Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft

Sir W. G. Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft Company

Industry	Aviation
Fate	Merged with Gloster Aircraft Company & Hawker Aircraft
Successor	Hawker Siddeley
Founded	1912 (as Sir W. G. Armstrong Whitworth (Aerial Department))
Defunct	1961
Headquarters	Gosforth, Parkside, Whitley, Baginton, Bitteswell

Sir W. G. Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft Company, or Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft, was a British aircraft manufacturer.

History

Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft was established as the Aerial Department of the Sir W. G Armstrong Whitworth & Company engineering group in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1912, and from c. 1914 to 1917 employed the Dutch aircraft designer Frederick Koolhoven (hence the "F.K." models).

The last of 100 Gloster Meteor NF.14 night fighters built at AWAs factories for the Royal Air Force demonstrating at the 1954 Farnborough Air Show

In 1920, Armstrong Whitworth acquired the engine and automobile manufacturer Siddeley-Deasy. The engine and automotive businesses of both companies were spun off as Armstrong Siddeley and the aircraft interests as the Sir W. G. Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft Company. When Vickers and Armstrong Whitworth merged in 1927 to form Vickers-Armstrongs, Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft and Armstrong Siddeley were bought out by J. D. Siddeley and did not join the new grouping. This left two aircraft companies with Armstrong in the name - Vickers-Armstrongs (usually known as just "Vickers") and "Armstrong-Whitworth".

In 1935, J. D. Siddeley retired and Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft was purchased by Hawker Aircraft, the new group becoming Hawker Siddeley Aircraft. The component companies of Hawker Siddeley co-operated, but operated as individual entities.

During the 1950s Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft built many Gloster Meteor, Hawker Seahawk and Hawker Hunter jet fighters at their Bitteswell and Baginton factories for delivery to the Royal Air Force, the Royal Navy and the Royal Belgian Air Force.

The company was eventually merged with another Hawker Siddeley company, Gloster Aircraft Company, to form Whitworth Gloster Aircraft in 1961. In 1963 Hawker Siddeley dropped the names of the component companies from its products, the last Armstrong Whitworth product, the Argosy, becoming the Hawker Siddeley Argosy.

Products

Aircraft

Date of first flight in parenthesis.

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Armstrong Whitworth Aerial Department

• Armstrong Whitworth F.K.1 (1914) – "Sissit"
• Armstrong Whitworth F.K.3 (1915)
• Armstrong Whitworth F.K.6 (1916) – Escort fighter triplane
• Armstrong Whitworth F.K.8 (1916) – "Big Ack" (1,200 built)
• Armstrong Whitworth F.K.9 (1916)
• Armstrong Whitworth F.K.10 (1917) – "Quadriplane" (8 built)
• Armstrong Whitworth Armadillo
• Armstrong Whitworth Ara (1919)
• Armstrong Whitworth Tadpole
• Armstrong Whitworth Siskin (1919)

Armstrong-Siddeley Aircraft

• Armstrong-Siddeley Siniai (1921) – Bomber (1 built)

Armstrong-Whitworth Aircraft

• Armstrong Whitworth Awana (1923)
• Armstrong Whitworth Wolf (1923)
• Armstrong Whitworth Atlas (1925)
• Armstrong Whitworth Ajax (1925)
• Armstrong Whitworth A.W.14 Starling
• Armstrong Whitworth Ape (1926)
• Armstrong Whitworth Argosy (1926)
• Armstrong Whitworth A.W.16
• Armstrong Whitworth A.W.17 Aries (1930)
• Armstrong Whitworth A.W.15 Atalanta (1932)
• Armstrong Whitworth A.W.19 (1934)
• Armstrong Whitworth A.W.23 (1935)
• Armstrong Whitworth A.W.29 (1936) - competing design for Specification P.27/32 for a day bomber
• Armstrong Whitworth A.W.35 Scimitar (1935)
• Armstrong Whitworth A.W.38 Whitley (1936)
• Armstrong Whitworth A.W.27 Ensign (1938)
• Armstrong Whitworth A.W.41 Albemarle (1940)
• Armstrong Whitworth A.W.52 (1947) – flying wing, prototype only
  

  Privately owned Gloster Meteor NF11 in 2005. Built by Armstrong Whitworth in 1952 at their Baginton (Coventry) factory.
• Armstrong Whitworth Apollo (1949)
• Armstrong Whitworth Argosy (AW.650 / 660) (1959)
• Armstrong Whitworth AW.681 – proposed STOL military transport aircraft design
• Armstrong Whitworth AW.169 – proposed design for Operational Requirement F.155 high altitude supersonic interceptor
• Armstrong Whitworth AW.171 – supersonic VTOL flying wing
• Hawker Sea Hawk – produced as part of Hawker Siddeley Aircraft
• Armstrong Whitworth Meteor NF.11 – redesign of the Gloster Meteor produced as part of Hawker Siddeley Aircraft

Airships

• R25r airship
• R29 – airship
• R33 – airship

Missiles

• Sea Slug missile

See also

• Aerospace industry in the United Kingdom

External links

• British Aircraft Directory entry
• The History of Sir W. G. Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft Limited