Beardmore Inflexible | An Anglo-German Giant [Aircraft Overview #15]
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- Опубликовано: 2 дек 2024
- The Beardmore Inflexible, also known as the Rohrbach VI, was a giant shoulder-wing monoplane that was developed in the late 1920s. There was interest in the development of an all-metal heavy aircraft, and German aircraft designer Adolf Rohrbach worked in collaboration with British manufacturer Bearmore to create a giant aircraft.
The Inflexible proved the feasibility of all-metal aircraft and large monoplanes, it was also considered quite stable and easy to fly. However it was under-powered, which hurt interest in the project. Combined with the financial crash in 1929, this resulted in little further interest and no production models were ordered.
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Producing these videos is a hobby of mine. I have a passion for history, and personally own a large collection of books, journals and other texts, and endeavor to do as much research as possible. However if there are any mistakes, please don't hesitate to reach out and correct anything :)
Sources:
British Prototype Aircraft - Ray Sturtivant, 1990
Beardmore Aviation 1913-1930 - Charles Mac Kay, 2012
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As ludicrous as the interwar designs can be, you got to love the period for all the inventiveness and creativity.
I was thinking something similar. Creative, but utterly useless most of the time! However, when they DO get it right they get it RIGHT (De Havilland Mosquito)!
The pace of change was mind boggling, we went from wooden stringbags to the DC3 in 20 years.
@@Robwantsacurry and to the Junkers Ju 52 in only 10 years.
@@steffenrosmus9177
But somehow the Ju 52/3m (1932) was just an imitation of already successful planes, the Fokker Trimotor (1924), and the Ford Trimotor (1926) *. . .*
Drugs were legal back then. Just saying. :)
Fascinating. As a 65 year old who was buying aviation magazines with my allowance and sofa cushion money as far back as 1967, there are WAY too many airplanes out there I've never heard of.
Ditto JK !
Hey I am 47, similarly enthusiastic and I've been all over the internet like a rash. I haven't heard of this thing either! And it looks surprisingly "right" too.
I've been an aviation fanatic, my whole life. I'm amazed at how many airplanes I've never heard of. I love RUclips.
I think that I first saw the Inflexible in The Aeroplane around 1980 but wouldn't swear to it. The article series also covered the Beardmore Inverness metal monoplane flying boat of the mid-1920s, another Beardmore-built prototype of a design licenced from Rohrbach (Ro IV). Although sharing many design features with the Inflexible it has one feature possibly unique in aviation - a retractable mast and sails to assist manouevering on the water.
gotta love those sofa finds, hehehe.
I was a pilot for 15 years, my Dad was and aircraft engineer for Belanca and this is still another aircraft I didnt know ever existed! The old saying "the more you know truly the less you know" certainly holds true!
I love the early behemoths of the sky, so outlandish and fun
How interesting! I own a 1957 Beardmore taxicab. All constructed of aircraft materials: aluminum, ash, and fiberglass on a steel chassis.
0:38 Not well known but Zeppelin the company still exists. It is now known as ZF (Zahnradfabrik Friedrichshafen) and it the world's second largest automotive supplier mostly famous for their gearboxes. Almost uniquely it is owned by a non-profit charitable foundation administered by the city council of Friedrichshafen. All profits go to good causes like meal-on-wheels, care homes etc.
The reason I said 'almost uniquely' is that Bosch, the world's largest automotive supplier, is also owned by a non-profit charitable foundation and their profits equally go to good causes.
Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH does still exist:
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luftschiffbau_Zeppelin
ZF Friedrichshafen was founded by Luftschiffbau Zeppelin:
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZF_Friedrichshafen#Geschichte
And there is Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik (ZLT), too, another daughter of Luftschiffbau Zeppelin:
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeppelin_Luftschifftechnik
ZLT is still constructing Zeppelins, today the Zeppelin NT *. . .*
@Håkan BergvallYou need help.
@Håkan Bergvall
So ZF has been virtue signalling for over 110 years?
You think there is something wrong with funding universities, hospitals, youth clubs or care homes? Are you sick in the head?
@@letoubib21 all owned by the same foundation.
@@gustavmeyrink_2.0 I didn't deny that *. . .*
Last year a guy came to my local model aircraft club for a scale event and he had scratch built one of these. It was impressive to watch fly through the air.
I’m an old Waukesha mechanic and I love all old engines!!
I lived in Waukesha in the late 60's and early 70's. Loved it then. Went to Randall Elementary School.
I remember Pauls Butter Burger cafe downtown. Dutchland Dairy had good food too. The Avalon was all style back then.
