HISTORY OF ILL-STARRED AVRO TUDOR

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 6, 11 October 1948, Page 5

HISTORY OF ILL-STARRED AVRO TUDOR

The Aircraft That Missed Its Chance (By Reece Smith, New Zealand Kemsley, Empire Journalist) Manchester, Sept. 4. Avro Tudors, once hailed as Britain’s glamour air link between the United Kingdom and Australia, and possibly New , Zealand, lie gathering dust in Avro’s works at Chadderton, near Manchester. Passed over by British Overseas Airway Corporation, the organisation which laid down the original specifications, they will never now lead Britain’s civil air challenge. The story of .the Tudor started in 1943, when 8.0.A.C. drew up specifications, and orders were placed through the Ministry of Supply for 23 Tudor l’s, with sleeping accommodation for 12 passengers. Then Air Vice-Marshall Don Bennett, wilful but capable chief of British South American Airways, smallest of the three British air corporations, took a look at the Tudor and straightway recognised it was not a commercial proposition as it stood. Such a machine, he said, should have more accommodation. So four Tudor l’s were unbolted just north of the centre section, had an extra,six feet of fuselage inserted, and became 32 passenger Tudor IV’s for B.S.A.A. The Tudor I was then dropped entirely by 8.0.A.C., who suddenly found they would have no room whatsoever for it on their North Atlantic service. Practically all 23 Tudor I’s of the original order were completed and flew. The Tudor 11, with a longer and wider fuselage than the Tudor I was designed for shorter hops than the North. Atlantic. It would have flown the Australian and South African runs. The 8.0.A.C. specifications called for de luxe accommodation for 36 passengers by day or 22 in bunks at night. Standard versions were to carry from 40 to 60 passengers.

8.0.A.C.’s original order- was for 75. Then it dropped to 50, and at the end of July this year was cancelled, on Canadai getting the order for North Stars. A prototype Tudor II has just been bought or leased by Bennett, now directing his own air company, who simultaneously will help the Berlin air lift and test the aircraft’s freighting capabilities. The Tudor IV is the bright spot in an otherwise monochrome scene. Undaunted by 8.0.A.C.’s attitude, B.S.A.A. have ordered 20. Bennett’s championship of the machine lingers in this Corporation, though he does not. One reason 8.0.A.C. forewent the Tudor, so it is said, .is because they did not think it had the range for the Atlantic. B.S.A.A. have been running trans-Atlantic test flights with a Tudor IV for months, and are eager to get Tudors on to their timetable runs. All the Tudor ll’s are not destined for the scrap heap. A contract has been let to convert 10 of them into freighters for 8.0.A.C., with the possibility of a repeat order. B.S.A.A, are also interested in freighters. Of the order of 50, as it stood at cancellation, six were on the assembly line at Woodford aerodrome, Cheshire, and 20 fuselages were in various stages of building at Chadderton. Though no official opinion was forthcoming at Avro’s today there seemed to be a feeling that the Tudor had been rejected from armchairs, and that no aircraft should be condemned out of hand without service trials.