Handley Page Slots
Tests have been made in the NACA 7 by 10 foot wind tunnel on a Clark Y wing model equipped with various lengths of Handley Page slots extending inward from the wing tips. The slot lengths tested ranged from 20 to 100 per cent of the semi span. The wings are fitted with the famous Handley Page slots, which add so much to safety in flying. The body of the machine is of almost circular cross section in shape and is in two parts. The front portion, which is metal-covered, contains the passengers’ saloons, the pilots’ cockpit and the luggage compartment.
| Type A | ||
| Type B | ||
| Type C | ||
| Type D | ||
| Type E | ||
| Type F | ||
| Type G | ||
| Type L | ||
| Type O | ||
| Type R | ||
| Type S | ||
| Type T | Hanley | torpedo bomber |
| Type Ta | Hendon | torpedo bomber |
| Type V | ||
| Type W | biplane airliner | |
| Type X | ||
| HP.1 | ||
| HP.2 | ||
| HP.3 | ||
| HP.4 | ||
| HP.5 | ||
| HP.6 | ||
| HP.7 | ||
| HP.8 | ||
| HP.11 | ||
| HP.12 | ||
| HP.13 | ||
| HP.14 | ||
| HP.15 | ||
| HP.16 | ||
| HP.17 | ||
| HP.18 | W.8 | biplane airliner |
| HP.19 | Hanley | torpedo bomber |
| HP.20 | ||
| HP.21 | ||
| HP.22 | ||
| HP.23 | ||
| HP.24 | ||
| HP.25 | Hendon | torpedo bomber |
| HP.26 | ||
| HP.27 | ||
| HP.28 | Handcross | |
| HP.30 | ||
| HP.31 | Harrow | |
| HP.32 | ||
| HP.33 | Hinaidi | 2-engine bomber |
| HP.34 | ||
| HP.35 | ||
| HP.36 | Hinaidi II | 2-engine bomber |
| HP.37 | ||
| HP.38 | Heyford | 2-engine biplane bomber |
| HP.39 | Gugnunc | |
| HP.42 | ||
| HP.43 | ||
| HP.44 | ||
| HP.45 | ||
| HP.46 | ||
| HP.47 | ||
| HP.50 | ||
| HP.51 | ||
| HP.52 | Hampden | |
| HP.53 | ||
| HP.54 | Harrow | |
| HP.55 | ||
| HP.56 | ||
| HP.57 | Vulture | bomber |
| HP.58 | Halifax | heavy bomber |
| HP.59 | ||
| HP.60 | Marathon | passenger light transport |
| HP.61 | ||
| HP.62 | ||
| HP.63 | ||
| HP.64 | ||
| HP.65 | ||
| HP.66 | ||
| HP.67 | Hastings | Transport |
| HP.68 | ||
| HP.69 | ||
| HP.70 | ||
| HP.71 | ||
| HP.72 | ||
| HP.73 | ||
| HP.74 | ||
| HP.75 | Manx | experimental aircraft |
| HP.79 | ||
| HP.80 | Victor | Strategic Bomber |
| HP.81 | Hermes | civilian airliner |
| HP.82 | ||
| HP.87 | ||
| HP.88 | ||
| HP.89 | ||
| HP.90 | ||
| HP.91 | ||
| HP.92 | ||
| HP.93 | ||
| HP.94 | ||
| HP.95 | ||
| HP.96 | ||
| HP.97 | ||
| HP.98 | ||
| HP.100 | ||
| HP.101 | ||
| HP.103 | ||
| HP.104 | ||
| HP.111 | ||
| HP.114 | ||
| HP.115 | ||
| HP.123 | ||
| HP.124 | ||
| HP.125 | ||
| HP.127 | ||
| HP.130 | ||
| HP.132 | ||
| HP.133 | ||
| HP.137 | Jetstream | Regional Airliner |
| H.P.R.1 | Marathon | passenger light transport |
| H.P.R.7 | Herald | Regional Airliner |
| V/1500 | 4-engine biplane bomber |
By then, however, he had begun to learn about aviation. Seized with enthusiasm, he took to carrying out experiments at his place of employment that had nothing to do with the task at hand—which soon got him fired. He started working on his own in a shed, carving wooden propellers for aircraft and building an airplane that a fellow aviation enthusiast had designed. In June 1909, he turned his shed into the firm of Handley Page, Ltd. This was Great Britain's first publicly traded aircraft manufacturing corporation.
