Austin A.F.T.3 (Osprey)

History

By 1918, when the First World War began, the search for a viable successor to the classic Sopwith Camel biplane had begun. The camel appeared in June 1917, and by wartime standards, it had a long life in the face of ever-changing air combat techniques and tactics. The Austin Osprey was a single-seat triplane that was developed hoping to follow an established design, but ultimately lost out to the Sopwith Snipers, nearly 500 of which were produced from 1918.

Only one Osprey prototype was built by the Austin Motor Company, and the design was quickly forgotten.

The original request was made by the British authorities in 1917 (norm A.1.A) and called for a single seat double gun mount to replace the ancient camel. At this point in the war, the Austin Motor Company, like the rest of British industry, was already helping the war by producing aircraft designs from other companies to meet demand.

When the specification came out, Austin decided to try to design and develop a suitable fighter. The result was the A.F.T. 3 "Osprey", of which three prototypes were ordered.

Interestingly, the engineers opted for a three-wing arrangement instead of the standard two-wing common to many fighter jets of the era.

Overall, Osprey employs a proven structure from the inside out, as well as traditional design techniques that barely stand out from the competition. Dimensions include a length of 17.6 feet, a wingspan of 23 feet and a height of 18.7 feet. The kerb weight is 500kg and the loaded weight is 860kg. Power is provided by a nose-mounted 230 hp Bentley BR2 series rotary engine driving a two-bladed wooden propeller.

Performance specs include a top speed of 119 mph, a service ceiling of 19,000 feet and up to three hours of air endurance. The three wing arrangements are all of equal span, with forward sloping and parallel strut works.

Armament is usually a pairing of 2 x. The 303 Vickers machine gun is located in a fixed forward firing position above the nose and fires synchronously through rotating propeller blades. Another interesting feature of the Osprey is the installation of a third machine gun, a Lewis machine gun mounted in the center section of the central wing assembly.

Furthermore, this setup is trainable to a certain extent, but its flexibility does not contribute much.

In February 1918, as the war raged, the first test flight of the Osprey prototype took place over the next few weeks. In its current form, the Osprey can't compete with a fast twin-blade sniper (using the same engine) in terms of performance.

Its three-blade layout created drag while providing increased agility at a time when speed was the norm in fighter jets. As a result, the Osprey never passed the prototype stage, and its two remaining prototypes were never built.

Specification

Basic

Production

Roles

Dimensions

Weight

Performance

Performance

Externally, the VC10 followed well-accepted commercial airliner design which included a tubular, aerodynamically-refined fuselage, a well-forward flight deck, low-mounted swept-back monoplane wings and a high "T" style tail unit. Engines numbered four and these were fitted as paired nacelles along either side of the rear fuselage. Dorsal strakes were noted along the main wing surfaces. Vision out of the cockpit was relatively good with a multi-paned window arrangement. The undercarriage included two main legs with four wheels each and a two-wheeled nose leg.

Cabin entry was through doors fitted at the fuselage sides. Original cockpits were naturally dotted with needle gauges and seated the two pilots side-by-side with a center console in between. Two additional crew could be located just aft of these primary seating positions.

A complete VC10 crew was four plus three cabin attendants and passenger capacity totaled approximately 151 persons (for commercial passenger-hauling versions).

Today (Sep 2013), with increasing use of the Airbus A330-200 Multi-Role Tanker Transport (MRTT), the RAF has elected to retire its entire fleet of VC10 aircraft with a few examples being ferried to final destinations to live out their days as museum showpieces. The MRTT aircraft, designated by the RAF as "Voyager", are detailed elsewhere on this site and will be joined in retirement by the aged fleet of Lockheed L1101 TriStar aircraft scheduled for retirement in March of 2014.

The final flight of a RAF VC10 occurred on September 25th, 2013. During her 47 years of service, the VC10 formed an important logistical portion of British military operations, particularly in its aerial refueling tanker role.

Qatar became the only other notable military operator of the VC10 series while there proved a surprising plethora of civilian operators: Bahrain, Ceylon, East African Community, Ghana, Lebanon, Malawi, Nigeria, Oman, Sri Lanka and the United Arab Emirates. Qatar and the UK, therefore, became both military and civil operators of the VC10 while the UK, Ghana and East African Airways hold their place in history as the original launch customers of the VC10 line.

Vickers VC10 Specification

BASICS

MANUFACTURING

ROLES

DIMENSIONS

WEIGHTS

POWER

PERFORMANCE

ARMAMENT

VARIANTS

Changes