General Aircraft Cygnet II

The Cygnet began at Slough in 1936 with C.W. Aircraft Ltd, a small firm formed by C.R. Chronander and J.I. Waddington, whose initials gave it its name. Their design was a two-seat, side-by-side cabin monoplane built entirely of light alloy with a stressed skin, at a time when British light aircraft were still made of wood, fabric and steel tube. The prototype, G-AEMA, first flew at Hanworth in May 1937 with a tail wheel, a single fin and a 90 hp Cirrus Minor, making it the first all-metal stressed-skin light aeroplane built in Britain.

Certification was slow, partly because of the novel way the aircraft was riveted, and C.W. Aircraft sold none. It had also spent heavily on a larger design, and in March 1938 it closed. General Aircraft Ltd bought the rights and the prototype, called it the GAL.42, and reworked it as the Cygnet II with a 150 hp Cirrus Major II, twin fins and rudders, and a fixed tricycle undercarriage with oleo legs, one of the first on a British light aircraft. The nosewheel made it easier to land and much harder to tip on to its nose. Production began at Hanworth in 1939, and the first production aircraft was flying by July.

The war stopped civil sales after only about ten had been built. The RAF impressed five, and because nosewheel aircraft were still rare in Britain it used them to teach pilots the technique before they went on to the Douglas Boston and Havoc, with squadrons including Nos. 23, 24, 85 and 88. Later they served as communications aircraft. The type was not revived after the war, though the survivors flew on as private aircraft for many years.