The Bristol Brabazon by Richard Walker
Via Flickr:
The Bristol Type 167 Brabazon was a large British piston-engined propeller-driven airliner designed by the Bristol Aeroplane Company to fly transatlantic routes between the UK and the United States. The Brabazon first flew on the 4th September 1949, it had a 76m wingspan and was 49m long. The project was retired in 1953. It was powered by eight Bristol Centaurus 18-cylinder radial engines, which were the most powerful British-built piston engines available at the time. The Brabazon was the first aircraft to be outfitted with 100 per cent powered flying controls; it was also the first with electric engine controls, and the first equipped with high-pressure hydraulics. The plane had a max speed of 300Mph and could cruise at 250Mhp with a range of 5500 miles While Bristol had studied the prospects of developing very large aircraft as bombers prior to and during the Second World War, it was the release of a report compiled by the Brabazon Committee which led the company to adapt its proposed bomber into a large civil airliner to meet the Type I specification for the long-distance transatlantic route. Initially designated the Type 167, the proposed aircraft had a 25-foot (7.6 m)-diameter fuselage (1.7m wider than a Boeing 747) containing full upper and lower decks on which passengers would be seated in luxurious conditions. It was powered by an arrangement of eight Bristol Centaurus radial engines which drove eight paired contra-rotating propellers set on four forward-facing nacelles. The Brabazon was one of the largest aeroplanes ever built, being sized roughly between the much later Airbus A300 and Boeing 767 airliners. (Wikipedia) and Archive image
