on april 27 2005 the gigantic airbus a380 airliner took to the skies for the first time
lifting off from toulouse-blackneck airport with test pilot jacques rossette the controls
at that moment the a380 weighing more than 500 tons and capable of carrying up to 853
passengers became the largest commercial airliner to ever fly dethroning the previous record holder
the venerable boeing 747 jumbo jet but while such giants might seem like products of the jet age the
dream of enormous ocean liners in the sky has been around for a lot longer in the years immediately
following the second world war britain set out to build a truly gargantuan airline with which
it hoped to revolutionize air travel and knit its crumbling empire together instead the project
turned out to be a technological dead end and a costly white elephant this is the story of the
bristol brabazon in 1942 the british government began thinking ahead to the future of the british
aviation industry the demands of war had forced the british to cancel pre-war airliner projects
and devote its wartime production capacity to building combat aircraft like fighters and bombers
as a result nearly all transport aircraft used by british forces during the war were american
designs like the douglas dc-3 even britain's national air carrier the british overseas airways
corporation or boac was forced to fill its fleet with american aircraft like the boeing 314 flying
boat this state of affairs the government realized would leave british aviation at a serious
disadvantage once the war ended as a december 24 1942 article in flight magazine a pined the
whole british empire at the present time has an operational fleet of transport aircraft comprising
conversions makeshifts and cast-offs totally inadequate to represent the empire and serving
the air routes of the world in the peace to come have we to rely upon other nations to do it for us
the british aircraft industry is equal to the task the government should decide this vital
question at once the seriousness of the situation was driven home in august 1942 when prime minister
winston church was forced to travel to an allied leaders conference in moscow in the freezing
bombay of an american b-24 liberator bomber on his return churchill formed a special committee
to evaluate the state of british commercial aviation and offer recommendations headed by
former minister of aircraft production john moore brabhasen first baron brabison of tara a key
figure in early british aviation in 1909 rabison became the first person to fly a heavier-than-air
aircraft on british soil and in 1910 the first person in britain to obtain an official pilot's
license he once also won a thousand pound prize offered by the daily mail for taking a small
piggle loft proving once and for all that pigs can fly the proberson committee as it became known was
remarkably far-sighted given the dire strait of the allied war effort in late 1942. the committee
met 10 times between december 1942 and february 1943 before delivering its preliminary report
to churchill's cabinet as a stop-cap measure to ensure britain would have at least some
domestic commercial aircraft at the end of the war the committee recommended developing civilian
versions of existing military aircraft such as the avro lancaster heavy bomber vic as wellington and
hanley page halifax medium bombers and short sunderland flying boat looking further ahead
the committee also recommended the development of five brand new designs to fill out britain's
post-war commercial fleet these were the type 1 a large long-ranged airliner for flying the atlantic
the type 2 a replacement for the american douglas dc-3 for short-range european service
the type 3 a medium-range airliner for empire routes and the type 4 a high-speed jet-powered
male plane and the type 5 a short-range feeder liner for domestic roots three months after
delivering this preliminary report a second rabbis and committee this time including members of boac
convened to refine its recommendations the second rabbison report added a further two aircraft types
the type 2b a more advanced version of the type 2 to be powered by a brand new turboprop engine
and the type 5b a small 8-seat aircraft for short-haul domestic routes of these recommended
aircraft projects the type 4 was by far the most ambitious due to the primitive state of jet
engine technology at the time so the government focused its efforts on the type 1 a giant airliner
destined to fly passengers non-stop from london to new york or cairo but while technically more
conventional than the type 4 the type 1 was no less ambitious adventure calling for an aircraft
far larger and more powerful than anything previously built in britain fortuitously the
bristol airplane company of filton gloucestershire had been working on a design for a super heavy
bomber with a range of 8 000 kilometers and a bomb payload of 15 tons with bristol's wartime
production responsibility starting to wind down by mid-1943 the company submitted the design as
a contender for the rabbis and committee's type 1 airliner requirement the design was
quickly approved and a government contract issued for the construction of two prototypes
under the designation bristol made 167 rabison designed by lead engineer sir archibald russell
who would later go on who had the design of the supersonic concorde the brabs and was a leviathan
in every sense of the word 50 more meters long and weighing a hundred tons the aircraft featured a
nine meter wide fuselage with two passenger decks and an enormous 70 meter wingspan larger than a
boeing 747 and exceeded only by the airbus a380 airliners the hercules h4 spruce goose flying
boat and the as yet unflown scaled composite strata launch lifting such a massive vehicle
into the air required an enormous amount of power which bristol planned to provide using no less
than eight of the company's 2500 kilowatt centaurus 18-cylinder radial engines among
the most powerful piston engines in the world at the time but rather than place each centaurus in
its own nacelle bristol instead twins the engines each pair feeding into a single gearbox driving
twin contra rotating propellers this minimized the space taken up by the engines leaving the
