Bristol Freighter

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Type 170 Freighter / Wayfarer
Bristol Freighter, Liverpool 1961.
Type Cargo aircraft
Manufacturer Bristol Aeroplane Company
Maiden flight December 1945
Introduced 1946
Primary user Silver City Airways
Variants Bristol Superfreighter

The Bristol Type 170 Freighter was a British twin-engined propeller aircraft designed and built by Bristol Aeroplane Company as both a freighter and airliner, although it is best known use is as an air ferry to carry cars and their passengers over relatively short distances.

Contents

The Bristol Type 170 was designed originally as rugged heavy duty transport to operate from jungle airstrips. After the end of the Second World War the design was adapted by the Bristol Chief Designer A.E. Russell and his design team as a rugged heavy duty aircraft. It was an all-metal twin-engined high-wing monoplane and built without the use of expensive alloys and the minimum number of machined parts. The square-sectioned fuselage was designed to be clear of all obstructions and the crew were accommodated high up in the nose of the aircraft with access by the use of a ladder.

Two versions were produced: the Series I or Freighter which had a strengthened floor and hydraulically operated nose doors. The other version was the Series II or Wayfarer. This did not have the opening nose doors but did have additional windows. The prototype, registered G-AGPV, first flew at Filton on 2 December 1945, it was an empty shell without nose doors.

The Freighter is a somewhat bulbous and cumbersome-looking aircraft. Like the more slender prewar Bombay, it is a high-wing monoplane with fixed undercarriage (landing gear), the main gear legs supported by substantial vertical struts beneath the Bristol Hercules radial engines and horizontally from the lower edge of the (slab-sided) fuselage. The cockpit sits atop the forward fuselage with two large clam shell doors at the nose, making the unpressurised fuselage somewhat breezy; one Kiwi pilot claimed his charge was "40 thousand rivets flying in close formation".

The second prototype and the first 34-seat Wayfarer, registered G-AGVB, first flew on 30 April 1946. The second prototype began proving flights in the colours of Channel Islands Airways, it carried over 10,000 passengers in under six months. The third aircraft, registered G-AGVC, was the first Freighter I and had fully operating nose doors. After a number of demonstration flights around world the Bristol 170 entered full production. One of the first sales was to the Argentine Air Force which ordered 15 aircraft.

The managing director of Silver City Airways was Wing Commander "Taffy" Grimth James Powell, who realised that he could adapt the Bristol Freighter to fly passengers with their cars from Britain to Continental Europe and Jersey. This "air ferry" would allow British holiday-makers to avoid lengthy waits for the sea ferries. On the 14 July 1948, the airline made the first flight with a car, from Lympne Airport in Kent to Le Touquet on the northern coast of France.

In 1953, production of the freighter was moved to Weston-super-Mare and an elongated version to carry three cars, the Freighter 21 entered service, they were known as Superfreighters by Silver City Airways.

The last two freighters of the 214 built were delivered in 1958, one to New Zealand in February and the last aircraft to Dan-Air in March 1958. The New Zealand aircraft was on delivery to SAFE who eventually operated one of the largest fleets of Freighters. One of the elongated aircraft, registered G-AMWA, had 60-seats fitted and was known as a Super Wayfarer.

In New Zealand SAFE Air (Straits Air Freight Express) moved rail freight from Wellington (the North Island) to Blenheim (the South Island) and back, using Bristol Freighters reconfigured to accept palletised cargo loaded on patented cargons. This was a first anywhere in the aviation world.

Cargons were loaded near the rail yards and their load was calculated and arranged to remain within the aircraft's load and Centre of Gravity limits. They were then trucked to the airport and mechanically loaded as a unit from devices that were electric-motor powered via screw-jacks. The loader accepted pallets from horizontal-tray road vehicles and then raised them to allow loading into the nose of the tail-wheeled aircraft. Other adaptations allowed the carrying of horses and other high-value large animals.

Freighters were the major link between the Chatham Islands and the rest of the world until Armstrong Whitworth Argosys replaced them. SAFE Air developed a pressurised 'container' for the half of the aircraft given over to passengers on these flights.

In military service Bristol Freighters were operated by the air forces of Argentina, Australia, Burma, Canada, Iraq, Pakistan and New Zealand. Bristol Freighters were operated briefly by the Pakistan Air Force. Some of their aircraft were bought by SAFE Air and used in New Zealand.