Interestingly I live in one of the tenement buildings built by Beardmore to house his workers in Clydebank and never knew that the company had made aircraft as well as ships until I found your videos.
Looks like an excellent design for a giant scale RC .
...i know about this plane from a report in a model-plane-magazine...
...and it's HUGE - even when scaled-down... (~3m span, if i remember correct)
@@Packless1 I like the look of the interwar aircraft...
Well done Rex…I’m an armchair aviation historian but have not heard of this unique aircraft…
right? This is Ed Nash territory lol
I've been an aviation buff most of my 64 years, but this one is new to me too. Good video!
Can’t get over the size of those wheels
Great video as usual. I love hearing about the unusual designs from this period.
Another forgotten beauty. This is perhaps the only trimotor I find interesting.
Your videos are always I treat. Thanks.
Your channel is criminally underrated,
hope it'll take off (sorry) in the new year.
Yet he already has a healthy 11.6k subscribers
Beardmore's were just down the road from where I live. They also built airships and many fine warships. Excellent video thanks.
Loving all the obscure but interesting aircraft you are brining to light. Thanks and a Happy New Year.
Happy New Year Rex, Here's to 50k!
Thanks mate! And a Happy New Year to you as well!
Hello from Denmark.
I had no idea there was ever build airplanes in Copenhagen.
I did know about the Ford assembly plant in Sydhavnen, Copenhagen where they made trucks from 1924 to 1966. The parts came by ship in big wooden boxes, and the empty boxes was a popular building material for D-I-Y types, making little houses in their allotment gardens. Quite a few evolved into permanent residents.
I'm always amazed at some of the oddities you dig up ! 👍
Brilliant episode thanks 😃 Never heard about this aircraft before. Anything that can look this impressive now must have been mind blowing in the 20's!
Something seems ironic about so large of a plane with such massive wings being called 'inflexible'.
I was wondering WHERE the name _"Inflexible"_ came from.
Maybe the wings were so large that the resistance to banking made it fly in a straight line... inflexibly. :) Still sounds like a Dreadnaught-era battleship to me.
The Royal Navy outdid them with HMS Invincible.
I can imagine if I want massive transport aircraft and if I was Atlantis by military aircraft they have flexible would be maybe high on my list for transport planes a size the American gooney birds
I do find it funny how between this and the HMS Inflexible,the British seemed to use the word as a positive thing XD
HOW WOULD YOU KNOW ( about anything ) UNTIL YOU HAVE TRIED IT AT LEAST ONCE! Very interesting aircraft history tidbit! Thanks!
Awesome!-not everyday you see a pretty girl interested in aircraft! Nice
@@klintwyont3271 wat wat wat! Did you just assume Lindsey's gender? 😂
@@klintwyont3271 If that pfp is her real face, I'm an actual German soldier watching you.
I absolutely love the minimalist industrial design of the 1920's
Could you do a video on the Beardmore BeRo.2 Inverness flying boat? It was related to the inflexible and had the weird distinction of being fitted with a retractable mast and sails. The sails were added incase of a forced landing at sea due to engine failure or running out of fuel.
@@IntrospectorGeneral Umm... that link goes to the Beardmore Inflexible
@@connclark2154 Apologies - that was next on the playlist. This one should do it.
ruclips.net/video/eXQaKDs6OUs/видео.html
That sounds brilliant. I guess if they got the engines going again they could use them to blow into the sails. I wonder if they had plans for a submersible version. Thunderbirds are go!
I find your video's to be very well presented and researched. Head and shoulders above any other presenter on RUclips that makes these types of video's. Keep them coming!!!!
Big thanks for this vid. I'm only a part-time aviation nut, but do like finding out about these 'sideline' projects - unjustly forgotten in my opinion, especially when, as you mention, they show a leap in design ideas and a proof of concept that paved the way for more familiar developments (ie, the ones we've all heard of). Keep up the good work.
What a great time for aeronautical engineers. Innovation everywhere, technology developing so rapidly anything seemed possible.
Another gem of a video! Keep up the great work!
Oh, and happy new year!
I like the bit at 7:15 or so about the aircraft feeling "a bit sluggish". Compared to what I would ask?
No doubt the follow-on efforts would be the Beardmore "Unfathomable" and "Improbable" envisaged as executive transports....
Culminating in the "Irascible"
Inconceivable!
@@davidb6576 and finishing up with the 'incognito' spy plane
You can't name an aircraft Inflexible and expect people to accept it. Also a lot of these aircrafts show a transition from aircraft designs from the boring Bi and tri planes in WWI to large, sturdy aircrafts before the start of WWII. A Great video with information i have never seen before.
