Imperial Airways' Boxy Airliner - Armstrong Whitworth Argosy | Aircraft History
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- Опубликовано: 21 сен 2024
- Today we take a look at the Armstrong Whitworth Argosy, a slab-sided airliner that kick started the company's endeavors in the marker of commercial aviation.
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Sources:
Jackson.A.J (1973), British Civil Aircraft Since 1919: Vol 1.
Tapper.O (1988) Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft Since 1913.
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F.A.Q Section
Q: Do you take aircraft requests?
A: I have a list of aircraft I plan to cover, but feel free to add to it with suggestions:)
Q: Why do you use imperial measurements for some videos, and metric for others?
A: I do this based on country of manufacture. Imperial measurements for Britain and the U.S, metric for the rest of the world, but I include text in my videos that convert it for both.
Q: Will you include video footage in your videos, or just photos?
A: Video footage is very expensive to licence, if I can find footage in the public domain I will try to use it, but a lot of it is hoarded by licencing studies (British Pathe, Periscope films etc). In the future I may be able to afford clips :)
Q: Why do you sometimes feature images/screenshots from flight simulators?
A: Sometimes there are not a lot of photos available for certain aircraft, so I substitute this with digital images that are as accurate as possible.
How about the CF-103? Can you tell I’m a Canuck?
I saw a photo of a Handy Page HP 42 in this video. I would love to see it featured in a future piece.
How about the Polikarpov PO-2 and the Antonov AN-2? Both are still flying, in private hands, and the PO-2 has an interesting WWII action record.
Hi I'm British and I love planes could you please do a video on the Avro York or the Vickers C Bomber or maybe the Avro Atlantic?
This good video made me think of one, and not the vehicle you'd expect the maker to be building, the Ford Tri-Motor.
For those wondering why you see flying boxes and it seems like the next day there's these sleek cigars flying around it's because it wasn't until 1929 that Melvill Jones publishes his paper *"The Streamline Airplane"* , a seminal work that changed aircraft pretty much overnight. Aerodynamic drag was understood before this but Jones' paper established the massive benefits of streamlining.
But that doesn't make sense. The famed Zeppelins had a streamlined design so if they knew the general shape of them resulted in lower drag, why did they take so long? Like a more streamlined nose for example?
@@randomscb-40charger78 It can have been increased cost. Only a guess, but I know they dropped streamlining railroad-engines, because the increased work and time from removing the streamlined cowlings outweighed fuel-savings.
Is there an advantage to having rounded all the way down versus something slab sided where the passengers would be seated? Cross-section streamlining? Cross-wind performance?
@@brianreddeman951 In this day and age, cylindrical is more optimal for the pressurization and for minimizing interference drag at fuselage corners. Rounded fuselages are difficult to do on a fabric-covered airplane unless it's a tightly-framed geodesic structure like the Wellington.
There were two points, firstly a cylinder is much easier to make structurally and when you want a large light structure that is the way you go. Secondly, the Europeans and the English both understood and appreciated the value of the tear drop shape for optimal streamlining but as has been noted, it is not that easy to put on an aircraft, however it comes naturally for the shape of an airship. Just add some control surfaces and voila, you have control. As materials and the knowledge and expertise of how to use them, improved, so did streamlining.
Airlines back then: "we want you to be as comfortable as possible on this novel experience"
Airlines now: "we want to remove the seats on our planes and charge you a fee for landing, extra if you survive the landing"
Airlines back then acted more like ocean liners from their initial inception around the 1830s and 40s to the 1910s. What they did was create beautiful interiors to make passengers feel like they were on land rather than on a ship since it wasn't a comfortable journey.
@@randomscb-40charger78 Back then the passengers were mostly affluent citizens or businessmen.
Blame deregulation. It's not always a good idea. Ask American truckers, too.
A couple of decades ago, an airline executive had one of the olives removed from the dinner. Just one. The result was an annual savings of two hundred thousand dollars. That lesson has not been forgotten.
Also airlines then: "This trip will cost you the equivalent of a small house. And you have a high chance of dying."
Genuinely blown away by the safety record of this one! Considering it was the 1920s and that it flew over sea, mountains and desert, it truly is an impressive achievement!
One thing I love with this channel is the covering of civil aviation.
