AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 53 / 223

Plate 53 of 223 · Between the wars · Two-seat light touring biplane

Parnall Elf

Elf II (1932), painted as G-AAIN, the Shuttleworth Collection’s Parnall Elf II, the only one of the three Elfs built to survive, flown from Old Warden: Harold Bolas’s wooden, fabric-covered two-seat light biplane of 31 ft 3 in span with swept-back, folding, heavily staggered wings braced by Warren-girder interplane struts instead of flying wires, tandem open cockpits, a long-legged split-axle undercarriage and a fully cowled 120 hp Cirrus Hermes II, shown standing tail-down on its wheels and tail skid as displayed and flown at Old Warden: cream fuselage sides, wings and tail, dark green decking, cowling, centre section, struts and undercarriage with a cream spear on each side of the nose, a white winged ‘ELF’ badge, dark green ‘G-AAIN’ on both fuselage sides and across the upper and lower wings, cream wheel discs, a polished spinner and a near-black airscrew (shape from J.H. Watters’ 1:20 plan in Aeromodeller, July 1994, cross-checked against the Aero Digest three-view of January 1930, with the paint and markings following photographs of G-AAIN).

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as G-AAIN, the Shuttleworth Collection’s Parnall Elf II, the only one of the three Elfs built to survive, flown from Old Warden: Harold Bolas’s wooden, fabric-covered two-seat light biplane of 31 ft 3 in span with swept-back, folding, heavily staggered wings braced by Warren-girder interplane struts instead of flying wires, tandem open cockpits, a long-legged split-axle undercarriage and a fully cowled 120 hp Cirrus Hermes II, shown standing tail-down on its wheels and tail skid as displayed and flown at Old Warden: cream fuselage sides, wings and tail, dark green decking, cowling, centre section, struts and undercarriage with a cream spear on each side of the nose, a white winged ‘ELF’ badge, dark green ‘G-AAIN’ on both fuselage sides and across the upper and lower wings, cream wheel discs, a polished spinner and a near-black airscrew (shape from J.H. Watters’ 1:20 plan in Aeromodeller, July 1994, cross-checked against the Aero Digest three-view of January 1930, with the paint and markings following photographs of G-AAIN). Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (665 KB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (); engine, crew and dimensions are for the Elf II (1932) modelled here.

History

The Elf

George Parnall & Co. of Yate, near Bristol, built aeroplanes in small numbers between the wars, most of them drawn by Harold Bolas, who had designed the Pixie ultralights for the Lympne trials. As the de Havilland Moth opened up private flying in the late 1920s, Bolas drew a two-seat touring biplane to compete with it, the Elf. It was the last aeroplane he designed for Parnall before he left for the United States, and the prototype, G-AAFH, was shown at the Olympia Aero Show in July 1929.

The Elf was built of wood and covered in fabric, with two open cockpits in tandem and an upright four-cylinder Cirrus Hermes engine under a smooth cowling. Its wings were swept back and heavily staggered, and instead of the usual pairs of struts and flying wires they were braced by Warren-girder interplane struts, a zig-zag of struts on each side that needed no rigging wires. This made the wings easy to fold back alongside the fuselage, so that the Elf could be kept in a space little more than 7 ft wide.

It flew well, and an Elf finished fifth out of 88 entrants in the 1930 King’s Cup air race. But at about £875 it cost more than the Moths and Avians it was up against, the Depression had begun, and Parnall built only two more, G-AAIN and G-AAIO, both Elf IIs with the Cirrus Hermes II. They were privately owned through the 1930s; Lord Apsley, of Badminton, owned the prototype until it was written off in a forced landing, and in 1934 he bought G-AAIN. It is the only Elf left.

This airframe

Parnall Elf II G-AAIN

G-AAINThe airframe modelled

G-AAIN was built at Yate and first flew in 1932. Lord Apsley bought it in November 1934, and it was stored through the Second World War. The Shuttleworth Collection acquired it in 1951, not in flying condition, and lent it to the Historic Aircraft Museum at Southend in 1972; two former Shuttleworth apprentices then restored it completely at Old Warden, and it made its first public appearance in 1980. It is flown at Old Warden in calm summer weather. The model shows it as photographed there, standing tail-down on its wheels and tail skid: cream fuselage sides, wings and tail, dark green decking, cowling, centre section, struts and undercarriage, a cream spear on each side of the nose with a white winged ‘ELF’ badge, dark green ‘G-AAIN’ on both fuselage sides and across the upper and lower wings, cream wheel discs, a polished spinner and a near-black propeller. The shape follows J. H. Watters’ 1:20 plan of the Elf in Aeromodeller (July 1994), checked against the Aero Digest three-view of January 1930, with the paint and markings taken from photographs of G-AAIN.

See it at The Shuttleworth Collection

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

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

Every airframe and serial All 223 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.