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CROWOOD AVIATION SERIES

AEROPLANES OF THE ROYAL AIRCRAFT FACTORY

Paul R. Hare

Farnborough Common has been the spiritual centre of British aviation for almost a century. In 1904 the Army's Balloon Factory, which had previously been based at Aldershot, began a move to Farnborough where experiments then began. On 16th October 1908, Samuel Franklin Cody made what is generally believed to be the first powered flight in Great Britain, covering a distance of a quarter of a mile in twenty-seven seconds.

Renamed the Royal Aircraft Factory in 1912, it was basically a repair facility and, although some experiments were carried out, it lacked the authority to design new aeroplanes, though this did not stop some creative 'reconstruction' of damaged aeroplanes sent there for repair which produced some entirely new designs. These early designs formed the basis of a series of aeroplanes that were the mainstay of the Royal Flying Corps and which remained in service until the 1920s. The unique nature of the Factory meant that full drawings were prepared of all of its designs, allowing them to be mass-produced by sub-contractors. Aeroplanes such as the B.E.2, R.E.8 and the superb S.E.5 were designed and tested at Farnborough, and engines, such as the RAF1a of the B.E.2 and the RAF4a of the R.E.8, were also designed in-house.

Paul R. Hare describes the background to these designs and the development of these and many less well-known aeroplanes. He details their continued development and operational use and tells of the personalities who designed, built and flew them. Specifications are included for all major designs and the book is illustrated with an impressive selection of contemporary photographs.