The Royal New Zealand Air Force ordered 12 Freighters in the late 1940s. RNZAF Freighters ranged as far as supplying the New Zealand Army in Malaya, the British High Commissioners (and others) in the Maldives, Ceylon, India and Nepal, performing FEAF tasks in Malaya (often when other aircraft types were unservicable due to maintenance problems) and Hong Kong. They ran a highly reliable military shuttle service for allies in Thailand during the Vietnam War and served several other roles, being adapted for—amongst other things—aerial top dressing, although to avoid competition with private enterprise the NZ government did not to use them in that role.

The New Zealand Freighters were retired from military use when replaced by Hawker Siddeley Andovers in the 1970s. After retirement a number of smaller local operators briefly flew Freighters. Some were exported to Canada. A SAFE Air Freighter is preserved at Blenheim and another at the Royal New Zealand Air Force Museum in Christchurch. A third is being restored at Ardmore near Auckland. Other Freighter airframes around New Zealand now serve as novelty tea-rooms and backpacker hostels.

One Freighter was in service in turn with British Ministry of Supply (G-AIMI then WB482), the RAAF (A81-1) and subsequently went into commercial use in Australia until 1978 after which it went on to become a museum exhibit and was given over to the RAAF museum at Point Cook, Victoria, Australia in 1988.

Bristol freighter Mk 3 31M G-BISU was operated by Instone Airline at Stansted, Essex, UK, for a number of years. This was an ex-RNZAF aircraft and left Ardmore on 2 March 1981 for its 86 hour ferry flight to the UK, it subsequently flew its first charter flight on 3 August 1981 delivering two racehorses to Deauville. This role of flying livestock was to take up half a year while other work included carriage of oil drilling machinery, car parts, newspapers and mail.

Sadly C-FDFC (cn 13218) crashed on takeoff with the crew escaping but was essentially a write-off.

The last Freighter in service, which flew for Instone Airline then later returned to New Zealand, was bought from surplus by Hawkair in Terrace, British Columbia, Canada. In 2004, this aircraft undertook its final flight to the Reynolds-Alberta Museum in Wetaskiwin, Alberta. An example (CF-WAE) is found at the Western Canada Aviation Museum, formerly flown by Norcanair.

  • Freighter Mk I - utility transport
  • Wayfarer Mk II - airliner
    • Wayfarer Mk IIA - version of Mk II with 32 seats
    • Wayfarer Mk IIB - version of Mk IIA for British European Airways
    • Wayfarer Mk IIC - version of Mk II with 20 seats and baggage hold
  • Freighter Mk XI - version of Mk I with 108 ft(32.92m) wing and extra tankage
    • Freighter Mk XIA - mixed-traffic version of Mk IX
  • Freighter Mk 21 - more powerful engined version
    • Freighter Mk 21E - convertible version of Mk 21 with 32 removable seats
  • Freighter Mk 31 - version of Mk 21 with larger fin
    • Freighter Mk 31E - convertible version of Mk 31
    • Freighter Mk 31M - military version of Mk 31 with provison for supply dropping
  • Freighter Mk 32 - higher capacity version with fuselage lengthend by 5ft (1.52m)
  • Type 179 Freighter - Unbuilt project. Twin-boom version. Not built
  • Type 179A Freighter - Unbuilt project. The aircraft was intended to have an unswept tail and a ramp-loading door.
  • Type 216 Freighter - Unbuilt project. Car ferry version. It was intended to be powered by two Roll-Royce Dart turboprop engines.

General characteristics

  • Crew: 3 (Pilot, Co-pilot and signaller/loadmaster)
  • Length: 68 ft 4 in (20.82 m)
  • Wingspan: 98 ft 0 in (29.87 m)
  • Height: 21 ft 8 in (6.60 m)
  • Wing area: 1,405 sq ft (130.53 m²)
  • Empty weight: 24,000 lb (11,780 kg)
  • Loaded weight: 36,500 lb (16,556 kg)
  • Powerplant: 2× Bristol Hercules 672 14-cylinder radial engines, 3,380 hp (2,518 kW) each

Performance

  • The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Aircraft (Part Work 1982-1985). London: Orbis Publishing.
  • Jackson, A.J. British Civil Aircraft Since 1919, Volume 1. London: Putnam, 1974. ISBN 0-370-10006-9.

Comparable aircraft

Designation sequence

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