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The Bristol Brabazon Was a Pretty Piece of Useless Scrap

15 points by smacktoward 7y ago

benj111 7y ago
So why not refit it to provide more seating? If it was a hit at air shows there must have been a halo around the 'brand', so why not take advantage by going down market.
- Theodores 7y ago
  The article did not say anything about its performance. It was under-powered although not to 'Spruce Goose' levels of barely getting off the ground. If you ignore the performance then it seems like a nice posh plane, throw in some commercial acumen and knowledge of flight and the plane was an obvious lemon. But at least they tried. Plus so much came out of Filton over the years - Concorde being the example - that this public works programme can be considered to have given the taxpayer value for money. As per your original comment, putting more seats in was a non-starter. The plane took considerably longer to travel distance so it needed ocean liner rather than Ryan Air comfort extras. Other planes, e.g. from Pan Am, also had the luxury features and there was no down-market in the early days of aviation.
- smacktoward 7y ago
  By the time the Brabazon came to market, there were no shortage of competitive offerings available: the Douglas DC-6, the Boeing 377, the Lockheed Constellation, for instance. These could all haul at least 2 times as many passengers over comparable ranges at significantly higher cruising speeds. And you wouldn't have to wait for Bristol to refit the Brabazon, you could buy any of those planes right away. The idea of luxury accommodation for a small number of passengers was really the only "unique selling point" the Brabazon had going for it. Once it became clear nobody actually wanted that, it was just a plane that was worse at doing the things people did want than all of its competition.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  They did. With a smaller aircraft, the Britannia, which went on to be successful and a regular sight well into the seventies. That also got to benefit from the brand new, huge hangars and new runways at Filton created for the Brabazon. There was already a turboprop Brabazon in progress, but that wasn't pursued to prototype. Both suffered from the arrival of jets with the DH Comet in 1949. Prop or turboprop for long haul was done, so it was never going to be quite what might have been expected in 1944.
  - smacktoward 7y ago
    The Britannia wasn't a further development of the Brabazon, it was a separate project developed to address a different design category called for by the Brabazon Committee -- what the committee called a "Type III" design, as opposed to the Brabazon, a "Type I". (The Comet was also developed to fill one of the committee's categories, Type IV.)
    - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
      Hmm, I thought that was a cancelled Avro. Britannia only coming into being after it had been cancelled and put out again. Course I may well have blurred the timeline too. :) Edit: Yeah, Avro 690, which became Avro 693 with Avons by time of cancellation in 47. Spec 2.47 was Britannia, which was indeed type III not type I, so I'd muddled the timeline too.
- Animats 7y ago
  Because, weight. Before jets, aircraft were weight-limited, rather than volume-limited. It took 8 engines, with a total of 144 cylinders, to get this thing off the ground. That's not the record; the more successful B-36 Peacemaker, from the same period, had six piston engines, with 168 cylinders total, plus four jet engines. Here's the famous B-36 takeoff sequence from "Strategic Air Command", starring Jimmy Stewart.[1] Those were the last of the giant piston powered planes. The successful Douglas DC-7 was reasonably large (105 passengers) by the standards of the time, but even a B-727 was much bigger. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FJVxtTNjJk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FJVxtTNjJk
  - PhantomGremlin 7y ago
    Thanks for posting that link. The B-36 is magnificent from an engineering standpoint. The film did an outstanding job of capturing that. Amazing how risky things were. These guys had parachutes on the whole time.
Animats 7y ago
Oh, the legroom![1] [1] https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/images/6/6a/Im1951EnV192-p157.jpg https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/images/6/6a/Im1951EnV192-p157....

15 points by smacktoward 7y ago

So why not refit it to provide more seating? If it was a hit at air shows there must have been a halo around the 'brand', so why not take advantage by going down market.

Theodores 7y ago
The article did not say anything about its performance. It was under-powered although not to 'Spruce Goose' levels of barely getting off the ground. If you ignore the performance then it seems like a nice posh plane, throw in some commercial acumen and knowledge of flight and the plane was an obvious lemon. But at least they tried. Plus so much came out of Filton over the years - Concorde being the example - that this public works programme can be considered to have given the taxpayer value for money. As per your original comment, putting more seats in was a non-starter. The plane took considerably longer to travel distance so it needed ocean liner rather than Ryan Air comfort extras. Other planes, e.g. from Pan Am, also had the luxury features and there was no down-market in the early days of aviation.
smacktoward 7y ago
By the time the Brabazon came to market, there were no shortage of competitive offerings available: the Douglas DC-6, the Boeing 377, the Lockheed Constellation, for instance. These could all haul at least 2 times as many passengers over comparable ranges at significantly higher cruising speeds. And you wouldn't have to wait for Bristol to refit the Brabazon, you could buy any of those planes right away. The idea of luxury accommodation for a small number of passengers was really the only "unique selling point" the Brabazon had going for it. Once it became clear nobody actually wanted that, it was just a plane that was worse at doing the things people did want than all of its competition.
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
They did. With a smaller aircraft, the Britannia, which went on to be successful and a regular sight well into the seventies. That also got to benefit from the brand new, huge hangars and new runways at Filton created for the Brabazon. There was already a turboprop Brabazon in progress, but that wasn't pursued to prototype. Both suffered from the arrival of jets with the DH Comet in 1949. Prop or turboprop for long haul was done, so it was never going to be quite what might have been expected in 1944.
- smacktoward 7y ago
  The Britannia wasn't a further development of the Brabazon, it was a separate project developed to address a different design category called for by the Brabazon Committee -- what the committee called a "Type III" design, as opposed to the Brabazon, a "Type I". (The Comet was also developed to fill one of the committee's categories, Type IV.)
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    Hmm, I thought that was a cancelled Avro. Britannia only coming into being after it had been cancelled and put out again. Course I may well have blurred the timeline too. :) Edit: Yeah, Avro 690, which became Avro 693 with Avons by time of cancellation in 47. Spec 2.47 was Britannia, which was indeed type III not type I, so I'd muddled the timeline too.
Animats 7y ago
Because, weight. Before jets, aircraft were weight-limited, rather than volume-limited. It took 8 engines, with a total of 144 cylinders, to get this thing off the ground. That's not the record; the more successful B-36 Peacemaker, from the same period, had six piston engines, with 168 cylinders total, plus four jet engines. Here's the famous B-36 takeoff sequence from "Strategic Air Command", starring Jimmy Stewart.[1] Those were the last of the giant piston powered planes. The successful Douglas DC-7 was reasonably large (105 passengers) by the standards of the time, but even a B-727 was much bigger. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FJVxtTNjJk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FJVxtTNjJk
- PhantomGremlin 7y ago
  Thanks for posting that link. The B-36 is magnificent from an engineering standpoint. The film did an outstanding job of capturing that. Amazing how risky things were. These guys had parachutes on the whole time.

Animats 7y ago

Oh, the legroom![1] [1] https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/images/6/6a/Im1951EnV192-p157.jpg https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/images/6/6a/Im1951EnV192-p157....