Avro 500

In 1911 issued the british War Office its first specifications for a military airplane, which required dvoumístní machine, able to carry 160 kg of cargo, with endurance of up to 4.5 hours, a maximum speed of 88.5 km/h and rate of climb 1 m/s. in addition, should also be able to transport to the airport near Larkhill on Salisbury plain disassembled in a box. On the construction and tests were involved in the company for nine months. And. In. Roe according to the specifications of the proposed type E, in essence, develop a one-digit machines, built the year before for the Australian John Dougana. The hull, again with a classic wooden frame and coated canvas and a tin bow, was slightly larger and more aerodynamic, got the second cockpit, and the floor was again celuloidová window. The wings had ash spars, and it can be disassembled into three parts, the chassis remained the same, with ližinou in the middle and two small wheels on the sides. For the propulsion was selected forked engine ENV, powering the propeller of Avro, the main tank was placed in front of the passenger (the pilot was sitting, according to contemporary custom in the back) and under the canopy of the wings were placed two catchment tanks.

"Military biplane", later renamed to type E, first flew piloted by Wilfred Park in Brooklands 3. in march 1912, and from the beginning seemed like a very good quality machine. The only major issue have shown cooler - originally there were two on the sides of the bow, doplněně two small placed above the fuselage after the sides of the space traveller. 20. April Parke at take-off from Hendon had to urgently land the plane because of engine problems, which led to shear off the chassis and wings, and when tipping the hull on its side was a mechanic Sayers, sitting in the front, trapped under the bent auxiliary radiator so thoroughly that he had to be liberated through a hole excised in the side. The machine was again corrected, this time without auxiliary coolers, in time, to be able to pass the tests in Farnborough in June 1912. Then he returned to Brooklands, where he was a moment tested with a new 45kW engine ABC, and after getting back the original engine was the beginning of 1913, sent to the flying school Avro in Shoreham. 29. June 1913 was for the first time allowed to fly with him and the local pupils, and the same day in the evening with him, one of the students crashed, the machine was destroyed by fire and the student died of his injuries.

Roe, meanwhile, still worked on the improvement of the original type of E. He built a second, almost identical machine, in which but built significantly lighter rotary engine of the Gnome from the discarded Farmanu from your flight school. Now when one of the first sorties 8. may 1912 on it Parke reached a height of 610 m for only 5 minutes, and the next day, within twenty minutes flitted from Brooklands to Farnborough, so the distance of over 27 km, and that same day finished all the official tests. Properly dazzled military bureaucracies then ordered two more machines with dual control. Due to the fact that the Avro may build all their aircraft in Manchester, but zalétávalo is elsewhere, the company's third army machine "borrowed" and 29. June him as the first of their machines showcased over the city. All three machines were then handed over to the Central air school in Upavonu, where were the serial numbers 404, 405 and 406. And. In. Roe considered the type of E with an engine Gnome for my first really good plane, and assigned a new name, the Avro 500, first in the line followed until the demise of the company. Avro 500 soon proved to be the best of the available training aircraft, and by November of 1912, therefore, the army ordered four more two-seater machines, followed in January 1913, five jednomístnými the machine, under the old system, designated as the Avro type Ec and according to the new as the Avro 502, which was equipped with 3. squadron RFC.

Avro 500 helped the company raise the capital required to transform the company to Limited company (equivalent of ltd.) 11. January 1913, and the following may to move from Brownsfield Mills to larger premises in the manchester district of Miles Platting, and in February 1913, even the Roe at the Olympia Aero Show in person one machine demonstrated even king of George. Production for the army was completed in June, after six machines commissioned by the air department of the admiralty. These machines were placed in Eastchurchi, and passed were between August 1913 and may 1914.

During the production was gradually made some adjustments. The prototype originally had no tail, instead it had an iron "horseshoe" hard-bolted to the hull, the serial of the machine later received a classical rubber rope suspension skid. Instead of the original relatively square rudder intrigued by the new, approaching the shape of a later round, used on 504kách, and although originally they were all army Avra 500 and 502 controlled by twisting the ends of the wings, additionally were given wings. A few machines remained in operation at the beginning of world war ii, and one of them in flight school RNAS in Chingford got a new engine, 73.5 kW čtrnáctiválec Gnome.

In addition to the machines for the War office and the admiralty were built at least three other machines. the first of them was purchased by the Portuguese government with money from people's collections, and was compiled and fly in Belému in October 1912. Then, with a big red inscription Republica on the hull (and the same green under the wings) with him the pilot Avra Copeland Perry goes to Lisbon, where he was 16. October in front of 20,000 people handed over to the secretary of war. The very next day, but after the failure the engine had to Perry to land on the surface of the river Tejo. The machine was fished out and dried, its further destiny to me but is not known. The next machine was a private aircraft, purchased by the F. P. Raynhamem of of Burton-on-Torent, it participated in many races and air shows, as well as a third machine, purchased by J. L. Hall. The one at the beginning of the war was as a private practice in Hendon, where it was in September of 1914 also taken and continue to be operated by the army.

Probably the last two letuschopná Avra 500, including machines no 53 čtrnáctiválcem Gnome, disabled navy until sometime in the year 1916..