Avro (an initialism of the founder's name, A.V. Roe) was a British aircraft manufacturer. Its designs include the Avro 504, used as a trainer in the First World War, the Avro Lancaster, one of the pre-eminent bombers of the Second World War, and the delta wing Avro Vulcan, a stalwart of the Cold War.
Avro was founded in 1910 by Alliott Verdon Roe at the Brownsfield Mill on Great Ancoats Street in Manchester. The company remained based primarily in Lancashire throughout its 53 years of existence, with key development and manufacturing sites in Alexandra Park, Chadderton, Trafford Park, and Woodford, Greater Manchester. The company was merged into Hawker Siddeley Aviation in 1963, although the Avro name has been used for some aircraft since then.
History
Early history
One of the world's first aircraft builders, A.V. Roe and Company was established on 1 January 1910 at Brownsfield Mill, Great Ancoats Street, Manchester, by Alliott Verdon Roe and his brother Humphrey Verdon Roe."Alliott Verdon-Roe." verdon-roe.co.uk. Retrieved: 5 April 2010. Humphrey's contribution was chiefly financial and organizational; funding it from the earnings of the family webbing business and acting as managing director until he joined the RFC in 1917."H.V. Roe." Flight, 4 August 1949, p. 145. Alliot had already constructed a successful aircraft, the Roe I Triplane, named The Bullseye after a brand of braces manufactured by Humphrey. The railway arch where A.V. Roe in 1909 built and achieved the first all-British powered flight still stands in the Lee Valley Park on the Walthamstow Marshes in north-east London. In 1911, Roy Chadwick began work as Alliott's personal assistant and the firm's draughtsman and, in 1918, he was appointed Chief Designer.
The first Avro aircraft to be produced in any quantity was the Avro E or Avro 500, first flown in March 1912, of which 18 were manufactured, most for the newly formed Royal Flying Corps. The company also built the world's first aircraft with enclosed crew accommodation in 1912, the monoplane Type F and the biplane Avro Type G in 1912, neither progressing beyond the prototype stage. The Type 500 was developed into the Avro 504, first flown in September 1913. A small number were bought by the War Office before the outbreak of World War I, and the type saw some front-line service in the early months of the war, but it is best known as a training aircraft, serving in that role until 1933. Production lasted 20 years and totalled 8,340 aircraft from several factories: Hamble, Failsworth, Miles Platting and Newton Heath.
Interwar years After the boom in orders during the First World War, the lack of new work in peacetime caused severe financial problems and in August 1920, 68.5% of the company's shares were acquired by nearby Crossley Motors which had an urgent need for more factory space for automotive vehicle body building.Eyre, M., Chris Heaps and Alan Townsin. Crossley. Hersham, Surrey, UK: OPC Railprint, 2002. .
In 1924, the company left Alexandra Park Aerodrome in south Manchester where test flying had taken place since 1918; the site was used for a mixture of recreation and housing development. A rural site to the south of the city was found at New Hall Farm, Woodford in Cheshire, which continued to be used by aviation company BAE Systems until March 2011; the site has now been earmarked for a mixed use development.
In 1928 Crossley Motors sold AVRO to Armstrong Siddeley Holdings Ltd. In 1928 A.V. Roe resigned from the company he had founded and formed the Saunders-Roe company, which after World War II developed several radical designs for combat jets, and, eventually, a range of powerful hovercraft.
In 1935 Avro became a subsidiary of Hawker Siddeley.
Second World War
Maintaining their skills in designing trainer aircraft, the company built a more robust biplane called the Avro Tutor in the 1930s which the Royal Air Force (RAF) also bought in quantity. A twin piston-engined airliner called the Anson followed but as tensions rose again in Europe the firm's emphasis returned to combat aircraft. The Avro Manchester, Lancaster, and Lincoln were particularly famous Avro designs. Over 7,000 Lancasters were built and their bombing capabilities led to their use in the famous Dam Busters raid. Of the total, nearly half were built at Avro's Woodford (Stockport) and Chadderton (Oldham) sites, with some 700 Lancasters built at the Avro "shadow" factory next to Leeds Bradford Airport (formerly Yeadon Aerodrome), northwest Leeds. This factory employed 17,500 workers at a time when the population of Yeadon was just 10,000. It was the largest building in Europe at the time, at , and its roof was disguised by the addition of fields and hedges to hide it from enemy planes. The old taxiway from the factory to the runway is still evident.
