Bristol Boxkite - Background

Background

The first intention of Sir George White, the founder and chairman of Bristol Aircraft, was to build licensed copies of the Zodiac biplane, designed by Gabriel Voisin. One example of this design was imported from France and exhibited by Bristol at the 1910 Aero show in London in March 1910, and afterwards taken to Brooklands for flight testing. Initial attempts to get it to fly were entirely unsuccessful. This was largely due to its unsatisfactory wing section (the shallow camber of the Zodiac's wings had been commented upon by Flight magazine), but the aircraft was also underpowered for its weight. A new set of wings did little to improve performance: a single brief flight on 28 May was achieved by Maurice Edmond, but after an accident which damaged its undercarriage on 10 June it was abandoned, as was work on five more examples being built at Filton. Sir George was advised to acquire rights to build copies of the successful Farman biplane. This proved impossible since George Holt Thomas was negotiating rights with the Farman company, but George Challenger, the chief engineer at Bristol's factory in Filton, believed that he could produce a satisfactory copy since full details of the Farman machine had published in Flight. This was authorized by Sir George, and Challenger set to work on drawings for a new aircraft. The first example was constructed in a matter of weeks, using some components from the abandoned production Zodiacs, and was delivered to the company's flying school at Larkhill on Salisbury Plain, where it was first flown on 30 July 1910, piloted by Maurice Edmond., Although Farman sued Bristol for patent infringement, the company's lawyers claimed substantial design improvements in matters of constructional detail and the lawsuit was dropped.