Campbell

History

Campbell Aircraft Ltd was formed in 1959 by Donald Campbell (born Dumbarton in 1918), along with S.J. Bartram and Don’s wife Nan (Lilian Campbell, born Bradford in 1917), for the purpose of acquiring the U.K. rights for the manufacture and sale of the Bensen range of U.S. Gyro-Gliders and Gyro-Copters. Along with collaborator Geoffrey “Geoff” Whatley, Campbell completed the first gyrocopter in August 1960 and began selling Bensen kits. The company also began making incremental changes to the Benson design, including adding a fuselage nacelle, and by 1967 these modified aircraft becoming denoted as “Campbell-Bensen” aircraft.

Returning from Spain, where they had been helping a new customer, Donald and Nan Campbell were killed when Iberia Caravelle EC-BDD on Flight 062 from Malaga to London crashed near Haslemere shortly after 10 p.m. on 4 November 1967. Don’s brother John Campbell took over ownership of the company, and soon after, Bensen discovered that copies of Bensen blueprints had been made with “© 1963. Copyright Campbell Aircraft Ltd.” added, clearly a theft of intellectual property, and the relationship between Benson and Campbell Aircraft promptly ended.

After Don Campbell’s death and the subsequent loss of the Bensen franchise, John Campbell approached mechanical and chemical engineer and designer Peter Lovegrove (Peter Colin Lovegrove, from Didcot Oxfordshire, born in March 1931) with regard to licensing and building one his designs. Lovegrove’s first product had been a rebuild of damaged Campbell-Bensen B.7MC, G-ARTN, rebuilt in 1967 as a Campbell Bensen and Lovegrove Bensen B8 PL1, G-AVXB, fitted with Lovegrove-modified Fuji-Robin EC-51-PL02, but more significant was his redesigned Bensen B8 G-AXII, with a modified powerplant based on a VW1600 cc engine.

However, during the course of the development of what would come to be known as the Campbell Cricket, John Campbell, who lacked the passion and focus of his brother for gyroplanes, sold the company to A. Montagu W. Curzon-Herrick (Assheton Montagu Windsor Curzon-Howe-Herrick, born on 2 August 1939 in Clifton Castle, Ripon, Yorkshire), who brought in his friend Jeremy Metcalfe as general manager. Curzon-Herrick had certain ideas about a marketable, production standard gyroplane, and these were incorporated by Lovegrove into the Cricket.

The prototype Cricket flew for the first time on 9 August 1969. It proved to be a successful design with many improvements over the Benson; a sleek waist-level fibreglass nacelle with a mini windscreen, streamlined fuel tank, direct nose-wheel steering, improved engine mounts for the more powerful industrial engine which was supplied by Royal Berks Motors, and larger fin and rudder for improved control. (Industrial engines were employed because of their slightly lower prices and greater reliability than car engines). Bensen rotor blades were utilized.

Thirty-three production aircraft were registered in the next two years and it appeared that Campbell was positioned for market leadership, However, by 1971 the future of gyroplane sales had grown bleak as a result of official and public reaction to the fatal crashes of Ernie Brooks, Brian Luesley and “Pee Wee” Judge, and as a result the company ceased Cricket production.

Prior to ceasing activity in 1971, Campbell Aircraft had embarked on the creation of a two-place gyroplane. A wooden mock-up was constructed of this tractor tail-dragger, designed by Ray Hillbourne, but an evaluation from Doug Bianchi found Hillborne’s design efforts to be deficient.

The Curlew was Campbell Aircraft’s second attempt at designing a two-place gyroplane, but it too was to prove unsuccessful. Bill Hardy, a university lecturer then on sabbatical, was paid to design the aircraft. It was patterned after the McCulloch J-2, an American two-place cabin gyroplane distinguished by twin tail booms. A wooden mock-up of the side-by-side two-seater with twin fins and rudders, mounted on short booms, behind a 125 hp Mercury powerplant driving a pusher propeller was exhibited at the 1969 Paris Air Show. At some point it became obvious that the proposed Mercury engine would be inadequate and a Lycoming 0-320-B engine specified, but the project was abandoned in March of 1970.

As the Curlew was winding down, Campbell Aircraft obtained the marketing rights to the Air & Space 18A two-place gyroplane. One aircraft, G-AYUE ex N6150S was imported, but was destroyed by a roll-over accident on 21 May 1971.

The company then proceeded with an original design for a two-place gyroplane called the Campbell Cougar in 1972. With the demise of the Campbell Aircraft Company, ownership of the prototype, which had been constructed mainly by Western Airways at Locking, Weston-super-Mare, was transferred to Curzon-Herrick on 8 March 1973. The prototype was exhibited at the 1973 Paris Air Show with the flags of Australia and South Africa painted on its twin tail fins reflecting the fact that Curzon-Herrick had secured financing from friends in both countries. During its development Curzon-Herrick proposed using a Rolls-Royce/Continental 0-240-A engine, as it was already flying in the second prototype engine in Wallis WA-120/R-R autogyro.