The Avro Lancaster carried the heaviest bomb loads of the war, including the Grand Slam bomb.
Postwar developments
The civilian Lancastrian and maritime reconnaissance Shackleton were derived from the successful Lancaster design. The Tudor was a pressurised but problematic post-war Avro airliner which faced strong competition from designs by Bristol, Canadair, Douglas, Handley Page, and Lockheed. With the same wings and engines as the Lincoln, it achieved only a short (34 completed) production run following a first flight in June 1945 and the cancellation of an order from BOAC. The older Avro York was somewhat more successful in both the RAF and in commercial service, being distinguished by a fuselage square in cross-section. Both Tudors and Yorks played an important humanitarian part in the Berlin Airlift.
The postwar Vulcan bomber, originally designed as a nuclear-strike aircraft, was used to maintain the British nuclear deterrent, armed with the Avro Blue Steel stand-off nuclear bomb. The Vulcan saw service as a conventional bomber during the British campaign to recapture the Falkland Islands in 1982. Several Vulcans are prized as museum exhibits.
A twin turboprop airliner, the Avro 748, was developed during the 1950s and sold widely to airlines and governments across the globe, powered by two Rolls-Royce Dart engines. The RAF bought 6 for use by the Queen's Flight and a variant with a rear-loading ramp and a "kneeling" main undercarriage was sold to the RAF (31 aircraft) as the Andover.
Avro regional jets
The Avro name would subsequently be resurrected by British Aerospace when this aircraft manufacturer renamed its BAe 146 family of regional jetliners as Avro regional jets (Avro RJ). Three differently sized versions of the four engine jetliner were produced: the Avro RJ70, the Avro RJ85 and the largest example, the Avro RJ100.
Avro Canada
In 1945, Hawker Siddeley Group purchased the former Victory Aircraft firm in Malton, Ontario, and renamed the operation A.V. Roe Canada Limited.Campagna 2003, p. 19. Commonly known as Avro Canada, it was actually a subsidiary of the Hawker Siddeley Group and used the Avro name for trading purposes.
Amalgamation When the company was absorbed into Hawker Siddeley Aviation in July 1963 following the 1957 Defence White Paper, the Avro name ceased to be used. The brand still had a strong heritage appeal, and as mentioned above the marketing name "Avro RJ" (regional jet) was used by British Aerospace from 1994 to 2001 for production of the RJ70, RJ85 and RJ100 models which were respectively based on the BAe 146-100, BAe 146-200 and BAe 146-300. This four engine jet aircraft type is sometimes also loosely called the "Avro 146".
The BAe ATP (Advanced Turbo Prop) design evolved from the Avro 748 and examples continue in use on shorter, mainly domestic, scheduled air services. A few Avro 504s, Tutors, Ansons and Lancasters are maintained in flying condition. At 39 years, the Shackleton held the distinction of being the aircraft with the longest period of active RAF service, until overtaken by the English Electric Canberra in 1998.
