Bristol Type 90 Berkeley
| Berkeley | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Role | Bomber |
| National origin | United Kingdom |
| Manufacturer | The Bristol Aeroplane Co. Ltd |
| Designer | W.T.Reid |
| First flight | 5 March 1925 |
| Number built | 3 |
The Bristol Berkeley was built to a British government specification for a single-engine day or night bomber. Three of these two-seat biplanes were built, but no contract for further production was awarded.
In August 1923, British aircraft manufacturers were invited to submit designs to Air Ministry Specification 26/23, which called for a single Rolls Royce Condor-engined two-seat day or night bomber. The Berkeley was Bristol's response, designed largely by W.T. Reid with finishing touches from Bristol's longtime chief designer, Frank Barnwell. It was a fabric-covered all-metal structured three-bay biplane, with equal span, unswept and unstaggered wings with Frise-type ailerons on the upper and lower planes. Structurally, the wings were of rolled steel and duralumin.
The fuselage was built from steel tubes and had a rectangular cross section. The pilot sat forward of the leading edge of the wing in an open cockpit and the gunner/observer in a cockpit well aft, fitted with a ring-mounted .303 in (7.7 mm) Lewis Gun. He could also access a bomb aimer's position, when he lay prone on the aircraft floor. The horizontal tail was positioned at the top of the fuselage and braced below, carrying elevators whose balances protruded beyond the fixed surfaces. The rudder was tall and also horn-balanced, but more elegantly than the elevators with the edge running smoothly into the fin. The undercarriage was of wide track, mounted to the wings below the centre section interplane struts and braced to the fuselage.
The 650 hp (490 kW) Condor engine drove a two-blade propeller and had, after some Air Ministry input, a nose-mounted radiator under the propeller shaft. The Ministry advised that the wings of the first two Berkeleys of the three specified in the contract should have wooden wings for speed of completion, with the third to be all metal. Leitner-Watts Metal airscrews were required for the second and third machine. The first Berkeley flew on 5 March 1925.
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