From the very inception of his firm Mr. Handley Page pinned his faith to the future of the large aeroplane. Handley-Page built a succession of biplanes and monoplanes. Then in August 1914, Britain entered World War I. He approached the Admiralty and offered to provide planes for the Navy. A senior official took him up on his offer and asked him to create 'a bloody paralyzer of an airplane' to hurl back the Germans. This led to the development of the twin-engine 0/100 bomber, which first flew late in 1915.
The 0/100 started the company on its way. Built as a biplane, it led to two larger successors: the 0/400 and the V/1500. The 0/400 was selected for production in the United States. The V/1500 was one of the first four-engine aircraft. Weighing 15 tons when fully loaded, it was built to bomb Berlin. The first of them entered service late in 1918, but the war ended just before they began to carry out their raids.
The first Handley Page bombing machines did not make their appearance until December, 1915, and it was not until August of the following year that the first squadron of the O-400 type was formed at Dunkirk. From that date until the conclusion of hostilities, all heavy night bombing on the Western Front was performed with these machines. The Handley-Page O-400 was one of the largest machines built to date. It carries its two 12-cylinder RollsRoyce engines in small nacelles between the main planes, and it can be recognized by these and its biplane tail. Many of these big bombing planes were designed for long distance work either by day or by night, and so they have been made enormous weight-lifters, with large supporting surfaces, two or more engines, and equipped with a fuel supply sufficient for long runs. The British Avro, for instance, is a huge biplane with three fuselages and two rotary engines. Its upper and lower wings are equal in span, and it can readily be distinguished from the British Handley-Page, whose upper wing has a large overhang.
Although the exploit of a Handley-Page machine in flying from England to Constantinople in order to bomb the Goeben will live as one of the most brilliant exploits of the war, the truth is that a huge flying machine has not the radius of a Zeppelin. It was only after 're-coaling' as it were, only after alighting several times, that the Handley-Page was able to reach Constantinople and to carry a great load of spare parts and tools.
During the Great War the US Army purchased the English Handley-Page O/400 and Italian Caproni designs for construction by US builders with Liberty 12-A engines in place of the original engines. Although the Handley-Page O-400 and Caproni planes remained in the US program, production was delayed. Both these types of bombing planes were included in the modified recommendations of the Joint Army and Navy Technical Board, on November 21, 1917, and these recommendations were approved by the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy. On January 25, 1918, a resolution recommending a contract for Handley-Page planes with the Standard Aero Corporation was tabled by the Aircraft Board, in view of the fact that such an order might interfere with work already undertaken by the company. On February 8th the Board discussed the advisability of concentrating upon the manufacture of a single type of night bomber, and it was stated that due to the lack of history as to the comparative performance of the Handley Page and Caproni. the decision had been made to put both types into production in the United States.
The first Handley-Page plane assembled in this country was flown in the early part of July 1918. The huge machine was christened the Langley after one of the early experimenters with the heavier-than-air machine. It had a wing span of 100 feet, and a central fuselage 63 feet long. Small armored nacelles at either side of the fuselage carried its two 400 horsepower Liberty motors, each turning a separate propeller. Laden with its full supply of bombs, its two Browning machine guns and fuel for a long run, this giant of the skies weighs about 9,000 pounds.
There was little further demand for bombers after the war, but Handley Page found new opportunities in carrying passengers. London and Paris were two of Europe's largest cities and were only about 200 miles (322 kilometers) apart. But the journey required the inconvenience of a transfer from a train to a boat for the trip across the English Channel and then a transfer back to a train to get from the coast to London. Moreover, the war had severely damaged the railroads in northern France. However, the distance between these cities was well within the range of the aircraft of the day.
The V-1500 type was designed originally to bomb Berlin, but was being adapted for commercial use. One of these machines had carried forty-one passengers to a height of 8000 feet. One of the largest airplanes in the world, the new super Handley-Page could carry a total weight of nearly three tons, and the pilot had a six hours' supply of petrol. It was with this type of machine that the London to Paris service was to be established, comparing favorably with the present railway and steamboat service. A London-to-Rome service in twelve hours also will be started. With the project of trans-Atlantic airplane flights between England and America rapidly materializing, plans were complete for regular aerial passenger service between London and Paris and other European capitals. The V/1500 was too large for commercial use, but it had attractive design elements. These went into a modified 0/400, the W.8, which became the company's standard.
