BRITISH AEROPLANES.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1084, 24 March 1911, Page 5

BRITISH AEROPLANES.

j BRISTOL WORKS INSPECTED. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyrieht London) March ?2i Mr. W. H. Kelly (of Sydney), Captain Muirhead Collins(privato secretary to the High Commissioner for Australia), and Major Buckley inspected the British and Colonial aeroplane works at Bristol. Subsequently Captain Collins and Mr. Kelly made several flight? on Salisbury Plain. Mr. Kelly went 25 miles with Mr. Taljuteau. SIR GEORGE WHITE'S ENTERPRISE. Through the enterprise of a company of which Sir George White is the cliairmnn there has been established at Filton, by Bristol, the works of the British and Colonial Aeroplane Company (Limited), which (says tho London "Morning Post") is the most ambitious in present scale of •any enterprise of the kind that has been started in this countty. Historically it is not the first, nor, in point of practice, dees it at present rank as being a firm that originates, as some of our manufacturers and designers have done; nevertheless, by reason of the ambitious scale on wjiich . the enterprise is started—for it has already established agencies in India and Australia, for example—the British and Colonial Aeroplane Company is an institution of more than passing interest. In fact, it has been a pleasure to avail oneself of the invitation of the directors to spend two days seeing' firstly how its biplanes are brought ,int<4 being at . the factory at Filton, and secondly, how they fly,-'by Amesbury, on Salisbury Plain. Eleven months ago there was no thought of such an enterprise. , Then it struck Sir George White that, some big-sca'.c effort should he made by a/British firm to get in at the very beginning of this new industry, fraught .with possibilities tho limit of which none can foresee. As usual, some months were lost in feeling the way, chiefly in building aeroplanes that tho firm has now scrapped, not from fanltiness of material or workmanship, but solely bv reason of unsuitability of design. The" real start,, therefore, was only made in July last, since when the factory has produced no fewer than fifty fnll scale flying machines, while'the works' are to-day established on such a scale that five aeroplanes can be laid down at n time, the rate of output being two completed machines a week —assuredly no mean achievement in the- case of comparatively so ordinary n product as a new mako of motor-car. Beside the works there are 15 more acres of land available for extension, and the company, which was started' with a capital of has now capital, and Sir George and his colleagues are prepared to increase that as need shall arise. ... "iII It ■ J !.)'! /'