5261 x 3758 px | 44,5 x 31,8 cm | 17,5 x 12,5 inches | 300dpi
Data acquisizione:
5 ottobre 2014
Ubicazione:
Old Warden Airfield, Bedfordshire, UK
Altre informazioni:
The Boxkite (officially the Bristol Biplane) was the first aircraft produced by the British and Colonial Aeroplane Company (later known as the Bristol Aeroplane Company). A pusher biplane based on the successful Farman III, it was one of the first aircraft types to be built in quantity. As the machine was used by Bristol for instruction purposes at their flying schools at Larkhill and Brooklands many early British aviators learned to fly in a Boxkite. Four were purchased in 1911 by the War Office and examples were sold to Russia and Australia. It continued to be used for training purposes until after the outbreak of the First World War. No original Bristol Boxkites aeroplanes survive today, although three authentic flyable reproductions were built by the F.G. Miles group for the film Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines. These were initially powered by a 65 hp (48 kW) Rolls-Royce Continental A65 air-cooled flat four, but this produced insufficient power as the small-diameter modern propeller was inefficient at the low airspeed achieved by the Boxkite, and was replaced by a 90 hp (67 kW) Continental O-200-B engine. These proved flyable enough to be used for cross-country flights between filming locations. Another tribute to the soundness of the design is that the calculations made for the purpose of granting the necessary Certificates of Airworthiness found that the stressing of the design was very close to modern requirements. After filming, one was sent to the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, a second to the Shuttleworth Collection in Bedfordshire, where it is still flown during flying displays when the weather permits, and the third to the Museum of Australian Army Flying in Queensland.