The 0/400 had a fuselage that was large enough for passengers. Several of them became airliners with minimal modification, while the new firm of Handley Page Transport, which opened in 1919, became one of the world's first airlines. Private enterprise in the shape of the Handley-Page London-Paris commercial air service, which started on 25 August 1919, marked another milestone, on the road to British aerial development. This was an 'express' trial flight, with 15 persons on board. A week later the Handley-Page service was established on regular lines, and public interest in aviation was at once greatly stimulated. Thus the United Kingdom claims the credit of being the first country to start regular international air services. The first machine of the regular service carried 7 passengers and 300 pounds of freight, the full accommodation providing for 10 passengers and 600 pounds of freight.
Airco machines were likewise doing the London-Paris route; and, as a result of these two regular services, already a certain amount of competition is reported in air rates. The HandleynPage service charges $0.60, against $1.60 per pound of freight by the Airco company; but it is claimed that the Airco machines, being faster than the Handley-Page, will be able to do the trip on a larger percentage of days. A very good impression had been created by the regularity and safety of the two services. An official of the Handley Page Co. stated that his service has maintained an average of reliability as high as 94 percent — an indication of its present value to the business world. In 1924, Handley Page Transport merged with three other carriers and formed Imperial Airways, Britain's first national airline.
Handley Page also had a strong commitment to research. His company may well have been the first to install its own wind tunnel for in-house experiments. He was keenly interested in air safety, more so because he had lost close friends in crashes. A serious problem of the day lay in the tendency of airplanes to go into a spin and often crash, and he looked for ways to counter this.
He decided that a solution lay in running a slot down the length of the wing from the fuselage to the wing tip. This in effect divided it into two wings set closely together. Airflow through the slot would flow evenly over the rear wing to produce more lift for better control. A German inventor, Gustav Lachmann, had developed similar ideas on his own, and Handley Page brought him into the company. Handley-Page received a patent for the invention on October 24, 1919, and slotted wings became a key to the firm's fortunes, as sales of patent rights earned £750,000 (about $3.6 million at the time) in payments from other planebuilders. In turn, slotted wings led to the development of flaps for wings. These extended to give extra lift and also greater drag, permitting takeoff and landing at relatively low speed. The flaps then folded into the rear of the wing, for the reduced lift that was appropriate at high speed during cruising flight.
The testing of the Handley Page torpedo-carrying machine began in early 1922. This machine was an ordinary-looking biplane, fitted with the Handley Page slots and was in fact the first aeroplane to be flown built expressly for the slotted wing. The new Handley Page biplane has definitely demonstrated that it can overcome two of the very greatest drawbacks to civil aerial transport as it is at present., namely, the need for a long run in getting off and the danger of high speed landings. The get-off and the landing showed that the machine could have got out of and into any ordinary football field with trees round it or that it could have got out of and into a tennis lawn provided that there was nothing higher than a hedge round it.
Handley-Page remained involved with airliners during the next decade. In 1931, Imperial Airways began flying the Handley Page Hannibal, a four-engine biplane. It was built for comfort, with wall-to-wall carpeting and a bar. Stewards served four-course hot lunches and seven-course dinners, while soundproofing diminished the roar of the motors. The Hannibal carried up to 40 passengers and remained in service through the 1930s.
Like the 1920s, the first years of the 1930s were lean years for the company, when few orders came in. That situation changed in 1935, for with the threat of war in Europe now looming again, the British government launched a military buildup. Handley Page contributed a twin-engine monoplane bomber, the Hampden. The fortunes of war soon would give this plane a key role in saving Britain from Nazi invasion.
This happened in 1940, during the Battle of Britain. Nazi air fleets hammered hard at airfields of the Royal Air Force, slowly weakening it. Had they continued, they might well have won air superiority, opening the way for a German conquest of England. However, on August 24 the RAF sent a force of medium bombers, including Hampdens, to attack Berlin.
The bombers did little damage, but this raid prompted the Nazis to seek revenge. German leaders ordered their own bombers to strike the city of London. They killed and injured a great many people—but they did not continue their attacks on the RAF itself. This gave the RAF time to recover. It went on to defeat the Germans in the air, forcing them to abandon their plans for invasion. That British raid on Berlin was small in its destruction but very large in its consequences. The Handley Page Hampden played a central role.
By then, the company was already producing the Halifax, a large four-engine bomber. It was one of three such aircraft designed and built by Britain, the others being the Avro Lancaster and the Short Stirling. More than 6,000 Halifaxes came off the assembly lines, with other planebuilding companies sharing in the production. At the height of Britain's bomber offensive, the Halifax comprised 40 percent of the strength of the RAF Bomber Command.
