Gloster TC.33
| TC.33 | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Role | military transport |
| National origin | United Kingdom |
| Manufacturer | Gloster Aircraft Company |
| Designer | H.P.Folland |
| First flight | 23 February 1932 |
| Number built | 1 |
The Gloster TC.33 was a large four-engined biplane designed for troop carrying and medical evacuation in the early 1930s. Only one was built.
The Gloster (previously Gloucestershire) Aircraft Co. began aircraft design and manufacture in 1917. Up to 1930, all but one of their machines had been single-engined, the exception being the A.S.31, which was not originally a Gloster design but based on the de Havilland DH.67B. Thus the appearance in 1930 of the four-engined troop carrier (TC) TC.33 was a complete break from their tradition and indeed was the only four-engined aircraft that Gloster ever built.
It was designed to meet Air Ministry specification C.16/28, which required the ability to carry 30 troops and their equipment for 1,200 miles (1,930 km) and was the same specification that produced the Handley Page H.P.43 and the Vickers Type 163. The TC.33 was a large single bay biplane with no stagger and 7° sweepback. Both wings had metal lattice spars and metal ribs with fabric covering. The lower wing was unusual in that its centre section had marked anhedral so that the main spars met at the top of the fuselage, leaving the interior unobstructed. A similar arrangement, though with less anhedral was used by the slightly earlier Handley Page H.P.42 airliner. The outer end of this centre section was strut braced to the lower fuselage. The TC.33 was also unusual in having a lower wing of (slightly) greater span than the upper; most unequal span wings had a larger upper wing. The four evaporatively cooled Rolls-Royce Kestrel engines were mounted in two nacelles, each containing a tractor-pusher pair together with their steam condenser and mounted between the wings at the end of the centre section. They were each carried by two vertical struts above the nacelle, complicated strutting below and by further strutting to the lower wing roots. The wide (22 ft 6 in (6.8 m)) split axle undercarriage had vertical legs from the front wing spar at the same point and bracing from the axles to the fuselage.
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