AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 08 / 210

Plate 08 of 210 · Pioneers · Tractor triplane trainer

Roe IV Triplane

Roe IV Triplane (1910), flying reproduction, painted as G-ARSG, The Shuttleworth Collection’s flying reproduction of the Roe IV Triplane, built by the Hampshire Aeroplane Club at Eastleigh in 1964 for the film ‘Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines’ and flown at Old Warden from 1966, shown as it was before its accident there in May 2026: Alliott Verdon Roe’s fourth triplane, the machine on which the Avro school at Brooklands taught pilots in 1910–11, with three wings of 32 ft span (the lowest only 20 ft) warped for lateral control, a fabric-covered forward fuselage, an open wooden girder behind the cockpit carrying a triangular tailplane with elevators and a rudder, the replica’s upright Cirrus four-cylinder engine in the nose in place of the original’s Green, and a chassis of two long wooden skids each carrying a pair of wire wheels, shown standing tail-down: cream doped linen with the ribs showing, light-grey panels over the nose and cockpit with red ‘AVRO’ on both sides, a white rudder with the race number ‘12’ in black, dark-brown varnished struts, an orange varnished girder and skids, an ivory propeller and a copper fuel tank under the top wing (no three-view of the Roe IV is published: the shape follows a 1/12 scale plan of the 1910 machine, checked against photographs of G-ARSG, which stands about 2 in taller than the published 9 ft).

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as G-ARSG, The Shuttleworth Collection’s flying reproduction of the Roe IV Triplane, built by the Hampshire Aeroplane Club at Eastleigh in 1964 for the film ‘Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines’ and flown at Old Warden from 1966, shown as it was before its accident there in May 2026: Alliott Verdon Roe’s fourth triplane, the machine on which the Avro school at Brooklands taught pilots in 1910–11, with three wings of 32 ft span (the lowest only 20 ft) warped for lateral control, a fabric-covered forward fuselage, an open wooden girder behind the cockpit carrying a triangular tailplane with elevators and a rudder, the replica’s upright Cirrus four-cylinder engine in the nose in place of the original’s Green, and a chassis of two long wooden skids each carrying a pair of wire wheels, shown standing tail-down: cream doped linen with the ribs showing, light-grey panels over the nose and cockpit with red ‘AVRO’ on both sides, a white rudder with the race number ‘12’ in black, dark-brown varnished struts, an orange varnished girder and skids, an ivory propeller and a copper fuel tank under the top wing (no three-view of the Roe IV is published: the shape follows a 1/12 scale plan of the 1910 machine, checked against photographs of G-ARSG, which stands about 2 in taller than the published 9 ft). Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (441 KB)

Data plate

Specification

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

History

The Roe IV Triplane

Alliott Verdon Roe stayed loyal to the triplane longer than anyone. After his paper-covered Roe I had made the first flights by an all-British aeroplane on Lea Marshes in 1909, he and his brother Humphrey set up A.V. Roe and Company in Manchester on 1 January 1910 and built a series of improved triplanes, flying them first at Wembley and then at Brooklands. The Roe IV, completed in the late summer of 1910 and first flown that September, was the last and most practical of them: a tractor with three wings, the top two of 32 ft span and the lowest cut down to 20 ft, a covered forward fuselage with an open girder behind it, a triangular tailplane with a divided elevator and a small rudder, and two long skids each carrying a pair of wheels.

Roe had tried ailerons on his previous triplane and found them satisfactory, but for the Roe IV he went back to warping the wings for lateral control. A 35 hp Green four-cylinder engine sat in the nose, with its radiator above the fuselage between the inner struts. Only one was built, and it went straight to work as the trainer of the new Avro flying school at Brooklands. Like most school machines of the time it was crashed many times, at least twice into the sewage farm at the edge of the aerodrome, and each time it was repaired.

After a crash on 14 February 1911 it was rebuilt with the fuselage lengthened by 4 ft, to 34 ft. Among the pupils who learned on it was Howard Pixton, who gained his Royal Aero Club certificate on 24 January 1911 and stayed on with Avro as an instructor and test pilot. The triplane went on teaching until August 1911, when it was scrapped; by then Roe had moved on to the biplanes that led to the Avro 504.

This airframe

Roe IV Triplane reproduction G-ARSG

G-ARSGThe airframe modelled

G-ARSG was built in 1964 by the Hampshire Aeroplane Club at Eastleigh for the film ‘Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines’, released in 1965, and passed to the Shuttleworth Collection in 1966. For decades it flew at Old Warden on calm evenings, until it came down in trees at the edge of the aerodrome during the Wings & Wheels air show on 30 May 2026; the pilot was rescued and recovered, and the aeroplane’s future had not been announced. The model shows it as it was before the accident. Like the other film replicas it has a modern engine, an upright four-cylinder Cirrus, in place of the original’s water-cooled Green, so it has no radiator, and it follows the original 30 ft layout of 1910 rather than the lengthened rebuild. The finish is cream doped linen with the ribs showing, light-grey panels over the nose and cockpit with red ‘AVRO’ on both sides, a white rudder with the race number ‘12’ in black, dark-brown varnished struts, an orange varnished girder and skids, an ivory propeller and a copper fuel tank under the top wing. No three-view of the Roe IV is published: the shape follows a 1/12 scale plan of the 1910 machine, checked against photographs of G-ARSG, which stands about 2 in taller than the published 9 ft.

See it at The Shuttleworth Collection

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

The gazetteer records the Roe IV Triplane in one UK collection. The airframe modelled here is marked.

Every airframe and serial All 210 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.