Bristol Aeroplane Company

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Bristol Aeroplane Company logo

The Bristol Aeroplane Company (formerly British and Colonial Aeroplane Company) was a major British aircraft company which, in 1959, merged with several major British aircraft companies, to become the British Aircraft Corporation, later part of British Aerospace, now BAE Systems.

History

In 1920, BCAC became The Bristol Aeroplane Company. A major product during the interwar years was the Bristol Bulldog.

Later the Company became famous for the production of two military aircraft that were used by the RAF and Commonwealth units in the Second World War; the Bristol Blenheim light bomber and the Bristol Beaufighter heavy fighter. A shadow factory was built at Weston super Mare during the Second World War which produced these aircraft as well.

By the end of the Second World War, the Filton site was one of the largest aviation complexes in the world, certainly in Europe. In 1946, with surplus capacity left from wartime expansion, the company started an offshoot, Bristol Cars, using pre-war BMW designs as the basis for a new car, the Bristol 400. The car company became independent in 1960, around the same time as the consolidation the British aircraft industry, but is still based at the Filton site. Pre-fabricated buildings and composite materials were also early post-war activities, but these were eventually sold off.

Bristol was involved in the post war renaissance of British civilian aircraft as inspired by the Brabazon Committee report. In 1949, the Bristol Brabazon airliner prototype, at the time one of the largest aircraft in the world, first flew. The Brabazon airliner project was a step in the wrong direction and ultimately cancelled in 1953. At the same time the Bristol Britannia turboprop-powered airliner proved a success and it and Bristol Freighter transport aircraft were produced in quantity during the 1950s. Bristol was involved in helicopter development with the Bristol Belvedere and Bristol Sycamore helicopters going into quantity production. The whole of the helicopter side was later transferred to Westland Aircraft.

Another post-war activity was missile development, culminating in the production of the Bristol Bloodhound anti-aircraft missile. The guided weapons division eventually became part of Matra BAe Dynamics Alenia (MBDA).

In the late 50's the Company undertook supersonic transport (SST) project studies, which were later to contribute to Concorde.

In 1959 BAC was forced to merge with English Electric, Hunting Aircraft and Vickers-Armstrongs to form the British Aircraft Corporation, later itself to merge with the remaining large British aircraft companies to become British Aerospace, now BAE Systems.

A research aircraft, the Bristol 188, was constructed in the 1950s to test the feasibilty of stainless steel as a material in a Mach 2.0 airframe. By the time the aircraft flew in 1962, the Company was already part of the British Aircraft Corporation.

Bristol Engine Company

With the post-war rapid contraction of military orders Cosmos Engineering went bankrupt, and the Air Ministry let it be known that it would be a good idea if the Bristol Aeroplane Company purchased them. The Jupiter competed with the Armstrong Siddeley Jaguar through the 1920s, but Bristol put more effort into their design, and by 1929, the Jupiter was clearly superior. In the 1930s they developed a new line of radials based on the sleeve valve principle, which would develop into some of the most powerful piston engines in the world, and could continue to be sold into the 1960s.

In 1956 the division was renamed Bristol Aero Engines, and then merged with Armstrong Siddeley in 1958 to form Bristol Siddeley as a counterpart of the airframe-producing company mergers that formed BAC. In 1966 Bristol Siddeley merged with Rolls-Royce, leaving only one major aero-engine company in England, Rolls-Royce (now Rolls-Royce plc)

Bristol Aeroplanes

UK Ministry of Defence Bristol Britannia makes a visit to the maker's factory at Filton (Bristol, England) in 1983. As a civil airliner it had flown for BOAC, British Eagle and Air Spain.

The Bristol Type 192 Belvedere twin-blade helicopter. The Belvedere was a twin rotor helicopter designed to meet a requirement by the Royal Air Force for a general purpose land-based helicopter. Twenty six were built.

pre WWI types:

• Bristol Boxkite

• Bristol Scout
• Bristol F.2B

• Bristol Bulldog
• Bristol Bombay
• Bristol Type 143 Lord Rothermere's Britain First
• Bristol Blenheim

• Bristol Beaufort
• Bristol Beaufighter
• Bristol Bolingbroke
• Bristol Brigand
• Bristol Buckingham
• Bristol Buckmaster
• Bristol Baltimore

• Bristol Brabazon
• Bristol Freighter
• Bristol Britannia
• Bristol 188

• Bristol Belvedere
• Bristol Sycamore

Bristol Engines

original series:

• Bristol Jupiter
• Bristol Titan
• Bristol Mercury
• Bristol Pegasus
• Bristol Phoenix
• Bristol Hydra

• Bristol Perseus
• Bristol Aquila
• Bristol Taurus
• Bristol Hercules
• Bristol Centaurus

• Bristol Theseus turboprop with heat exchanger
• Bristol Proteus 2 shaft turboprop
• Bristol Olympus 2 spool turbojet
• Bristol Orpheus single spool turbojet
• Bristol Orion 2 shaft turboprop
• Bristol Pegasus 2 spool vectored thrust turbofan

• Bristol BRJ.801
• Bristol Thor

Bristol Missiles

• Blue Envoy - project only, never entered production
• Bloodhound

See also

• Bristol Aerospace, the Canadian subsidiary company

External links

• [The Bristol Aeroplane Company] (the founder's family's website)
• [Bristol Aircraft and Engines]
• [Bristol Aircraft Engines]

| Airlines | Air forces | Aircraft weapons | Missiles | Timeline of aviation

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