AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 42 / 216

Plate 42 of 216 · Between the wars · Single-seat ultralight monoplane

English Electric Wren

Wren (1923), Lympne No. 4, painted as G-EBNV, the Shuttleworth Collection’s English Electric Wren, the only survivor of the three built at Preston and the machine that flew in the 1923 Lympne light aeroplane trials as No. 4, later rebuilt by English Electric with parts of a second Wren: W. O. Manning’s single-seat ultralight with a long, high-aspect-ratio wing set low on a slab-sided fuselage of deep keel section, ailerons outboard, wire hoop skids under the tips, a straight-edged fin and square-topped rudder, and a 398 cc ABC flat twin on the nose driving a two-bladed propeller, shown standing tail-down on its two small keel wheels and ash tail skid as displayed and flown at Old Warden: aluminium dope all over, a black ‘4’ on both faces of the rudder, ‘ENGLISH ELECTRIC’ and a script ‘Wren’ on each side of the nose, a black leather pad on the leading edge by the cockpit and a varnished mahogany propeller (shape from a published three-view scaled to the 37 ft span, with the fin, rudder and nose following photographs of G-EBNV).

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as G-EBNV, the Shuttleworth Collection’s English Electric Wren, the only survivor of the three built at Preston and the machine that flew in the 1923 Lympne light aeroplane trials as No. 4, later rebuilt by English Electric with parts of a second Wren: W. O. Manning’s single-seat ultralight with a long, high-aspect-ratio wing set low on a slab-sided fuselage of deep keel section, ailerons outboard, wire hoop skids under the tips, a straight-edged fin and square-topped rudder, and a 398 cc ABC flat twin on the nose driving a two-bladed propeller, shown standing tail-down on its two small keel wheels and ash tail skid as displayed and flown at Old Warden: aluminium dope all over, a black ‘4’ on both faces of the rudder, ‘ENGLISH ELECTRIC’ and a script ‘Wren’ on each side of the nose, a black leather pad on the leading edge by the cockpit and a varnished mahogany propeller (shape from a published three-view scaled to the 37 ft span, with the fin, rudder and nose following photographs of G-EBNV). Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (915 KB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (); engine, crew and dimensions are for the Wren (1923), Lympne No. 4 modelled here.

History

The Wren

After the First World War the English Electric Company took over the aircraft work of Dick, Kerr and Co. at Preston, and its designer, W. O. Manning, was best known for big flying boats. The Wren was the opposite: a single-seat ultralight, offered to the Air Ministry as a trainer that could be flown on almost no power at all. It was a wooden, fabric-covered monoplane with a long, slender wing of 37 ft span mounted at the shoulder of a narrow, deep fuselage, and a tiny ABC flat twin of 398 cc on the nose. The prototype, J6973, flew in 1923; it handled well enough, but it climbed so slowly that it was flown only in good weather.

That year the Duke of Sutherland, Under-Secretary of State for Air, offered £500 for the most economical light single-seater, and the Daily Mail £1,000 for the longest flight by a motor-glider with an engine of no more than 750 cc. English Electric built two modified Wrens for the light aeroplane trials held at Lympne, in Kent, from 8 to 13 October 1923, flown by Walter Longton and Squadron Leader Maurice Wright.

The Wren flown by Longton covered 87.5 miles on a single gallon of petrol, the same figure as the ANEC I, which had an engine nearly twice its size, and the two prizes were pooled and shared between them. Only three Wrens were built, and the type did not go into production: the light aeroplane movement soon moved on to two-seaters such as the de Havilland Moth. English Electric left aviation in 1926 and did not design another aeroplane until the Canberra jet bomber of 1949.

This airframe

English Electric Wren G-EBNV

G-EBNVThe airframe modelled

G-EBNV is the only Wren to survive. The Shuttleworth Collection records it as the machine built as competition No. 4 (constructor’s No. 3) for the 1923 Lympne trials; it was later presented to the Collection by R. H. Grant of Dumfries and rebuilt by English Electric with parts of the other Lympne Wren, some supplied by the Science Museum, flying again in January 1957. It was refurbished at Warton in 1980 and returned to Old Warden early in 1981, and it still flies there in calm weather. The model shows it standing tail-down on its two small keel wheels and ash tail skid, as photographed at Old Warden: aluminium dope all over, a black ‘4’ on both faces of the rudder, ‘ENGLISH ELECTRIC’ and a script ‘Wren’ on each side of the nose, a black leather pad on the leading edge by the cockpit, the ABC engine with its black finned cylinders, and a varnished mahogany propeller. The shape follows a published three-view scaled to the 37 ft span, with the fin, rudder and nose taken from photographs of G-EBNV.

See it at The Shuttleworth Collection

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

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

Every airframe and serial All 216 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.