Summary

After recounting some of man's earliest 'lighter than air' flights in hot air balloon ascents over the North West during the eighteenth century, followed by the later manufacture of airships either side of the First World War by Vickers Ltd. at Barrow-in-Furness, the Triplane to Typhoon story really gets under way with the establishment by A.V.Roe in Manchester in 1909/10 of a company to manufacture aeroplanes. A.V.Roe & Co. was the world's first company established exclusively for the manufacture of aeroplanes (initially Avro Triplanes) in series, i.e. in multiple units as distinct from 'one-offs' or amongst a range of other products.

The company's founder, Manchester-born Alliott Verdon Roe, was the first British person to fly an aeroplane of all-British design and construction, powered by a British engine, over British soil (Avro Triplane 1909). Roe participated in the Blackpool 'Flying Week' held at Squires Gate in October 1909, the world's second international aviation meeting after that held at Rheims in August. In July/August 1910, the Blackpool 'Flying Carnival' met with even greater success. The forthcoming centenaries of these two events, in 2009 and 2010, will in effect also celebrate the founding of the UK aircraft industry, now universally referred to as aerospace.

Roe's company grew rapidly in Manchester. Triplane to Typhoon contains a full-page photograph showing a Roe 'Type D' biplane under construction in 1912 in the basement of his original factory, Brownsfield Mill, in Ancoats, Manchester. Remarkably, this old former cotton mill dating back to 1825 still exists, making it possible to stand today in the same basement on the very spot from which the photograph was taken. From 1910 to the outbreak of the First World War, some 60 aircraft were built in factory or series production in the region, mainly by Avro in Manchester. By the time of the Armistice in 1918, the figure stood at 4,500, due principally to the vast number of Avro 504 military reconnaissance and trainer biplanes built in Avro's by then much expanded production capacity in Manchester. Avro 504s of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) made the world's first-ever strategic bombardment attack by a formation of aircraft when they damaged the Zeppelin sheds at Friedrichshafen in November 1914. Aircraft produced in the region also included the afore-mentioned airships, together with Sea Scout 'Blimps' constructed by Vickers at Barrow-in-Furness, where Barnes (later Sir Barnes) Wallis worked as a designer for a number of years. At Preston and Lytham, Messrs. Dick, Kerr (later the English Electric Co.) made coastal patrol flying boats for use by the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) in countering the U-boat threat. Aeroplanes such as BE2, DH4, DH9, DH10 and Bristol F.2B fighters and bombers were also made variously by Vulcan Engineering at Southport and in National Aircraft Factories hurriedly built for strategic purposes at Stockport and Aintree.

Assisted to some degree by the post-war growth of civil aviation, A.V.Roe & Co. remained in continuous production of aircraft throughout the lean years of the 1920s and '30s, notably producing civil and military trainers such as the Avro Tutor at a time when many other manufacturers closed down or suspended such operations. The biggest boost of all for the industry came during the Second World War however, when, under the direction of Roy (later Sir Roy) Dobson, Avro built over 7,000 Lancaster bombers, mostly in Lancashire and the North West. This aircraft, designed by Roy Chadwick, was immortalised by the raids on the U-boat diesel engine factory at Augsburg-Nurnberg in 1942 and on the Ruhr Dams in 1943. Indeed the only major components of the 19-strong force of Lancaster bombers used by the Dam Busters not made in the North West were their 76 Merlin engines, built in the USA by Packard under licence from Rolls-Royce. Even the so-called 'bouncing bombs', designed by Barnes Wallis, were made by Vickers at Barrow-in-Furness and the Royal Ordnance Factory at Chorley.

From around 1936 the region had participated in the Government Shadow Factory scheme to greatly expand production of aero-engines and aircraft by manufacturers including Vickers-Armstrongs, Bristol, Handley Page and Fairey. Large new factories were built for de Havilland Propellers at Lostock near Bolton and for the aero-engine makers Bristol at Clayton-le-Moors near Accrington, Rolls-Royce at Crewe and the Ford Motor Co. at Trafford Park. Vickers-Armstrongs built nearly 9,000 Wellington bombers in factories near Chester and Blackpool. English Electric, who reinstated aircraft production in 1939, built nearly 3,000 Handley Page Hampden and Halifax aircraft at Preston. Rootes turned out over 2,500 Bristol Blenheims and 1,000 Halifaxes at Speke, Fairey Aviation over 4,000 Battles, Fulmars, Barracudas, Halifaxes and Beaufighters at Stockport and Ringway. Metropolitan-Vickers made over 1,000 Lancasters at Trafford Park. Avro also built over 1,000 Blenheims at Manchester. A Government factory was built in the English Lake District at Windermere for Short Bros. as a manufacturing, assembly and repair facility for Sunderland flying boats. Altogether, Lancashire and the North West contributed some 30,000 aircraft to the war effort, with at least as many again being assembled at Speke, Hooton Park, Burtonwood and Warton from sets imported through Liverpool under Lend-Lease from the USA.