Excellent presentation about a plane I had never heard of and seemed to be at the cutting edge in its time. Thank you for posting
Lovely!
Have you ever done a video on the PBY catalina?
There is plenty out there about its use during the war but id love to learn more about its development and flying boats in general
Nice rare diamond of "early" aviation. It has some features similar to the Swiss Pilatus PC-6 Porter, with its "square-ish" design
Now this is really obscure and surprisingly innovative.
I'm a BIG fan of early aviation, but had never heard of this aircraft. Thank you from a new subscriber.
Found some old magazine plans for a Rhorback Roland 1. Redrew them and scratch built about a 22" balsa model. Cool airplane.
Love the sound of the radial engine in the intro! 👍👍👍
I recall reading an article on this many years ago in an English aviation magazine, but I can't recall which one it was nor the date. A fascinating snippet into the experimentation that was done into what was still a comparatively new and unknown realm.
Great vaudevillian behemoth..it's beautiful..Thank you for new year day 2022 presentation.peace too all
Pre-Spruce Goose. Thanks for the aviation history!
don't suppose anyone knows what the little single engine plane under it at 3:20 is?
edit: found it, DH.71 Tiger Moth
Also at 8:30 theres a Glenny & Henderson HSF.2 Gadfly
How charmingly primitive… and the single tires look to be 2 tons each!
Guess those tyres couldn't be bought right off the peg *. . . ;-)*
Thanks for your work.It is terrific to see the WWW being used to add to knowledge and appreciation of history .
Another excellent video. It contains two planes perhaps worth separate videos, the Zeppelin E420 and that sleek looking (aerobatic?) plane they placed in front of the Inflexible at 3:23 in the video. That little plane looks very advanced for its time, as does the Zeppelin.
Thank you for the video! As always, I would not have known of this aircraft!
All my old furniture goes back to Sears and Rohrbach, the 6th.
Another version was built in rubber, known as the Flexible.
Not a lot of people know this... 🤪
And one made of glass became the _Breakable_ *. . . ;-)*
I have just stumble on your page.It is excellent. Great video content and narration. The research is impeccable. Well done!
An excellent well done posting. Thank you!
Excellent stuff bro
The most complete review of the Beardmore Inflexible presently on You Tube!
Fascinating, a great insight in to an Aircraft i never knew existed.
The name alone is a hint. They say (who ever 'they' are) that if it looks right it will fly right.
I'd extend that law to "if it sounds right it will probably look right". This one just sounds and looks wrong.
Inflexible is the name you'd give to a pre-Dreadnaught battle cruiser that hit a mine and sank in the Dardanelles along with HMS Flatulence. What surprises me is that it's not a Blackburn design. They specialized in these kind of monstrosities. Seriously. They did.
I've heard of Beardmore as a builder but never knew they built anything like this. Nice find.
I'm taking a wild guess at the pilot getting a serius workout with those control surfaces.
Great work Sir thank you
Thanks Rex fascinating.
Interesting, apparently well researched and well told. Thank you.
I always wondered about this airplane, thanks!
Informative and entertaining. Well done Rex old boy. Keep up the good work, pip pip and toodle loo 😁
Well done video!
This thing is actually lighter than the modern single-engined, single-seat fighter, the F-35. That's weight creep for you
Great video! The construction and transport problems mirror those of the building of the Kennedy Giant 10 years previous, but this aircraft was at least able to fly. Those wheels are magnificent 😎
The aircraft at 01:00 looks way ahead of its time.
I liked the bird house on the starboard side next to the cockpit.
I once read of this aircraft that while it surprised observers by actually flying it had no further useful properties.
Those wheels though.... They dwarf those of a tractor.
Very interesting! I had never heard of this aircraft!
I love this channel ‼️
A wheel from an Armstrong Whitworth Ensign, another monster pre-WWII (just) airliner also found its way into the Science Museum. Also, hardly an aircraft...but Beardmores also built the gantries and Railplane for Geo. Bennie at Milngavie (a short section above the railway for the airscrew-pusher suspended monorail demonstartion).
The size of the tires! The wing was cable braced for flight loads, like a big ultralight, so I guess the struts were for static loads.
It’s like a massive modern glider in it’s design and shape. Large wings are monstrous.
Now I remember ! My late Father , an Aircraft Inspector , showed me a picture of this thing when I was a child and told me that it was made of flattened out biscuit tins !
happy new year and I like to see more obscure aircraft and maybe aviation history here is an aircraft you have not heard off Focke-Wulf Triebflügel
Just looked at that on Wiki. Lord, the Nazis were getting desperate towards the end!
