Handasyde glider

Handasyde glider
Role	single seat glider
National origin	UK
Manufacturer	Handasyde Aircraft Co.
Designer	George Handasyde
First flight	1922
Primary user	F. P. Raynham
Number built	2

The Handasyde glider was a single-seat monoplane glider, designed specifically for the first British gliding competition held at Itford Hill in 1922, an endurance event. It finished in second place to a French tandem-wing machine.

In August 1922 the Daily Mail newspaper offered a £1,000 prize for the longest duration flight by an unpowered, heavier-than-air aircraft. The competition was to be organized by the Royal Aero Club, who chose the site (Itford Hill, on the Sussex South Downs near Lewes) and the date (16–21 October). This gave competitors six weeks to design, build and transport their entries; 13 arrived in time and one of these was the Handasyde glider, competition number 2, to be flown by F. P. Raynham.

George Handasyde designed the glider for Raynham, assisted by his draughtsman Sydney Camm. The Handasyde Aircraft Co. had no manufacturing capability, so the aircraft was built by Louis Blériot's Air Navigation and Engineering Company (ANEC) of Addlestone, Surrey. It was an all-wood aircraft with a thick, high, cantilever wing with a slight straight taper and square tips. The unusual obtuse triangular ailerons reached to the wingtips, where they had their greatest chord. Control of the ailerons was also unusual; their control wires did not go to the base of the control column but instead ran into the cockpit, where the pilot worked them with his left hand. The all-moving tailplane was rectangular, the fin triangular with a vertical hinge line for the quadrilateral rudder which sloped upwards on its lower edge to provide tailplane clearance.

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