rest of the wing to carry the enormous amounts of fuel needed to cross the atlantic furthermore
the engines were completely embedded within the wing itself with only the propellers protruding
from the leading edge making the aircraft exceptionally aerodynamic in addition to being
enormous the rabison was also among the first modern aircraft of its era while earlier airliners
like the boeing 307 strataliner had featured pressurized cabins these were largely converted
from existing aircraft the rabism by contrast was the first commercial aircraft to be designed
from the ground up to be pressurized and featured sophisticated air conditioners and humidifiers to
maximize passenger comfort it was also the first aircraft to be fitted with 100 powered flight
controls high pressure hydraulics electric engine controls and fully automated control trimming
the aircraft structure was also carefully designed to maximize structural efficiency at such enormous
scales every ounce of weight matters so rather than using a standard thickness of aluminium skin
throughout every panel was individually optimized for the loads it was expected to sustain
yet for all its enormous size and sophistication the brabazon's expected capacity was surprisingly
small while with modern closed space seating the aircraft could have fit up to 300 passengers
in practice it was intended to carry no more than a hundred this was because the brabusin
was less a 1940s jumbo jet than a flying ocean liner designed to serve an elite clientele of
wealthy jet setters and government officials such passengers bristol reasoned would settle
for nothing less than the utmost in comfort and luxury and on that metric the brabham certainly
delivered official plans for the internal layout gave each passenger a palatial eight cubic meters
of personal space while the spacious cabin was equipped with sleeping births a lounge a cocktail
bar and even a separate movie theater but while this policy of catering to the ultra-wealthy had
served boac's predecessor imperial airways well in the pre-war era it would ultimately prove an
outdated business model and the key factor in the brabusin's ultimate demise the brabison's design
was finalized in november 1944 with construction of the first prototype beginning shortly after the
war's end in october 1945. as even bristol's enormous number two flight shed could barely
accommodate the giant construction also began on a much larger hangar where up to eight rabbis and
could be assembled at once measuring three meters long 128 meters wide and 35 meters high at the
time of completion it was the largest hangar in the world the enormous aircraft also required an
enormous runway so bristol further set about lengthening filton airfield's existing runway
to 2240 meters unfortunately this required cutting right through the small village of charlton
despite spirited opposition from its inhabitants the british government approved the expansion and
once the villages were compensated and relocated to the nearby town of patchway charlton village
was raised to the ground as it later turned out the brabhasen was more than capable of
taking off from the existing runway rendering the destruction of jarlton completely unnecessary the
construction of such an enormous aircraft proved more challenging than expected and while the
government expected the first prototype to take to the air by 1946 this deadline was repeatedly
pushed back by various delays there were other problems as well as the aircraft began to take
shape it became apparent that even the plant eight centaurus engines would leave the brabizen
hopelessly underpowered thankfully bristol had already begun development of the more powerful
2500 kilowatt proteus gas turbine and it was soon decided to fit the second rabbison prototype and
all subsequent production models with this engine this would have allowed the brabizen mark ii to
cross the atlantic in around 12 hours however the development of the proteus was plagued with
problems causing severe delays and cost overruns worse still boac the airline that brabison was
specifically designed for was beginning to lose interest in the project eying instead the wide
variety of advanced airliners emerging from the american aviation industry such as the douglas dc4
and the lockheed constellation before the first prabhasian had even left its hangar
dark clouds were beginning to gather on the horizon after being postponed yet again in
december 1948 the first prabhason prototype gagpd was finally rolled out of its hangar
at filton so tight was the fit that the operation was jokingly referred to as operation shoehorn a
breathless press hailed the gleaming silver giant as the queen of the skies a technological triumph
that would place britain at the forefront of the commercial aviation industry and help bind its
far-flung empire together nine months later on september the 3rd 1949 the brabhas and crewed by
pilot william pegg co-pilot walter gibb and eight flight test engineers began taxi trials along
the filton runway the trials revealed no major issues aside from a malfunctioning nose wheel
and the aircraft was cleared to make its first flight the following day in preparation for the
flight in december 1945 pegged travelled to the united states practice fly on the us air force's
con bear b-36 peacemaker an enormous nuclear strategic bomber with a wingspan identical to
the brabizens on the morning of september 4th 1949 a crowd of 10 000 people including 250 newspaper
reporters and photographers gathered around filton airfield to witness the brabus and made in flight
after conducting additional taxi tests at 10 am the enormous aircraft its eight contra rotating
propellers droning loudly trundled down the runway and lazily rose into the air reportedly prompting
pilot bill peg to exclaim good god it works the fly which was broadcast live by the bbc in eight
languages lasted a total of 27 minutes with peg and gear ascending to an altitude of 900 meters
and reaching a speed of 250 kilometers an hour the aircraft proved surprisingly pleasant to fly with
peg stating it was very comfortable it flew very well it was big you didn't just whip it around
like a tiger moth or spitfire but as long as you treated it like a double-decker bus or a large
