Austin Whippet

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Whippet
K-158 (BAPC-207) (15430855790).jpg
Austin Whippet replica at South Yorkshire Aircraft Museum
RolePrivate light aircraft
National origin Britain
Manufacturer Austin Motor Company
First flight1919
Number built5

The Austin Whippet was a British single-seat light aircraft that was designed and built by the Austin Motor Company just after the First World War. It was a small single-seat biplane that was intended to be an inexpensive aircraft for the amateur private pilotwere. Five were built, after which Austin abandoned aircraft production.

Contents

Development and design

In 1919, John Kenworthy, chief designer of the motor manufacturer Austin Motor Company, (who had built large numbers of aircraft under license during the First World War) designed a small single-seater light aircraft in order to cash in on an expected boom in private flying. The resulting aircraft, named the Austin Whippet, was a small single-seat biplane of mixed construction, with a fabric covered steel tube fuselage, and single-bay, folding wooden wings. The wings avoided the need for rigging wires by use of streamlined steel lift struts. [1] [2]

The first prototype, powered by a two-cylinder horizontally opposed engine, [3] flew in 1919, receiving its Airworthiness Certificate in December that year. [1] Production aircraft were powered by a six-cylinder Anzani air-cooled radial, and four more aircraft followed before Austin abandoned aircraft production in 1920, when it realised that the postwar depression was severely limiting aircraft sales. [1] [4]

Operational history

Of the five aircraft built, two were sold to New Zealand, while another was sent by its purchaser to Argentina. One of the New Zealand aircraft, serial AU.4/ZK-ACR, remained in existence at Kai Iwi in the 1940s. [5]

A Whippet replica, marked as the first example, K-158, later G-EAGS, [6] is currently on display at the South Yorkshire Aircraft Museum in Doncaster, UK. [7]

Specifications

Data from British Civil Aircraft since 1919: Volume I [8]

General characteristics

Performance

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 Jackson 1974, p.89.
  2. Flight 15 July 1920, pp. 751-752.
  3. Flight 14 August 1919, pp.1076-1078.
  4. Gunston 2005, p.36.
  5. Jackson 1974, pp.89-90.
  6. "Austin Assortment". Aeroplane Monthly. 6 (2): 100. February 1978.
  7. "Our Aircraft". South Yorkshire Aircraft Museum. Retrieved 9 June 2025.
  8. Jackson 1974, p.90.

References