In certain respects, wartime dispersal of aircraft and aero-engine production under the Shadow Factory scheme continues to be reflected in the major locations of the industry today. The former Vickers-Armstrongs site near Chester, operated post-war by de Havilland and Hawker Siddeley, when it produced Vampires and Venoms, Comet jetliners, HS125 executive jets and Nimrods, is now the European centre of Airbus wing manufacture, including that for the A380 Superjumbo. The former Avro site at Woodford, in conjunction with a large factory at Chadderton, turned out Lincolns and Shackletons in the post-war years. These were followed by the legendary Avro Vulcan delta-wing jet bomber which, together with the Avro Blue Steel nuclear missile, was at the forefront of the RAF's nuclear deterrent force in the stand-off between the UK and NATO and the USSR and its Eastern Bloc satellites during the Cold War. Civil aircraft also featured prominently at Woodford with large-scale assembly of the Avro 748 feeder liner and HS146 regional jet. Today Woodford is operated by BAE Systems as the centre of manufacture and assembly of the Nimrod MRA4 maritime and reconnaissance aircraft.

Rolls-Royce today operates a major design, manufacture, R & D, gas turbine propulsion service and support facility at Barnoldswick, a centre of excellence for aero-engine wide-chord fan blade technology which traces its heritage back to links with Sir Frank Whittle and the early development of the jet engine and the strategic dispersal of the industry in 1940.

Samlesbury was the seat of production of Vampire jet fighters in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, followed by the world's first jet bomber, the English Electric Canberra, built to the designs of W.E.W. (Teddy) Petter. Then followed Petter's English Electric P.1, developed as the iconic Lightning under the direction of Freddie (later Sir Frederick) Page, the first - and last - fully supersonic (Mach 2+ in level flight) jet fighter of all-British design and manufacture. The Lightning was another stalwart defender of the UK during the Cold War when much of the RAF's 'Quick Reaction Alert' fighter and bomber forces comprised aircraft made in the region. The BAC TSR2, designed and built at Weybridge and Preston, flight tested at Boscombe Down and Warton by a team of test pilots led by the redoubtable Roland Beamont, was arguably the best military aircraft of all time never to see service, summarily cancelled amidst political and economic controversy in 1965. Yet its cancellation resulted in considerable redistribution of work within BAC nationally, bringing work on the Jet Provost, Concorde and British Phantom to Lancashire, followed internationally by the Anglo-French SEPECAT Jaguar programme. The increasing post-1960s European collaborative nature of the aircraft industry was demonstrated by the Panavia Tornado programme and remains so today with Eurofighter Typhoon. In total some 300 Jaguars and over 500 Tornados were fully built and assembled in Lancashire where BAE Systems have currently delivered around 40 of 232 Typhoons on order. Today, Lancashire-built Typhoons and Tornados of the RAF continue to maintain our front line defences, including intercepting aircraft intruding into UK airspace, just as their predecessor Lightnings did nearly 50 years ago.

The industry has a long history of securing major overseas export orders, notably from Saudi Arabia, for Lightning, Strikemaster, Tornado and currently Typhoon aircraft, many of which being the largest single export orders ever secured at the time. International partnerships, not only with European countries but also with the USA, have been reflected in the Hawk and Harrier programmes and currently with joint working between BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin on the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter. Work on these and many other future projects, notably Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs), continues at the BAE Systems manufacturing centre at Samlesbury, a site currently the subject of a 10-year £800 million investment programme, and the final assembly and flight test centre at Warton.

This brief synopsis is but an outline of the ground covered by Triplane to Typhoon. The book encapsulates the story of Lancashire and the North West at the forefront of every technological advance in nearly a century of aircraft development - a century that has seen some 50,000 aircraft built in the region. Today, a number of these aircraft can be seen on display at the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) in Manchester, the RAF Museum, the Brooklands Museum and in other air museums throughout the UK and overseas. The contribution made by the region's industry to military and civil aviation cannot be overstated and Triplane to Typhoon tells that story in the fast-moving dynamic context that has become synonymous with aerospace.