Avro aeroplanes
Roe I Biplane Roe I Triplane Roe II Triplane (Also known as the Mercury) Roe III Triplane Roe IV Triplane Avro Type D Avro Curtiss type (Also known as the Lakes Water Bird) Avro Duigan Avro 500 (Type E) Roe-Burga monoplane Avro Type F Avro Type G Avro 501 (Type H) Avro 502 Avro 503 (Type H) Avro 504 Avro 508 Avro 510 Avro 511 Avro 514 Avro 519 Avro 521 Avro 523 Pike Avro 527 Avro 528 Avro 529 Avro 530 Avro 531 Spider Avro 533 Manchester Avro 534 Baby Avro 536 Avro 538 Avro 539 Avro 540 Avro 543 Baby Avro 545 Avro 546 Avro 547 Avro 548 Tourist Avro 549 Aldershot Avro 551 Avro 552 Avro 554 Avro 555 Bison Avro 557 Ava Avro 558 Avro 560 Avro 561 Andover Avro 562 Avis Avro 563 Avro 566 Avenger Avro 567 Avenger II Avro 571 Buffalo Avro 572 Buffalo II Avro 581 Avian Avro 582 Avro 584 Avocet Avro 585 Avro 594 Avian Avro 604 Antelope Avro 616 Sports Avian Avro 618 Ten Avro 619 Five Avro 621 Tutor Avro 623 Avro 624 Six Avro 625 Avian Monoplane Avro 626 Avro 627 Mailplane Avro 631 Cadet Avro 637 Avro 638 Club Cadet (1933) Avro 641 Commodore (1935) Avro 642 Eighteen Avro 643 Cadet Avro 646 Sea Tutor Avro 652 Avro 652A Anson (1935) Avro 654 Avro 661 Avro 667 Avro 674 – 24 modernised Hawker Audaxes built for the Egyptian government. Avro 679 Manchester (1939) Avro 683 Lancaster (1941) Avro Lancaster PA474 List of Avro Lancaster operators List of surviving Avro Lancasters Avro 685 York (1942) Avro 688 Tudor (1945) Avro 689 Tudor Avro 691 Lancastrian (1943) Avro 694 Lincoln (1944) Avro 695 Lincolnian (1949) Avro 696 Shackleton (1949) Avro 698 Vulcan (1952) Avro Vulcan XH558 Avro Vulcan XM655 Avro 701 Athena (1948) Avro 707 (1949) Avro 706 Ashton (1950) Avro 748 (1960) – became the HS 748 and BAe 748, developed as the Hawker Siddeley Andover (HS.780), and later as the BAe ATP
Unbuilt projects
Avro 505 – skipped Avro 506/Type J – twin-float pusher seaplane gun carrier Avro 507 – reserved for a set of mailplanes Avro 509 – originally for a set of tanks and struts for the Walsh flying boat; re-used for unbuilt proposed twin-engine tractor biplane seaplane Avro 512 – land-based single-engine biplane Avro 513 – proposed twin-engine tractor biplane seaplane Avro 515 – biplane Avro 516 – tractor monoplane Avro 517 – biplane version of Type 516 Avro 518 – single-seat tractor aircraft Avro 520 – single-seat landplane for RNAS Avro 522 – modified Type 519 with larger but equal-span wings Avro 524 – scout aircraft Avro 525 – single-seat ground attack aircraft for spec. AM Class II Avro 526 – Type 525 with monoplane tail Avro 535 – long-range biplane to compete for the "Daily Mail" transatlantic prize Avro 537 – 10-passenger biplane airliner Avro 541 – twin-float reconnaissance seaplane for RAF spec. XXI Avro 542 – projected 6-seat airliner Avro 544 – two-seat version of Type 534 Avro 550 – proposed reconnaissance triplane for spec. 37/22 Avro 550 – projected three-engine 15-passenger European transport for spec. 40/22 Avro 553 – proposed version of Type 548 with enclosed cabin Avro 556 – single-engine torpedo bomber design for spec. 16/22; developed into Type 557 Avro 557 – single-seat, single-engine monoplane Avro 559 – single-seat light monoplane for the Lympne Trials, not built; replaced by Type 560 Avro 564 – two-seat monoplane fighter with thick section elliptical wing Avro 565 – Type 564 with Napier Lion engine Avro 568 – all-metal single-seat fighter Avro 569 – Avenger with RAF.30 section wings, not built Avro 573 – commercial trimotor biplane to spec. 26/24 for Imperial Airways Avro 577 – general purpose land-based biplane Avro 578 – seaplane version of Type 577 Avro 579 – Avis with RAF.15 section wings Avro 580 – private venture trimotor biplane heavy bomber Avro 583 – Avenger II with Napier Lion IX engine Avro 588 – Avian modified as monoplane racer Avro 589 – floatplane version of Avian Avro 590 – two-seat Army co-operation biplane to Australian spec Avro 591 – two-seat fighter version of Type 590 Avro 592 – seaplane version of Type 590