Cloudcraft Production

For a description of the format and data included in Production Tables, see here.

Type Description and Production Data

Primary

A wooden high wing glider, carrying the pilot on an open seat with a largely open, flat truss girder fuselage behind. The wing had a two-spar fabric covered structure and was completely rectangular in plan. Ailerons occupied approximately ⅓ of the outer trailing edge. The wing was mounted on the horizontal upper beam of the three-bay fuselage Warren girder. The lower beam, angled slightly upwards rearwards, carried the pilot's seat and controls at its forward end. Pairs of landing wires ran from a longitudinally-orientated inverted V-shaped pylon above the centre of the upper wing to the two spars near the inboard edge of the aileron. Similarly arranged flying wires ran from the same wing points to the keel. Bracing wires from the rear spar, at the same point as the flying wires, were anchored to the lower rear corner of the flat fuselage girder to limit sideways flexing. The seat and exposed control column were located just ahead of the wing leading edge. A simple skid acted as undercarriage. At the rear, a fabric-covered tailplane, with swept leading edges and carrying rectangular elevators, was mounted on the upper fuselage beam over the whole of the aft fuselage bay. The rearmost vertical member of the girder carried a near-rectangular rudder, which projected above the fuselage led by a slender fin. Lateral stability was enhanced by the fabric covering of the rear bay of the fuselage.

Specification
Span	Length	Height	Wing Area	Empty Wt	Max AUW
34 ft 3 in	17 ft 4 in		170 sq ft	180 lb
10.44 m	5.28 m		15.79 m2	82 kg

Production Details - BGA Registered Primarys N(See Note 1)

C/n	Initial Registration	Notes
7 aircraft built by the Cloudcraft Glider Co., Southampton. Built in 1930.
19	BGA0130	To the Bolton Light Aeroplane and Glider Club.
20	BGA0127	To the Matlocks GC in late September 1930.
21	BGA0128	To the Cononley and District Aero Club.
22	BGA0129	To the Kilmarnock Gliding Club on 17 October 1930.
23	BGA0131	To the South Shropshire and North Herefordshire Gliding Club in October 1930.
24	BGA0132	To the Southampton Gliding Club in January 1931.
25	BGA0133	To the Banbury Motor Cycle Club, gliding section.
2 aircraft built and flown as noted.
	BGA0233	To the Devon GC. Built by Sam Tolman and club members, and first flown by Harald Penrose at Littleham, near Exmouth on 14 September 1935
	BGA0401	To the Channel G.C., unknown builder but presumably by the club, in July 1938.
Total BGA Registered Production 9 See Note 1

Phantom

The Phantom was a single-seat, clean, high-performance glider designed for Mr Percy Michelson with distance records and a cross-channel flight in mind. It was an all-wood aircraft, built of spruce and plywood. The wing had a single spruce spar with stressed ply to the leading edge forming a torsion box. At the time, the choice of the biconvex R.A.F. 34 airfoil was unusual, the concave/convex Göttingen forms being generally used. The wing was high mounted on a long, shallow pylon just behind the open cockpit, braced with a single lift strut on each side. Its tailplane was low mounted and the rudder rounded and generous, mounted on a narrow fin. It landed on a long skid reaching from the nose to well behind the wing trailing edge.

Specification
Span	Length	Height	Wing Area	Empty Wt	Max AUW
51 ft	25 ft		200 sq ft	247 lb	407 lb
15.54 m	7.62 m		18.58 m2	112 kg	185 kg

Production Details

C/n	Initial Registration	Notes
1 aircraft built by Cloudcraft Glider Co., Southampton. First flew on 11 June 1931.
	BGA0158	To Percy Michelson (Lancashire G.C.)
Total Production 1

Notes

Only seven Cloudcraft built Primarys were assigned British Gliding Association registery numbers, with a further two club built ones. However, a Cloudcraft advertisement from July 1931 claimed that there were "over one hundred in use at the present time" in the UK, United States, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Most Dickson Primary gilders were built from plans sold by Cloudcraft (and, later, by Flight magazine), and were never registered. Clubs known to have built their own Primary are:
The Bradford Gliding Club (built by Mr. H. Sutton), Hampshire Aeroplane Club, Harrogate Aircraft Club, London Gliding Club (owned by Mr. Bradbrooke and taken over incomplete from the Airship Gliding Club), and the Stockport Gliding Club.
In New Zealand, the Dannevirke Glider Club (Messrs. Smaller, Chew and Pendreigh).
In South Africa, the Germiston Flying Club.

Production References

British Gliders and Sailplanes 1922-1970, Norman Ellison (Adam and Charles Black, 1970)
Air-Britain Archive 2013/1
Air-Britain Archive 2014/3
Sailplane and Glider 17 Jul 1931
Sailplane and Glider 11 Sep 1931
Flight 6 Mar 1931