closely based on the Henri Farman III, the most successful French biplane of the day: a pusher with an elevator out in front on long booms, a biplane tail with twin rudders at the back, and the pilot perched on the leading edge of the lower wing with the engine behind him. Farman took legal action over the likeness, but dropped it when Bristol’s lawyers pointed to the changes the company had made. The first Boxkite, as it was soon known, flew at Larkhill on Salisbury Plain on 30 July 1910 in the hands of Maurice Edmond.

Bristol built 78 between 1910 and 1914, most with a 50 hp Gnome rotary. At the Army manoeuvres on Salisbury Plain in September 1910 two Boxkites took part, and Robert Loraine’s carried a wireless transmitter, the first aeroplane in Britain to send a radio message. The company’s flying schools at Larkhill and Brooklands used the type to teach nearly half of the British pilots who gained their certificates before the First World War. The War Office ordered four in March 1911 for the Air Battalion of the Royal Engineers, and the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service kept Boxkites as trainers into 1915.

Bristol also sold the Boxkite abroad and sent demonstration teams across the Empire. Joseph Hammond made the first aeroplane flight in Western Australia in one at Belmont Park, Perth, on 3 January 1911, Henri Jullerot flew before a huge crowd in Calcutta three days later, and Joseph Christiaens made the first aeroplane flight in Singapore that March. Machines went to Russia, Germany, Spain and several other countries. In Australia the new Central Flying School at Point Cook took four, and on 1 March 1914 Lieutenant Eric Harrison flew Boxkite No. 133 on the first official military flight in the country; it was not written off until 1917.

This airframe

Bristol Boxkite reproduction G-ASPP

G-ASPPThe airframe modelled

G-ASPP is one of three flying reproductions built in 1964 by the F.G. Miles group at Shoreham for the film ‘Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines’, released in 1965. After filming it passed to the Shuttleworth Collection, and it still flies at Old Warden on calm evenings. Like the other film replicas it has a modern four-cylinder Continental engine in place of the Gnome rotary, enclosed in a long plywood box behind the pilot with a copper fuel tank strapped on top, and its propeller is smaller than the original’s. The model shows it as photographed in the hangar, standing tail-down on its skid with the ailerons hanging, as they do when the aeroplane is at rest: clear-doped unbleached linen with the varnished ribs showing beneath and the trailing edges scalloped between them, orange varnished wooden struts, booms and skids, black fittings, a small Union flag on the tail-skid post, and ‘THE BRISTOL’, the constructor’s panel and ‘Nº 12A’ on the outer faces of both rudders, as on the original No 12A. The shape follows the Flight three-view of the standard Boxkite, scaled to the published span and length; the wing gap, ailerons, rudders and the small central tail fin are taken from photographs of G-ASPP, which stands a little lower than the published 11 ft 10 in.

See it at The Shuttleworth Collection

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

The gazetteer records the Boxkite in 2 UK collections. The airframe modelled here is marked.

Every airframe and serial All 207 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.