Bristol Berkeley

Berkeley
Role	Bomber
National origin	United Kingdom
Manufacturer	The Bristol Aeroplane Co. Ltd
Designer	W.T.Reid
First flight	5 March 1925
Number built	3

The Bristol Berkeley was built to a British government specification for a single-engine day or night bomber. Three of these two-seat biplanes were built, but no contract for further production was awarded.

Development

In August 1923, British aircraft manufacturers were invited to submit designs to

unstaggered wings with Frise-type ailerons on the upper and lower planes. Structurally, the wings were of rolled steel and duralumin.^[1]

The

interplane struts and braced to the fuselage.^[1]

The 650 hp (490 kW) Condor engine drove a two-blade propeller and had, after some

Leitner-Watts Metal airscrews were required for the second and third machine. The first Berkeley flew on 5 March 1925.^[1]

The Type 90 Berkeley was the first Bristol aircraft to receive a type number at the start of its design rather than retrospectively.[1]

Operational history

The first Berkeley was accepted for trials at

Avro Aldershot that single-engine aircraft were not suitable for night-bombing. In the end, therefore the only successful contender was the Horsley, chosen for the day-bomber role.^[1]

The second Berkeley was accepted by the Air Ministry in December 1925 and the all-metal third one in the following June. All three went to the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) for experimental flight. The second aircraft undertook comparative trials of a four-blade wooden airscrew against its original two-blade steel one. One of the three Berkeleys was still flying with the RAE at the end of 1930.^[1]

Specifications

Data from Barnes 1964, p. 188

General characteristics

Crew: two
Length: 47 ft 6 in (14.048 m)
Wingspan: 57 ft 11 in (17.65 m)
Height: 14 ft 0 in (4.27 m)
Wing area: 985 sq ft (91.5 m²)
Empty weight: 5,200 lb (2,360 kg)
Gross weight: 8,128 lb (4,140 kg)
Powerplant: 1 ×
Rolls-Royce Condor III
water-cooled V-12 , 650 hp (485 kW)

Performance

Maximum speed: 120 mph (193 km/h, 100 kn)
Endurance: 12 hours

Armament

1 × 0.303 in (7.7 mm) Lewis gun in rear cockpit
500 lb (227 kg) bomb load

References

Citations

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Barnes 1964, pp. 186–8

Bibliography

Barnes, C.H. (1964). Bristol Aircraft since 1910. London: Putnam Publishing.
ISBN 0-370-00015-3
.

[Barnes-1] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Barnes 1964, pp. 186–8

[1]