Chief Designer
In February 1944 this work was able to be re-used when the Brabazon Committee ordered a very large transatlantic airliner to carry 90 passengers for 5,000 miles in 17 hours, all with sleeping accommodation. Frise and Russell had just started work on this adaptation when Frise quit to become Technical Director of Hunting Aircraft. Russell was promoted to Chief Designer in his place. The new design emerged as the Brabazon, but proved to be a commercial failure. Overly large and too slow, it was entering the market just as turboprop and jet engines were coming into the field. BOAC asked for the second prototype to be powered by four Proteus turboprops in place of the eight Centaurus', but this engine would need additional development before it could be fitted and BOAC lost interest in the meantime. The prototype was later cut up after suffering from fatigue cracks in the engine/propeller mounting structures.
While the Brabazon was turning from design to prototype, the company directors asked Russell to start development of a much more modest freighter design. This emerged as the Bristol Freighter in 1945. A small number were sold to a variety of users, and the design was a modest success.
In 1947 Bristol won a design competition for "An airliner to required to carry thirty six passengers on routes to South Africa, Australia and the Far East." The number of passengers, 36, had been set by the capacity of the standard BOAC airport bus. Russell redesigned the plane for 68 passengers instead, producing the Britannia. As development continued, BOAC decided the Proteus was ready for airline use, and asked for development to be switched to this engine. With some additional wing area, this allowed the passenger capacity to be increased to 96 without altering the fuselage.
The first prototype flew in August 1952, but the engines were still not ready for production. The second prototype, with upgraded Proteus III's, flew in December 1953. This example caught fire in February 1954 and had to be ditched. The cause was eventually traced to a failure in the propeller reduction gearing, but did not significantly set back development. However, at this point the de Havilland Comet suffered a series of mysterious crashes, and the ensuing investigation discovered extensive metal fatigue problems. This led to a new requirement that all designs had to undergo extensive water tank testing. After passing these tests, the Proteus engines proved to have icing problems, leading to additional redesigns. By the time the Britannia finally entered service in 1957, the Boeing 707 and Douglas DC-8 were about to enter service, dramatically limiting interest in the Britannia.
In the late 1950s Russell led the design of the Bristol Type 200, a concept that competed with the Hawker Siddeley Trident. Russell felt that British European Airways' (BEA) specification was too small, so the Type 200 was closer in size and range to the Boeing 727, which later sold almost 10 times as well as the Trident. In 1958 BEA selected the Trident and the Type 200 was cancelled.
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