Testing of the Campbell Cougar may have continued until early 1974 but by the summer of 1975 the project was abandoned. In 1978 the Cougar was donated to the Helicopter Museum.

Campbell Aircraft Ltd remained inactive until 1975 when it was reorganized as Campbell Gyroplanes Ltd, with John. C. Kitchin, a British Airways Captain, and Curzon-Herrick as directors and Peter Lovegrove as consultant. Kitchin replaced Geoff Whatley as company pilot as the latter had developed heart murmurs and was forced to stop flying.

The company now pursued a new Cricket design, dubbed the “Super Cricket”, an improved version of the Cricket powered by a 75 h.p 2000 cc Volkswagen engine. The prototype was a converted Cricket G-AXVK and performed in air shows during 1977/78 in British Airways colours as part of a sponsored Flying Carnival Team, flown by John Kitchin. By then, Curzon-Herrick had lost interest in the company, having become seriously intrigued by and involved with a religious cult from India.

After Curzon-Herrick’s departure, the Campbell company closed for good – John Kitchin sold kit parts, along with the moulds for the glass-fibre parts to Richard Everett, who formed R.J Everett Engineering to build effectively copies of the Cricket.

Lovegrove’s design for the Cricket had never been consigned to either Campbell Aircraft or the Campbell Autogyro Company, except on a short-term, provisional basis, and Lovegrove would go on to produce further versions of the Cricket. In 1996, at the invitation of the Popular Flying Association, he produced the Cricket Mk. 4 as a plans-built version available from British Gyroplanes of Wallingford, a company formed by Lovegrove in August 1993. In 2000 Lovegrove produced a single Cricket Mk. 5, a gyroplane equipped with a horizontal stabilizer designed in conformance with the formula derived by Juan de la Cierva. The Cricket Mk. 6 was a plans-built successor to the Mk. 4 and was intended to replace the Bensen B-8M, which could no longer be built in the UK.

Gary Layzell (Gary John Layzell, born June 1957) found his way into the world of Gyroplanes when he attended a local agricultural show in September 1998, where some Gyroplane enthusiasts were manning a show-stand, and it so impressed him that he bought a Campbell Cricket in need of restoration. During that process, he came to the conclusion that he could improve many of the mechanical aspects. He formed Layzell Gyroplanes Ltd of Ledbury (later Quedgeley, Gloucester) in July 2001 and, having been brought into contact with Peter Lovegrove, the combined effort resulted in the Layzell AV-18. The prototype AV-18, G-CBWN was built from a Cricket Mk 6, incorporating several minor changes to facilitate mass-production of kits for home assembly. First flight was 19 June 2003. Eventually it was marketed using the familiar Cricket name, the AV-18A becoming Cricket Mk 6A and AV-18B the Cricket Mk 6B. Concurrently, Layzell produced kits for the standard Cricket Mk.6.

In 2009, the product range expanded when Layzell Gyroplanes acquired the ‘Merlin’ from Montgomery Autogyros, a modified version of former Montgomerie-Bensen B-8M.

By 2011, the company was in business partnership with Termikas of Lithuania. Layzell Gyroplanes Ltd and British Gyroplanes Ltd, which Layzell had taken over from Lovegrove in September 2010, were to have development carried out jointly, along with production of Layzell machines. Factory built autogyros were also to be available, manufactured in Lithuania. However, by 2014 Layzell was becoming disillusioned with onerous CAA regulations and left the U.K. for France; Layzell Gyroplanes ceased trading, though currently (2024) British Gyroplanes Ltd is still active, though seemingly not producing any gyroplanes.

Lovegrove continued with new gyroplane developments of his own. He produced and constructed a tractor gyroplane, the “Four-Runner” in 1998, but lacked the means to see it through the CAA lengthy and extremely expensive certification process. He also did extensive work on a powered two-place trainer, dubbed the Discord and produced an additional one-off model dubbed the “Sheffy” but they remained in an incomplete state and languished in his workshop, while he produced a two-place gyro-glider dubbed the Rotaglida, in which the pre-rotator was operated by a pair of cranks in a pedalling motion by the occupants.

Company References

1. Catastrophe at Farnborough: How the Death of John W. C. “Pee Wee” Judge on 11 September 1970 at the SBAC Air Show in a Wallis WA-117 Autogyro Changed British Popular Rotorcraft History, by Dr. Bruce H. Charnov Ph.D. J.D. FRAeS. Presented at the Vertical Flight Society 75th Annual Forum, Philadelphia, PA May 13 – 16, 2019.
2. Wing Commander Ken Wallis and Peter Lovegrove: The Designers/Pioneers/Popularizers Remembered and Forgotten Who Shaped the British Autogyro Movement in its First 50 Years, unpublished paper by Dr. Bruce H. Charnov
3. Jane’s All the Worlds Aircraft 2011-2012, Ed. Paul Jackson (IHS Jane's, 2011)
4. http://www.layzellgyroplanes.com/ (no longer active)
5. https://highlandaviation.com/pages/gyrocopter-museum

Project Data

Total Lovegrove Production12

Total Layzell Production3