AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 43 / 220

Plate 43 of 220 · Between the wars · Two-seat ultralight biplane

Hawker Cygnet

Cygnet (1924) reproduction, painted as G-CAMM, the Shuttleworth Collection’s flying reproduction of the Hawker Cygnet, built by Don Cashmore from original Hawker drawings and first flown in 1993: Sydney Camm’s first design for Hawker, a tiny wooden, fabric-covered two-seat ultralight biplane of 28 ft span with a Warren-girder fuselage, a long upper wing over a short lower one, single I-struts each side, tandem open cockpits and a 37 hp Mosler flat twin across the nose, shown standing tail-down on its wheels and tail skid as flown at Old Warden: off-white clear-doped linen, a polished aluminium nose, varnished spruce struts and undercarriage legs, a mahogany two-bladed propeller, a black race number ‘6’ and ‘HAWKER CYGNET’ on both fuselage sides, ‘G-CAMM’ across the top of the upper wing and a ‘G’ on each tailplane half (shape from the 1924 NACA three-view, with the engine, propeller and markings following photographs of G-CAMM).

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as G-CAMM, the Shuttleworth Collection’s flying reproduction of the Hawker Cygnet, built by Don Cashmore from original Hawker drawings and first flown in 1993: Sydney Camm’s first design for Hawker, a tiny wooden, fabric-covered two-seat ultralight biplane of 28 ft span with a Warren-girder fuselage, a long upper wing over a short lower one, single I-struts each side, tandem open cockpits and a 37 hp Mosler flat twin across the nose, shown standing tail-down on its wheels and tail skid as flown at Old Warden: off-white clear-doped linen, a polished aluminium nose, varnished spruce struts and undercarriage legs, a mahogany two-bladed propeller, a black race number ‘6’ and ‘HAWKER CYGNET’ on both fuselage sides, ‘G-CAMM’ across the top of the upper wing and a ‘G’ on each tailplane half (shape from the 1924 NACA three-view, with the engine, propeller and markings following photographs of G-CAMM). Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (991 KB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (replica); engine, crew and dimensions are for the Cygnet (1924) reproduction modelled here.

History

The Cygnet

Sydney Camm joined the H. G. Hawker Engineering Company at Kingston in 1923, and the Cygnet was his first design for the firm. It was drawn for the Air Ministry’s light aeroplane trials at Lympne in the autumn of 1924, which were for two-seaters with engines of no more than 1,100 cc. The Cygnet was a tiny biplane of 28 ft span, built of wood and covered in fabric, with a Warren-girder fuselage, a long upper wing over a much shorter lower one, a single I-strut on each side and two open cockpits in tandem. It weighed under 400 lb empty.

Two were built, G-EBMB and G-EBJH, one with a 34 hp British Anzani and the other with a 34 hp ABC Scorpion. At Lympne in 1924 they finished third and fourth, and G-EBJH, flown by Fred Raynham, won a prize for take-off and landing. Both were then re-engined with the Bristol Cherub III, and at the 1926 Lympne trials G-EBMB, flown by P. W. S. ‘George’ Bulman as No. 6, won the Daily Mail’s £3,000 first prize, with G-EBJH in second place.

The light aeroplane trials did not lead to orders for machines this small, and the Cygnet was not put into production; the two-seat Moth and its rivals, with nearly twice the power, became the club aeroplanes of the late 1920s. G-EBJH was lost in a crash in 1927. G-EBMB was kept by Hawker, refurbished in 1946 and flown at displays, and it was given to the RAF Museum in 1972. Camm stayed at Kingston for the rest of his career, and went on to design the Hart, the Fury, the Hurricane, the Hunter and the Harrier.

This airframe

Hawker Cygnet reproduction G-CAMM

G-CAMMThe airframe modelled

The original G-EBMB is with the RAF Museum. G-CAMM is a flying reproduction, built over many years by Don Cashmore from original Hawker drawings and first flown on 13 March 1993; it passed to the Shuttleworth Collection in 2009 and is flown at Old Warden in calm weather. The model shows it as photographed there, standing tail-down on its wheels and tail skid: off-white clear-doped linen with the girder bracing faintly showing through, a polished aluminium nose, varnished spruce struts and undercarriage legs, the 37 hp Mosler flat twin across the nose with a mahogany two-bladed propeller, a black race number ‘6’ and ‘HAWKER CYGNET’ on both sides of the fuselage, as worn by G-EBMB when it won in 1926, ‘G-CAMM’ across the top of the upper wing and a ‘G’ on each half of the tailplane. The shape follows the three-view of the Cygnet published by NACA in 1924, with the engine, propeller and markings taken from photographs of G-CAMM.

See it at The Shuttleworth Collection

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

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

Every airframe and serial All 220 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.