Background
In 1926, the Aircraft Operating Company, an official contractor to the British Ordnance Survey for aerial survey work overseas, required a replacement for the converted Airco DH.9s that formed the majority of its fleet.
The requirements included maximum reliability, all metal construction so that it could operate in the tropics or the arctic, a preference that it could be broken down into parts for transport. It should be able to maintain height at 9,000 ft on a single engine while fully laden.
It approached the de Havilland Aircraft Company which prepared a design for a twin engined biplane of metal construction, resembling a smaller version of the de Havilland Hercules to meet the specification, designated de Havilland DH.67. However, de Havilland was busy with production of the Hercules and DH.60 Moth and in November 1928 it transferred the project to Gloster Aircraft Company.
The customers requirement was for an aircraft that could be converted to a seaplane and capable of surveying large areas while operating from a single base. Under Folland, Gloster comprehensively redesigned the aircraft with changes in all dimensions and for its own construction methods, the resulting aircraft being designated as Gloster AS.31 Survey.
Read more about this topic: Gloster Survey
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)