The literal Flying Brick
But it worked. Interesting engineering.
it did fly… for a long time
II am always amazed by the number of details, photos, and diagrams that are still available. And the amount of research you do to dig-up it all up. Great job.
As a contrast, look at the Zeppelin Staaken E 20 of 1919! A four engine, all metal, streamlined monoplane!
You know Brits like to do the classic old school way.
Inter-Allied Commission: Eek! It looks like a BOMBER! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeppelin-Staaken_E-4/20
@@Otokichi786 Dropping bombs on target? What an inhumane way to wage a war!
And it's German?! We can't have that influenced our superior designs!
It's probably rubbish anyway...
@Duneydan not only that, it could run away! At 143 miles an hour, hardly playing fair.
Very interesting video. Love the fact that passengers can open the windows in flight.
Ideal for knocking your pipe out.
@@mikemines2931 ... or shedding an "obsolete" marriage partner! LOL
My brother used to have a phrase book from this era. In the section In the Aeroplane was a translation for ‘Do you mind if I open the window’. I am not sure what language the translations was, but I think Arabic.
I've always loved how haphazardly the center engine is just sort of bolted to the nose as with many other aircraft from this period.
Smoking probably caused the City of Liverpool 's demise.We tend to think only of all the lung cancer the smoking industry has caused but not about all the fires it's caused and resulting deaths!
My money is on some passenger having a crafty fag in the loo and dropping either a match or a dog end into a crevice somewhere between the floor and the cabin wall. There were several serious train fires caused in the same way, and also spread rapidly by nitro-cellulose lacquer.
An amazing video on a not well known but still amazing airliner!
Can't wait for the follow up on the Handley Page H.P.42!
There was, I seem to recall, a mysterious crash of an Argosy. Juan Trippe of Pan Am thought very little of such British airliners, and the Atatlanta, still soldiering on in India, compared with up-and-coming US passenger 'planes.
I see "Armstrong Whitworth" or "Blackburn" and thats all i need to hear to know ill love it.
Edit: i also suggest we name this one the "flying baby bottle"
Great to see some of the historical passenger services. That's a great safety record for the time.
The "City of Liverpool" disaster featured in a classic book of air mysteries by Ralph Barker, written in the 1960s. For all the years that have passed since then, it's still a great read.
***
As is Ralph Barker's "The 1,000 Plan" which covered in much detail, the world's 1st 1,000 Bomber raid by the RAF
I was deeply impressed by the related crew's experiences on that night's famous raid - Great book
Rex, I genuinely love your work, but I’m genuinely concerned your pushing yourself too hard. I know you’re passionate about what you do, and great - as long as you’re taking care of yourself. Heck, maybe you’re fine, but your research is so thorough and accurate, and your presentations, videography, narration, and animations are so top notch, they simply must take an extraordinarily long time to produce. It’s that you’re cranking out so much content I (we actually, since I’ve seen similar comments) am worried you’re exhausting yourself.
I hope things are going great, however, and I’m hoping you’re doing exactly what you were made for! You keep makin’ em, we’ll keep watching em. :)
Thank you for covering the history of commercial aircraft, which is often overlooked in favour of glamorous Spitfires and Lancaster’s
Great addition! Please do the Empire Flying Boat!!!
Thank you - excellent job. Good to see a little known type discussed. I think it's a shame (but unsurprising) that no major interwar British airliner survives. I know there was talk of building an HP 42 replica some years ago, but that never got off the ground and the relative fragility of these aircraft, the small numbers built and the rapid pace of change in the comerical world meant that there was no-where for them to go, and the war put the lid on them, seeing off (i think) all bar two of the Ensigns, the most graceful of the AW pre-war designs.
Great stuff Rex! These weird interwar designs are my favorite videos.
Love your narrative, humour and on point, editing. Great work Mate.
Documentary like this must take so much work and research. 😮 Your efforts are treaty appreciated. And hope RIAT was superb 👍👍👍
The way the front engine is just stuck on there like an afterthought…
Aerodynamics aren't a big deal as long as you fly slow.
Only one fatal crash--stellar!
And not design or even pilot related. Just either maliciously or careless passenger.