Frederick Handley Page was knighted in 1942, becoming Sir Frederick. After the war, he again had to seek new opportunities. For a time he continued to find them in military orders, for the Cold War with the Soviets soon began, and Britain upheld its centuries-old policy of maintaining its own offensive force. Sir Frederick contributed the Victor, a four-engine jet bomber. Full of years and honors, he died in 1962. His company could cherish a proud boast—that Handley Page aircraft had served continually with the RAF since it had been founded in 1918. By 1962, however, the days of his firm were numbered.
The Minister of Defence, Duncan Sandys, had launched a plan to combine Britain's aircraft companies into two large corporations. This reflected the growing cost of major civil and military aircraft programs, which were becoming too expensive for the relatively small aviation companies of prior decades. However, the firm of Handley Page elected to remain independent, and it soon felt the consequences. Business dried up; new orders went to Sandys's big combines. In 1970 the firm of Handley Page Ltd., still using its name that dated to 1909, filed for bankruptcy. It soon vanished in a corporate collapse.
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Handley Page HP.52 Hampden
Handley Page HP.53 Hereford
Gustav Lachmann took on the technical development of modern methods of aerodynamics and metal construction. His ideas were also incorporated into the H.P.52 Hampden. Built initially to Air Ministry Specification B.9/32, the Handley Page HP52 prototype, K4240, made its first flight on June 21, 1936.
Of conventional all-metal stressed-skin construction, the Hampden's thick-section mid-set monoplane wings tapered both in chord and thickness. Handley Page slots on the leading edge of the wing outer panels, plus trailing-edge flaps, made possible a low landing speed. Accommodation was provided for a crew of four.
Seven weeks after the first flight, the design was put into produc-tion, and the first examples entered RAF service in the autumn of 1938, 49 Squadron being the first unit to fully reequip with the type. By September 3, 1939, the RAF posses-sed a total of 212 Hampdens (ten squadrons, including reserves) which represented almost 25% of Bomber Command's offensive first-line bomber strength. Hampdens flew on operational sorties from the first day of the war, and during the first few months suffered high casualties in unescorted daylight bomb-ing attacks against naval targets along the German coastline.
During operations, the Hampden proved to have serious deficiencies, particularly in its defensive armament, which consisted of five 0.303 inch machine guns. The fixed forward firing gun proved almost useless and the single guns in the nose, dorsal and ventral positions had limited transverse, leaving a number of blind spots. In addition, the cramped conditions led to crew fatigue on long flights, and it was almost impossible for crew members to gain access to each others cockpit in an emergency. Losses during early daylight raids were very heavy.
To improve the defensive armament, the dorsal and ventral positions were each fitted with twin Vickers K machine-guns. In addition, armor plate was installed and flame-damping exhaust pipes were fitted for night flying. Thus modified, the Hampden did useful work in Bomber Command's night offensive from 1940 to 1942, taking part in the RAF's first raid on Berlin and in the 1,000-bomber raid on Cologne.
Switching mainly to night bombing by early 1940, Hampdens became the chief exponent of 'gardening' sorties-sowing sea mines in enemy waters but continued to participate in Bomber Command's nightly assault on Germany. In 1940 two Hampden crew members, Flight Lieutenant R A B Learoyd of 49 Squadron, and Sergeant John Harmah of 83 Squadron, were each awarded a Victoria Cross for valour during bombing operations.
Though obsolescent for its intended role as a medium day bomber, and poorly armed for self-defence against more modern enemy fighters, the Hampden continued in first-line operational service with RAF Bomber Command until September 1942. In three years of operations as a pure bomber, Hampdens flew a grand total of 16541 individual sorties, dropping almost 10000 tons of bombs on German targets. In the same period, how-ever, 413 Hampdens and their crews were lost in action. On February 1, 1942, a total of eight Hampden squadrons, all in No 5 Group, Bomber Command, were operational, though by the end of the year they had all converted to Avro Manchesters or Avro Lancasters. Retired as a bomber, the Hampden saw a further year's first-line service as a torpedo-bomber with Coastal Command, equipping at least four squadrons before finally being withdrawn from operational roles in December 1943.
A total of 1584 Hampdens and its stable-mate, the Hereford, was built and delivered to the RAF, equipping a total of 21 squadrons at some period of the war. A further 160 were built in Canada.
