Tag: Armstrong Whitworth

John Lloyd (Part One)

One of John Lloyd’s Flying Wings

John Lloyd, whom Sir Morien Morgan, the Director of the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough, said was “one of the 20th century’s leading aeronautical engineers”, is Stoke-on-Trent’s forgotten aircraft designer.

His most important contribution to aviation history was research into laminar flow and the creation of experimental Flying Wings that helped to create the V Bomber force and Concord.

Born near Swansea in 1888 into a Welsh-speaking family, four-year-old John could not speak English when they moved to the Potteries. An intelligent child, he quickly mastered the English language and won a scholarship to Hanley High School. Leaving school at sixteen, he became an apprentice at Shelton Bar, an iron and steel works at Etruria and studied engineering at Stoke Technical School.

Fascinated by the Wright brother’s attempts to build a petrol-engine-powered glider, he designed and built model flying machines in his spare time.

Before the First World War (1914-1918) aeroplanes had wooden frames covered with canvas. Having studied aerodynamics, John believed that an all-metal aircraft could be built. When war broke out, he was employed by the Royal Aircraft Factory to design composite wood, metal and canvas fighter planes.

Coventry-based aircraft manufacturer Armstrong Whitworth made him its chief designer in the 1920s, and he designed the Siskin fighter bomber.

The Siskin

In 1923, a specially built two-seater Siskin 11 won the King’s Cup Air Race, reaching a speed of 149 miles per hour. Shortly afterwards, he modified the aircraft’s design and constructed the Siskin 111, the Royal Air Force’s first all-metal framed biplane.

Armed with two Vicker’s machine guns, the aircraft could carry four small bombs. It had an open cockpit and was powered by an Armstrong Siddely Jaguar radial piston engine.

This post is taken from a series of articles about John Lloyd written by Betty Martin when she was researching Aviation History. Copyright: North Staffordshire Heritage 2024.

The image of the Siskin is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

(End of Part One)

John Lloyd (Part Two)

The Argosy

Civil Aviation developed rapidly after the First World War.

In March 1924, the government set up Imperial Airways to carry passengers mail throughout the British Empire.

New routes were established linking England with South Africa, India, Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong. Short-range planes made the journey in stages, flying to airports spaced out along the route.

Aircraft manufacturers were asked to build bigger more powerful planes. In 1925, John designed the Argosy a three-engined biplane big enough to carry 20 passengers. Imperial Airways ordered seven Argosys which flew from Croydon to Basle Brussels and Cologne.

An airmail service opened between England and India in 1929 and Imperial Airways asked Armstrong Whitworth to build a four-engined monoplane capable of carrying passengers and mail.

The Atalanta

John designed the Atalanta, a commercial transport plane with a range of 540 miles that could carry 17 passengers. The Alalanta made its first flight on 6 June 1932 and appeared at the Hendon Air Display three weeks later. Imperial Airways bought eight aircraft, and the first went into service on 26 September.

The company assigned four Atalantas to its base in South Africa. The other four were sent to India, flying from Karachi to Calcutta, Rangoon and Singapore.

During the 1930s, three Atalantas crashed, and in 1939, the remaining aircraft were transferred to British Overseas Airways. They were requisitioned by the Royal Air Force in 1941 and given to the Indian Air Force, which used them for coastal reconnaissance.

End of Part Two

This post is taken from a series of articles about John Lloyd written by Betty Martin when she was researching Aviation History. Copyright: North Staffordshire Heritage 2024.

Photograph of the Argosy from Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-00921A / CC-BY-SA 3.0. Imperial Airways’ Advertisement is in the Public Domain.