@@dustyak79 probably someone tapping out their pipe into the bin, wouldn't be the first fire to start that way, for its time that was an incredible safety record regardless.
Every angle of the plane made me think of it as a "flying bus", owing to the big boxy fuselage
I remember how proudly "AIR MAIL" was stamped on letters... getting news from home that quickly must have been quite novel indeed
Man, Armstrong Whitworth knocked it out of the park on the first try!
The rectangular designs make sense for a period before the benefits of streamlining were widely understood - a rectangle is an efficient shape to seat people in.
Look at the incredibly aerodynamic fitting of that nose engine. /sarc At least the wing engines are trying to look streamlined.
Such a golden era of aviation ❤❤❤❤
Thankyou for putting this together, the Argosy is a favourite of mine because it's so... distinctive.
Opening windows !!! Handy for an inflight smoke!
Or clamber through for a refreshing stroll on the lower wing.
Fun fact: Len Lye, a British film director, actually had made a film in 1938 advertising Imperial Airways, one year before the airliner company dissolved.
Thank you Rex for making this happen ! Cheers From California 😊
Really like videos on the civilian aircraft. So often forgotten!
Within three years of this aircraft's first flight the Boeing Monomail and the Northrop Alpha would fly (1930). In 1933 both the Boeing 247 and the Douglas DC-1 would fly. In 1931 the Boeing B-9 first flew and in 1932 the Martin B-10 would fly. Within five years, all those aircraft made the Argosy look like a WW I relic.
I always love your videos and I'm glad to be early!
Happy to become a new patreon patron! Wooooo!
I can never understand and I always wondered why early airliners housed the passengers in closed cabins but had the pilots in opened cockpits exposed to wind and rain and cold!?
For the same reason that early lorry and bus drivers sat out in exposed cabs, they were not paying!!, although a lot of early pilots thought they were safer in the open, and with the speed and height they flew at it was less of a big deal, open cockpit on a 747 may have been a hard sell to the pilots😀.
An excellent presentation! Thank you!
One of my all time favorite mid war airliners.
Yeah? Especially for that period, she's good looking.
@hazchem I work on airliners for a living, and having engines that are just exposed like that, plus having the whole thing just made of canvas and wood would be... interesting. Just a big kite. 😄
@@m0ther_bra1ned12 hahaha I can see why you'd say that. I flew in DC3 sometimes, in remote Australia, trips about 500 miles. The noise and vibration is outstanding, and this girl might be even more so.
great attention to detail. really enjoy these vids
Another excellent video. Just goes to prove, in regards to airlines, it's not the speed or beauty, or anything else .. it'd just $ Profit !
Might be little more than a flying box, but the passenger compartment looks absolutely luxurious in terms of seating room compared to today's cattle cars. Granted, that's not a very high bar to reach, but still...
Cant wait for the HP42 video
Always good. Thanks.
Informative as always. Between the wars is something of a void when looking at aircraft development so good to have it filled in.
If the Arundel is the town on the south coast, it's Ar un del, not A run del.
Great post--always fascinated by this aircraft.
Outstanding video!! Very interesting!!! : )
Excellent video. Arundel is pronounced with the stress on the first syllable btw
Another fine presentation. Thanks for the hard work.
Given the fire was in the lavatory, I can 100% assume it is was cigarette in the rubbish bin.
After years (decades) of engineering weirdness, we suddenly enter the age of the reliable (even profitable!) commercial airliner. Although it still has to be a fabric covered biplane, with the poor pilots exposed to the elements, of course! And engines that look like they've been stuck on as an afterthought!
Fascinating too to see that safety is almost an afterthought! Although apparently no thought at all when it comes to highly inflammable, doped fabric...
Incidentally, 'Arundel' is pronounced with the emphasis on the first syllable. And I think the same is true of 'Argosy'. Although, having heard you say it so often the 'wrong' way, I am no longer sure!
I am especially impressed with the glorious lack of streamlining.
" Glorious Lack ..."
Still an understatement !
😉😁😎
This was cool!!!
Danke!
Hi everyone
Hello!
Howdy?
Well this is just damn confusing - I spent a lot of time as a kid on an Argosy my father flew and it was a totally different aeroplane. Turns out they reused the name for a 4 engined turbo prop (the AW 650/660) to confuse people. (Google 9Q-COA to see what I mean). Dont know of any otyher aeroplane name being reused like that.
