Following the closure of Vickers subsidiary Airship Guarantee
Company, Nevil Shute Norway and A. Hessell Tiltman, along with support from Alan Cobham and Lord Grimthorpe (b. 1891 - d. 1963), founded Airspeed
Limited at York in 1931. Tiltman became Chief Designer, while Norway served as Chief Engineer. They had already done
some preliminary design work for two/three seat private owner type, but this was too ambitious a project for the fledgling
company. Cobham told the board he had a need for a small passenger plane for use by his National Aviation Day venture, but
no order could currently be placed. This would eventually appear as the AS.4 Ferry, but meantime the company began
work on a much more modest design, the AS.1 Tern glider.
In March 1933 the firm moved to Portsmouth and during
this period produced the Courier (the first British type with a retractable undercarriage to go into production) and Envoy
low wing cantilever monoplanes. Lord Grimthorpes nephew, Lawrence Aldred Mervyn Dundas (later 3rd Marquess of Zetland, b.
November 12, 1908 - d.October 5,1989), became one of Aispeeds '£5 per week working shareholders' and set
up a company, R K Dundas Limited, together with Ronald Douglas King (Airspeed's sales manager), to act as
Airspeed sales agents in India and Burma, later taking over as UK sales agents from Aircraft Exchange & Mart. In the following
year, Airspeed became associated with the Tyneside ship builder Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson Limited and became Airspeed
(1934) Limited in August 1934. This was followed by the production of their most prolific design, the A.S.10 Oxford,
a trainer derivative of the Envoy.
Norway left the firm in 1938, partially over a disagreement with Tiltman, and
partially because, with success and mass production, much of the excitement had gone out of the effort. In 1940, de Havilland bought the shares in Airspeed held by Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson Limited, but the company retained a separate
identity, reverting to the name of Airspeed Limited on 25 January 1944. During this time, they produced
the Horsa troop carrying glider which was to be Tiltmans last design for the company. Hessell Tiltman left
Airspeed in 1942, and in 1945 formed a research partnership with Marcus Langley which, in 1948, became Tiltman Langley Laboratories.
Postwar Airspeed produced the elegant Ambassador airliner, but this was to be its final original design
to make it to production (the last Airspeed product, the Consul, being merely a civilainised Oxford). During this time, Airspeed
also provided additional design and manufacturing support to de Havilland, but in 1951 completely merged with them and the Airspeed name disappeared.
Company References
Airspeed Aircraft Since 1931, H.A. Taylor (Putnam, 1970)
18 British Military Training
Aircraft, Ray Sturtivant (Haynes, 1987)
19 Aircraft of the Royal New
Zealand Air Force, David Duxbury, Ross Ewing and Ross Macpherson (Heinemann, 1987)
20 Spanish and Portuguese
Military Aviation, John M. Andrade (Midland Counties Publications, 1977)
21 Dutch Military Aviation
1945-1978, Paul A Jackson (Midland Counties Publications, 1978)
22 Back To The Drawing Board, Bill
Gunston (Airlife 1996)
23 Fighting Gliders of World
War II, James E. Mrazek (Robert Hale, 1977)
24 Aircraft of the Fighting
Powers, Vol.I, H.J. Cooper and O.G. Thetford (Harborough, 1940)
25 Aircraft of the Fighting
Powers, Vol.IV, H.J. Cooper and O.G. Thetford (Harborough, 1943)
26 The Hamlyn Concise Guide
to British Aircraft Of The WWII, David Mondey (Hamlyn, 1982)
27 Vzduch je nase more - Ceskoslovenske
letectvi 1918-1939 (The Air is Ours - Czech Aviation 1918-1939), Jiri Rajlich & Jiri Sehnal (Nase vojsko, 1993)
Various Sabre engined
fighter projects were also worked upon by Airspeed in 1940, including one with a well-faired fixed undercarriage and cranked
wing. Both this and a retractable-undercarriage version had their radiators aft of the cockpit with cooling air ram-fed
into an underside scoop and venting through slots in the tail. A verbal order was given officially at one stage to Airspeed
for a day fighter which formed the basis for these undesignated projects, using wooden construction as a means of conserving
strategic materials. The order was later revoked under pressure, it is believed, from another sector of the aircraft
industry. [1] [96].
Production Summary
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