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Roy Chadwick - Master Craftsman
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One
such Master Craftsman and visionary was found...… Roy Chadwick.
After months of pain staking designs and drawing everything by
hand, from the wings to wheel nuts… his dream was eventually
fulfilled as he watched his marvellous design lumber out onto
the runway on January 9th, 1941. He stood watching in awe as
its four Rolls Royce Merlin engines growled into life, the sound
was deafening, its power was incredible shaking the very ground
on which he stood. As this huge bomber rose into the skies above
England on its test flight, he saw that his aircraft was a miracle
of aviation, it had a majesty all of its own as it flew gracefully
into the clouds, his months of painstaking labour was rewarded. |
Roy
Chadwick would with great pride and pleasure name
his design……..….."The Lancaster"
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There
were 3,440 Mk 1 Lancaster bombers built at the start of the
bomber campaign, a total of 7,377 were produced and used during
the
second war… with over half being lost in action.
Bomber
Command now had at its disposal a great array of heavy bombers
combined
with excellently trained crews who would become “Warriors
of the Skies” these would eventually be taking the war
to Germany to the most heavily fortified city on earth… to
its very heart … Berlin!!! |
Roy
Chadwick's - Lancaster |
| Roy
Chadwick C.B.E. (1893-1947) Considered by many to be Britain's
greatest aircraft designer, he designed many of his aircraft
in premises in what is now the offices of British Aerospace on
Greengate in Chadderton, Oldham, including the Avro Lancaster.
Roy Chadwick
was born on 30th April 1893 at Marsh Hall Farm, Farnworth,
when man’s desire to fly was still a dream. By
the time of the Wright Brothers’ epic flight in
1903, Roy was already building and flying models of his
own design and it was a dream come true when he joined
A.V. Roe & Company in 1911. Alliott Verdon
Roe himself interviewed the youngster, and was so impressed
that he employed him immediately at a salary of One Pound
per week. Roy quickly became Personal Assistant to ‘A.V.’ before
eventually being made Chief Designer in 1919 at the age
of 26. He was considered
by many to be one of the world’s great aircraft
designers with a stable of aircraft types to his name:
Avro 504, Baby. Avian, Tutor, Anson, Lancaster, Lincoln,
Tudor, York, Shackleton and even the original design
for the Avro 698 which became the Vulcan.
Roy Chadwick
was always one step ahead with his thinking and planning
of new designs, and early in the development of the jet
engine he spoke of a turbo-prop version, then still a
long way off. Chadwick’s early sketches of a delta
wing design are now well known, and formed the basis
of a shape which eventually became the Avro Vulcan.
Sadly, Roy Chadwick
died on Saturday 23rd August 1947 in the Avro Tudor 2
in what should have been a normal flight over the Lake
District. The aileron controls had been assembled incorrectly,
causing the aircraft to bank sharply right. The aviation
world had lost a wealth of irreplaceable experience with
this crash, and Chadwick’s death at the age of
54 cut short a career, which could have produced even
greater designs. He had been awarded the CBE in 1943
for his special modification to the Lancaster design
for the famous Dams Raid, and many feel that had he lived,
he would have been knighted.
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