Try The Electra by Lockheed, the Globemaster I, II & III.
The Argosy was a solid kicking-off point for modern air travel indeed, and considering that in under ten years aircraft such as the DC3 were in service it a good beginning. Under a fiver to get from London to Paris in the 1920s shows what inflation has wreaked on the economy, as now one cannot buy a decent cup of coffee for that! It is of course frivilous of me to ask if the opening windows were for smokers to flick theielr cigarettes from, and with that cockpit whether the pilots were issued umbrellas?
Best content on the web...
Aerodynamics is overrated.
The genius of this comment is almost frightening. Have a nice day sir and the best of luck in your future endeavours
@@youdontneedtoknow6621
G'day,
I disagree, strongly.
The Halfwit who posted the Comment utterly misunderconstumbles the meaning of the word,
Aerodynamics...
When surrounded by a Gaseous Atmosphere which moves around it..., EVERY 3-Dimensional Shape diverts the passing stream of flowing Gas - and such diversions generate reactionary Forces upon the diverting 3-D. Structure...; those forces may be calculated, measured, predicted, tested, and duly relied upon.
A common Housebrick has predictable, reliable, known Aerodynamic Characteristics..., as does a Sopwith F-1 Camel or a Chiahuahua Lap-Dog....
The Armstrong Whitworth Argosy has the Aerodynamic Characteristics of a Strut-braced Fabric-covered Wire-Braced Open-Cockpit Tri-Motored Biplane, with a fixed Undercarraige and no Wing-Flaps - but it did feature Handley-Page Wing-Leading-Edge Slats.
It probably glided at 3:1 or possibly 4:1...; it was heavy and boxy and clunky and sprouted Struts & Wires as if they were going out of fashion and needed to all be used up...
BUT, the Wires were all Streamlined "RAF-Wires", and the Struts were all equally Streamlined in cross-section.
But when one is flying at or below about 100 or 120 Miles per Hour..., in a bloody great Juggernaut of a thing like an Argosy ; then the important thing is to design & build a properly-triangulated Redundant-Frame Girder-Truss of Struts in Compression and Wires in Tension, sufficiently strong as to carry the load of the 3 Engines with their Fuel & Oil, plus a dozen or 15 People and their Baggage - and an Undercarriage capable of carrying ALL That across a grass Airfield at 60 or 80 MPH at maximum Gross Take-Off Weight......
And that Structure not only has to be sufficiently strong, but it also must be light enough to LEVITATE at a Speed which the Engines can reliably achieve...
So,
STREAMLINING an Argosy is important, but not in the way that it was on a Supermarine S-6b Racing Seaplane...; kinda thing.
Aerodynamics is NOT
"over-rated"...
Streamlining, though, is not always an
Aerodynamicist's
Primary
Concern...;
BECAUSE
There is
MORE to Aerodynamics than
Mere
Streamlining.
Contrary to
Popular
Ignorant
Misconceptions.
Harrumph...!
(so sayeth a retired Low-Speed Aerodynamics-Consultant...!).
Take it easy.
Such is life...
;-p
Ciao !
I took it as a tongue in cheek joke comment.
@@WarblesOnALot hehe, someone's pet was peeved, thier underdingies twisted.
@@WarblesOnALot I can’t say you don’t know your stuff
With only one crash the Argosy has a better safety record than a Boeing Max 737.
Also equal to Concorde, although that crash killed more passengers and IIRC was shown to have been due to foreign-object damage on the runway.
Hey. You should do a video about soviet AN-2
that Argosy got me acting unwise
Dang i like boxy cars and whatnot but this thing looks like someone put it together out of moving boxes haha cool plane though always makes me happy when i see a new vid
This beast would be a great subject for an old school cardboard model...
To be fair, setting in line with the prop is a painful experience on many turboprop commuters today.
Indeed, @SkyWriter25: i'll never forget my first flight in a Dash-8, sitting right in the path of a wayward prop blade. At least worrying about the security of the blade attachments took my mind off the deafening noise! ... prob'ly why I wear hearing aids now, 25 years later!
Thanks.