aeroplane you had no trouble at all the peg and the british press's enthusiasm proved misplaced
for 39 days earlier the de havilland comet the world's first jet-powered airliner had taken to
the skies for the first time next to the sleek futuristic comet the lumbering brabazon looked
decidedly old-fashioned a relic of a bygone era worse still the comet had begun development a full
two years after the brabusin and was completed on budget while the brabhasen its development driven
by political rather than economic forces had exceeded its initial three million pound budget
nearly four-fold there were also major flaws in the brabison's design though designed to be as
lightweight as possible the brabazon structure was simply a scaled-up version of earlier world
war ii era designs and despite its designer's best efforts it proved inefficient and overly
heavy the brabizens engine housings were also prone to metal fatigue intended to scrape along
the runway while the enormous wings were so stiff that the ministry of transport refused to issue
an airworthiness certificate for flight above 7 600 metres effectively killing the aircraft's
potential as an efficient transatlantic airliner nonetheless bristol still convinced that a winner
prominently exhibited the brabizen at london's heathrow airport and at the 1950 farnborough and
1951 paris air shows inviting journalists and airline executives aboard to experience the
aircraft's unrivaled spaciousness and smooth ride but by 1952 though purchases domestic or foreign
were forthcoming and the development of the turbo prop powered mark ii was postponed indefinitely
as it turned out bristol and the brabizen committee had severely misjudged the post-war
aviation market and based the brabison's design on a hopelessly outdated business model as pilot
bill pegg later explained the spec wasn't correct for post-war flying the people who wrote the specs
conceived of an aeroplane with all this comfort bunks and a great dining room to eat in and of
course come the day that wasn't what the airlines wanted they wanted to ram as many passengers as
possible into the tube and give them lunch on their laps on july the 17th 1953 having spent
more than 11 million pounds what was clearly a useless white elephant minister of supply duncan
sandys announced the cancellation of the brabhasen project in october of that year the prototype
along with the uncompleted mark ii was cut up and sold for 10 000 pounds in scrap value having flown
only 382 hours and carried not a single paying passenger today all the remains of bristol's
gargantuan post-war dream is a nose wheel preserved in the national museum of flight in
east fortune scotland interestingly the brabison was not the only impractically large british
airliner project at the post-war era in 1945 aircraft earned saunders robe began developing an
enormous flying boat known as the sr-45 princess weighing 150 tons with a wingspan of 67 meters
and powered by no fewer than 10 bristol proteus turboprops the princess was designed to carry
up to 100 passengers non-stop across the atlantic in supreme style it's twin flight decks featuring
every luxury inconvenience imaginable including a miniature children's playground complete with
sandbox prior to the second world war flying boats had been popular with global airlines like
boac and pan american airways as they could take off and land from any large open body of water
eliminating the need for long prepared runways and allowing remote underdeveloped destinations to
be more easily served the war however had brought about a dramatic improvement in airport facilities
around the world rendering large commercial flying boats obsolete and while the princess
was developed according to specifications laid out by the ministry of supply and boac
in 1951 the airline revised its business strategy and decided to terminate the flying boat services
focusing instead on flying land-based routes using the jet-powered devlin comet with three enormously
expensive prototypes already completed and no commercial buyers in sight in desperation saunders
row turned to the british government who agreed to adopt the princess as a military transport
on august 22nd 1952 the first princess prototype g-a-l-u-n flew for the first time over the isle of
wight with pilot jeffrey tyson at the controls remaining airborne for 35 minutes the aircraft
would carry out a total of 46 test flights totaling 100 flying hours but continued issues
with the proteus engines resulted in development costs ballooning to nearly 12 million pounds in
the end the government chose to cancel the project altogether and in 1967 the three princesses were
cut up for scrap having had the misfortune of becoming obsolete before they even left the
drawing board but while the brabhasen and the princess are typically written off as wasteful
government boondoggles the money spent on these projects didn't go entirely to waste unsuited
as they were to economic realities of their day these aircraft nonetheless helped pioneer many
key technologies that would see successful use in future designs while the investment made in
bristol's hangar and runway facilities at fulton would go on to pay large dividends indeed shortly
after the cancellation of the brabs and this hanger was converted to produce the turbo prop
powered bristol britannia medium range airliner designed to fulfill the brabusin committee's type
3 aircraft requirement the britannia along with other smaller 1950s british designs like the vic
as vi gowns and the de havilland drone would seek considerable success worldwide proving that the
british aviation industry had learned its lesson that bigger is not always better and that the
skies belonged not to the ultra wealthy but of the masses but in a way the prabhasian might actually
have been ahead of its time for in recent years operators of the giant airbus a380 like emirates
have begun offering their first-class passengers luxurious accommodations that boac executives of
the 1940s could only have dreamed of including private sleeping birds with showers and in an
hour abandoned virgin atlantic plan even gyms and casinos as they say everything old is new again
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