Nicknamed variously as 'Hambone', 'Flying Suitcase' and 'Fero-cious Frying Pan', the Hampden was nevertheless popular with its pilots, due to its near-fighter manoeuvrability and excellent all-round vision field from the high forward cockpit. Internally, its very restricted space created no little discomfort for other crew members, while its poor defensive armament, comprising a single hand-held machine-gun in the nose and single or twin machine-guns in ventral and dorsal positions, belied the original description of the design in 1936 as a 'fighting-bomber'. Nevertheless, the Hampden and its contemporaries, the Bristol Blenheim, Vickers Wellington and Armstrong Whitworth Whitley, all outdated for modern warfare by 1940, had to soldier on as Bomber Command's only weapons during the first three years of the 1939-45 war, until heavier, four-engined replacements became available in ample quantities in late 1943.
The Hereford bomber was a Napier Dagger-engined version of the Hampden, ordered as a back-up at the same time as the first Hampden production contracts. The noisy new inline engines overheated on the ground and cooled too quickly and seized in the air. Even routine maintenance was more complicated than that required for the Hampden's Pegasus radials. There were no performance advantages from the new engines. Only a very small number of Herefords saw action (in Hampden squadrons). The rest were relegated to training units, soon followed by the marginally better Hampen.
The Hereford was distinguishable from the Hampden by its longer engine cowlings and greater dihedral on the outer wings.
The Hereford and Hampden had a single-pilot cockpit with a sliding canopy, which was sometimes left open in flight for the 'wind-in-the-hair' feel.
A total of 1,432 Hampdens were built, 502 of them by Handley Page, 770 by English Electric and 160 in Canada by the Victory Aircraft consortium. Of the 160 built, 84 were shipped by sea to Britain, while the remainder came to Patricia Bay (Victoria Airport) B.C., to set up No.32 OTU (RAF). Due to heavy attrition from accidents, a number of 'war weary' Hampdens were later flown from the U.K. to Pat Bay as replacements.
Handley Page 0/400
Engines: Two 1000 hp Bristol Pegasus XVIII engines
Maximum speed: 254 mph (409 km/h)
Empty weight: 11,780 lb (5,345 kg)
Loaded weight: 18,756 lb (8,505 kg)
Span: 69 ft 2 in (21.1 m)
Length: 53 ft 7 in (16.3 m)
Height: 14 ft 11 in (4.5 m)
Wing area: 668 sq ft (62.1 sq m)
HP 52 Hampden
Engines: 2 x Bristol Pegasus XVII, 746kW / 1000 hp
Wingspan: 21.1 m / 69 ft 3 in
Length: 17.0 m / 55 ft 9 in
Height: 4.6 m / 15 ft 1 in
Wing area: 62.0 sq.m / 667.36 sq ft
Max take-off weight: 8510 kg / 18761 lb
Empty weight: 5340 kg / 11773 lb
Max. speed: 408 km/h / 254 mph
Cruise speed: 350 km/h / 217 mph
Ceiling: 6900 m / 22650 ft
Range w/max.fuel: 3200 km / 1988 miles
Range w/max.payload: 1400 km / 870 miles
Armament: 4 x 7.7mm / 0.303 in machine-guns, 1800kg of bombs
Crew: 4
Hampden B.Mk I
Span: 21.08 m (69 ft 2 in)
Length: 16.33 m (53 ft 7 in)
Gross weight: 8508 kg (18760 lb)
Maximum speed: 426 km/h (265 mph)
Hampden TB.1
Handley Page HP 53 Hereford
Engines: 2 x Napier Dagger VIII, 986 hp / 746kW
Length: 53 ft 7 in / 16.33 m
Height: 14 ft 11 in / 4.55 m
Wing span: 69 ft 2 in / 21.08 m
Wing area: 668.014 sq.ft / 62.06 sq.m
Max take off weight: 17803.2 lb / 8074.0 kg
Weight empty: 11701.9 lb / 5307.0 kg
Max. speed : 230 kts / 426 kph / 265 mph
Cruising speed: 150 kts / 277 kph / 172 mph
Service ceiling : 19,000 ft / 5790 m
Wing load : 26.65 lb/sq.ft / 130.0 kg/sq.m
Range w/max.payload: 1043 nm / 1931 km
Crew : 4
Armament : 6x cal.303 MG (7,7mm), 1814kg Bomb.
Handley Page Slots Game
Handley Page H.P.52 Hampden
Handley Page Slats
Handley Page H.P.53 Hereford