Idk but I have a suggestion for the British flying boat…I can’t grasp the name…I think it’s Sunderland and it’s a 4 engine float plane or the avenger bomber cause it’s like a chonk of an sbd3
Luv it
How did they end up with City of Arundel?
It's a not very big market town.
I wonder if someone thought that Arundel was a city because it has a cathedral? For non-UK viewers, it is traditional for towns with Anglican cathedrals to be called "cities" even if they do not have city status in local government terms. However, note that I said 'Anglican' cathedrals - Arundel cathedral is Roman Catholic, so it doesn't count!
'Arrandull', not 'A Rundle'.
@@johnjephcote7636 Wrong on both counts.
It's pronounced as it is spelled. Arun is the river & dell is old English for valley or vale, thus Arundel is the dell through which the Arun flows.
It didnt look like much but it did its job much higher than its expectations
The choice of Arundel as a name for one of the machines is odd. The only Arndel of which I am aware is a nice little town in Sussex, on the Rver Arun. It's nowhere near the size or importane of the other cities chosen. (Unless you'rre the Duke of Norfolk who owns the castle.)
It's odd, isn't it? I assume it's that one - I always thought there might be a "colonial" city called Arundel, but I can't think of one. I wonder if there was some sort of connection with the IA board, maybe a chairman - many British railways had habits of naming things after board members or (in the case of the NBR and HR) places they lived.
It occurred to me that Armstrong Whitworth Argosy did not have hydraulic-assisted flight controls. Must have taken a bit of muscle to fly that kite. Any reports from the pilots?
Do a video on the hawker typhoon and hawker tempest
They were some of the most underrated world war II fighters
The aerodynamicists have left the chat.
Imagine London to Karachi in one of these. Thanks.
What's that giant U2 Battery doing in front of the starboard landing wheel? Was the plane also electric?
But,,, but,,, flying box cruising through the clouds _is_ stately!🥺
Could you talk about the German planes that were trialed by Japan during World war 2?
Both from the outside and the inside it looks remarkably like a bus. Square, practical, utterly uncomfortable for everyone involved.
Stiff upper lip service....
I'll give you the first two, but since in this age airlines tended to cater mainly towards the affluent...
I've never seen a roll-axis control augmentation system like that before! I now want to fly something with a system like that installed. It's beguiling!
Geez... I'm probably going to have to build something of my own design from scratch, aren't I?
The internet has ruined me. All I can hear is Argussy and not Argosy.
What are the things strapped up above the passenger seats? They appear to be made to pull down by the passenger.
What I'd give to see one for real. Unfortunately, they're extinct, like the dinosaurs.
It is refreshing to see an interwar passenger plane that just worked well. Too bad about that one guy lighting his farts in the lavatory dooming the entire flight
Did I hear the undercarriage had "oleo-damped" struts? Does that mean shock absorbers filled with vegetable oil? Was that a thing? Is it still?
Also - you mentioned the difference in fare of about one pound for the lunch flight vs the regular commuter morning service. How much is that in today's $ that they were charging for lunch? I'm reckoning upwards of $30? $50?
Damn, Armstrong Whitworth got that Argussy
Can you cover the HP42?
Argussy got me acting unwise
If airplane designs then followed trend now it would still have been made in the 1950 just lengthen with 50percent and equipped with Rolls-Royce griffons....
👍
6:54 A buffet, really? Pics! Or never happened...Hrpmh! Bloody '20s 😲
Right after "launch" time...
Was that the cost per seat mile?
The minecraft plane
Is there really any benefit from having twin/ stacked elevators? Couldn't you just lengthen the one set? Out of dual sets of wings and stabilizers that kind of make sense, this is confusing. My guess is that maybe the wings split the slipstream into both of them, but it doesn't explain why most biplanes only had one set.
Random guess: Strength of the material might also play a role. Steering would put lots of forces on those tiny wings.
They sure did love the "City of..." naming scheme, too bad they never named one "City of Argos/Argolis"
Argosy then > VC10 "Now-ish" . . . . which was more successful?!
Lego!!
But why did they just stop building the nose and then thought it would be a clean aerodynamic thing if we just bolt the engine in the middle of the gash we left in the nose. They must have had some sort of vage idea about aerodynamics.