British Aircraft Company

History

C.H. Lowe-Wylde was born Thomas Harold Lowe in Heaton, Newcastle-upon-Tyne on 4 February 1901, the son of James Lowe and Catherine Frances Lowe. Often misrepresented as F. Harold Lowe, he was something of an aviation prodigy, having, according to Flight, ‘built no less than seven machines with his own hands and practically unaided’. On one of these he taught himself to fly at the age of 16-1/2. Only his seventh machine, oddly designated HL(M).9 Marlburian, remains recorded, registered to Lowe as the Northern Aerial Transport Co and flew in 1922 but crashing on 25 November of the same year. He served an apprenticeship with the aviation department of Armstrong Whitworth and Co Ltd and then spent 2 years in the RAF as a technical instructor.

He married Dorothy E Wilde in 1924, changing his name to T.H. Lowe-Wilde, but by the mid 1920’s he had become Charles Herbert Lowe-Wylde, popularly known as "Jimmy" after a boxer of similar name. Why the change of forename and spelling remains unrecorded.

From there he moved to become the works planning engineer with the Blackburn Aeroplane and Motor Co in Phaleron, Greece, at the State Aircraft Factory (KEA), where the Chelidon two-seat military biplane (first flown 11 February 1927) was designed and built by a Greek team under the supervision Lowe-Wylde, its development being completed in an impressive eight weeks. From there he came back to the UK, where he became an experimental production engineer at Supermarine Aviation.

Lowe-Wylde gained his Aviators Certificate in 1929 and on 6th of January 1930 formed the Kent Gliding Club, only Britain’s second such organization. Members of the club built a Lowe-Wylde designed glider named “Columbus” which first flew 23 February 1930 from the top of a hill near Maidstone, Kent, the first primary glider to be designed and built in Britain. Lowe-Wylde also gained the very first Royal Aero Club's Glider Pilot's Certificate, Class A on March 30, 1930, flying this machine.

The British Aircraft Company was formed in February of 1930 with works in an old brewery at Lower Stone Street, Maidstone. The first product of the new company were another two Primaries, the B.A.C. I, essentially the same as “Columbus”, and B.A.C.II, followed by the B.A.C.III secondary glider and B.A.C.IV secondary sailplane. Also during this time, Lowe-Wylde developed the principle of launching gliders by towing them using a powerful car and the BAC III and IV were modified with twin wheels for auto-towing as the BAC V and BAC VI respectively.

B.A.C. became registered as a Limited Company on 4 March 1931; directors were C H Lowe-Wylde, Mr. K Barcham Green (managing director of H. Allnutt and Son, Ltd.) and Mrs. Sheila M Barcham Green. That year the new company produced the B.AC.VII two seat tandem derivative of the B.A.C.VI, along with a flying boat derivative, the B.A.C.VIII, and an all new design, the B.A.C.IX.

In 1932 the prototype Percival Gull, G-ABUR, was built in the works at Maidstone and later that year the company produced a powered version of the B.A.C.VII, the Planette. In anticipation of production of the powered machine, new premises were acquired at London Air Park (Hanworth) in February 1933. However, while giving a demonstration of the Planette at West Malling, Lowe-Wylde crashed and was killed on 13 May 1933.

Following Lowe-Wylde’s death, the Drone, an improved variant of the Planette, went into production under the leadership of Captain E.D. Ayre, the company’s Works Manager. License production was also undertaken by the Societe Gantoise des Avions sans Moteur (SGSM), of Ghent in Belgium. Colonel the Master of Sempill (William Francis Forbes-Sempill) financed the acquisition of the firm in December 1934, installing Austrian Robert Kronfeld (b. 5 May 1905 in Vienna) as managing director, and in March of 1935 the company was reorganized as the British Aircraft Company (1935) Ltd., with Lord Sempill and Mr. E. C. Gordon-England as directors. More license production was begun that year by the Societe Francaise des Avions Nouvelles (SFAN), at Issy les Moulineaux in France, and in August, B.A.C. introduced the higher powered Super Drone. Renamed Kronfeld Ltd. on 21 May 1936, the company attempted to introduce a family of three machines for training purposes, starting with a non-flying ground trainer and graduating to a newly designed simple flying training machine, reminiscent of a powered B.A.C.I. The top of the family was the re-engined Super Drone, the Drone de-Luxe.

In May 1937, a new machine, the tandem two-seat Kronfeld Monoplane, was introduced, with manufacture entrusted to Kronfeld’s Hanworth neighbour, General Aircraft Ltd. However, the machine was very underpowered and unable to fly with more than one person. With mounting debts and unable to pay General Aircraft for construction of the monoplane, Kronfeld Ltd. went into receivership on 24 September 1937. Assets of the company were acquired by C.H. Latimer-Needham, but were destroyed in the fire at the Phoenix Aircraft’s Gerrard’s Cross works in 1943. Robert Kronfeld moved on to become chief instructor at the Oxford University and City Gliding Club, and manager of the holding company concerned. In 1939 he became a British citizen and during World War II he served in the Royal Air Force in the the rank of Squadron Leader, posted to the Airborne Forces Experimental Establishment on military glider development. Post war, as test pilot for General Aircraft Ltd, he was killed in the crash of an experimental flying wing glider on 12 February 1948.

Company References

1. Ultralights - The Early British Classics, Richard Riding (Patrick Stevens Ltd., 1987)
2. British Light Aeroplanes, Arthur W.J.G. Ord-Hume (GMS Enterprises, 2000)
3. Motorsport, November 1931
4. Sailplane and Glider 17 May 1932
5. Ancestry.com

Project Data

Total Lowe/Lowe-Wylde Production2

Total British Aircraft Company Production67

Total Kronfeld Production3