@@DraftySatyr The Heinkel Lerche is a similar sort of aircraft, again never made. The Ba-349 Natter is probably the maddest aircraft that they did build and test
@@DraftySatyr it is not a nazi plane
@@zxbzxbzxb1 Not some ideas were crazier still focke-wulf triebflügel, Heinkel Wespe and Heinkel Lerche are just 3 of them
Beardmores also built the engines for the R101 airship. In order to avoid the danger of petrol, they converted the heavier, but diesel -fuelled engines used by the Canadian railways.
G'day,
Twice in the past 45 years Aeroplane magazine (England) has run feature Articles on this Beastie.
Therefore, about the only snippet herein of which I was unaware was that Kurt Tank was involved in the design.
Very well done though, thanks for the upload.
Have a good one...
Stay safe.
:-p
Ciao !
It is worth recording that very similar, but rather smaller Rohrbach Roland aircraft were operated by Lufthansa between 1926 and 1936. They had about eighteen, though not at all at the same time, and they operated much of the airline's European network very successfully, though at cruising speeds only around 100 mph.
One weird & yet appealing bird
I like this plane nice look to it and had features to be used in future aircraft.
"...and had features to be used in future aircraft." Features like the open cockpit?
thank you!
Since the wheels were 2.2 meters in size, how where they made to keep down the weight. Thanks VF
So, in fact, the British helped the German Rohrbach company to circumvent the treaty of Versaille. Bravo.
Best. Name. Ever.
I only started watching your videos a few months ago. I am quite impressed with your channel and your choice of subjects, covering some unusual aircraft as well as popular designs. I'm surprised by all the drag causing fittings, fasteners, and skin overlapping on the wings.
Great video - but what is the little sport plane at 3:20?
Straight out of early National Lampoon’s brilliant ‘gigantic’ satires.
At 3:18 Do you know what that little plane in front of it was? It reminds me of the aerobatic planes they have now.
Interesting name, "Inflexible". The Beardmore company was apparently following the WW1 practice of making the wings as rigid as possible. Wings today are designed to do the opposite in order to absorb the shocks of minor turbulence and not spill the drinks in First Class. There was also a New York City bus in the 1980s called the Grumman-Flxible. Grumman Aerospace owned the Flxible Corporation which built the buses. The buses kept breaking their rear A-frames on the city's potholes making them list severely to one side or the other. This made the buses the butt of many jokes at the time and forced Grumman to pay millions in repair costs. If you're going to make a large people-mover it's probably best not to use the word 'flexible' in the name.
Can somebody tell me what that little raceplane is at the bottom at 3:17???
That image made me think that the inflexible can carry two, three, or five of those. . .
Oh how I would have loved to watch and listen as a German tries to pronounce Beardmore. Note, I am Canadian, grew up with French and English, then went to school in Switzerland, German, and Swissgerman (considering it to be an independent language as Germans do not understand it) and now living in the UK. Germans are, like English speakers, totally mono lingual.
Excellent record - thank you. I knew of it, but details are hard to find.
Thanks Rex, great video! Any idea what that sexy little monoplane is in the foreground at 5:05?
Research and experience is learnt
And I thought it was a stretch to give the RAF's Future Large Aircraft contract to Airbus. But even though they hadn't built a military aircraft before, they had at least built aircraft!
Just as a note, that this thing took off within the limits of the old runway doesn't mean that runway was long enough. Sometimes you need that extra length if you have an engine failure or other problem at a critical point. Looking at the power available the VR, V1, V2 numbers must have been interesting.
If anyone's interested why the testing was done at Martlesham Heath, this was the location of the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment (A&AEE). 'A Squared E Squared' moved to RAF Boscombe Down at the start of WWII, and although the organisation is now swept up in the Qinetiq monolith the work is much the same.
It was a beast.
Beardmore was a great supporter of Antarctic Exploration, the Beardmore Glacier is named after him.
Did not know that. Which only goes to show that time respects nothing and no man.
This thing would make a wonderful R/C model...
This aircraft would make a good subject for radio control model flying.
The concept seems to have involved getting a giant glider sluggishly up to a certain altitude under its own power and then let it glide along with a slight push back from its engines.
I would suppose the wing tips were designed to lower control forces, not control flutter. Flutter is controlled by adding balance weights in front of the aileron hinges. While you could do that at the tips, this would cause torsional loads that would not be ideal in countering the flutter throughout the entire aileron.
Correct me if i am wrong.