| Bentham Works | |
|---|---|
 The site in October 2007, seen from the east | |
  Location within Gloucestershire | |
| General information | |
| Type | Aircraft factory |
| Address | Gloucestershire, GL3 4UB |
| Coordinates | 51°50′38″N2°07′26″W / 51.844°N 2.124°W |
| Elevation | 90 m (295 ft) |
| Completed | 1941 |
| Inaugurated | 1941 |
| Client | Gloster Aircraft Company |
| Owner | Gloster Aircraft Company |
| Dimensions | |
| Other dimensions | 150,000 sq ft |
The Bentham Works was a site of the Gloster Aircraft Company.
It was built in 1941 at the bottom of Crickley Hill. It was assessed to be listed by Historic England in 2010, but was not listed.
The Gloster Meteor, the first jet fighter, was built at the site. [1] In 1942 there were 130 employees working at the site. Gloster aircraft were tested at RAF Moreton Valence.
The first Gloster Meteor DG202 was ground-run at the site on 29 June 1942. [2]
[3] Gloster's design and development was at Bentham. [4]
The Meteor would first fly on 5 March 1943, piloted by Michael Daunt, from RAF Cranwell in Lincolnshire; the Meteor was originally to have been called Thunderbolt; the first aircraft had Halford H-1 engines (de Havilland Goblin) as the Power Jets W.2 was not ready in time. Gloster aircraft were also flown from RAF Edgehill in Oxfordshire on the north-east of Cotswolds south of the A422, as this was halfway between the Bentham site and Lutterworth (later at Whetstone) in Leicestershire, where the jet engines were being developed by Power Jets; Power Jets also had a site at Barnoldswick. The world's first turboprop aircraft was Meteor EE227 flown from RAF Church Broughton in Derbyshire on 20 September 1945, with a Rolls-Royce RB.50 Trent engine. [5]
Squadron Leader Les Watts led 616 Squadron when it was the first to get the Meteor at RAF Culmhead.
The German Messerschmitt Me 262 had been developed at Augsburg, then Oberammergau, in Bavaria by Woldemar Voigt; the Me 262 first flew on 18 July 1942 at Leipheim in Bavaria, piloted by Fritz Wendel.
In 2018 the site was developed for housing, to be known as Bentham Green. [6] The site was sold in October 2016 for £3.2m.
The site is to the north of the dual-carriageway A417 road in Badgeworth. It was sited next to St Peter's Church.
The Gloster Meteor was the first British jet fighter and the Allies' only jet aircraft to engage in combat operations during the Second World War. The Meteor's development was heavily reliant on its ground-breaking turbojet engines, pioneered by Frank Whittle and his company, Power Jets Ltd. Development of the aircraft began in 1940, although work on the engines had been under way since 1936. The Meteor first flew in 1943 and commenced operations on 27 July 1944 with No. 616 Squadron RAF. The Meteor was not a sophisticated aircraft in its aerodynamics, but proved to be a successful combat fighter. Gloster's 1946 civil Meteor F.4 demonstrator G-AIDC was the first civilian-registered jet aircraft in the world. Several major variants of the Meteor incorporated technological advances during the 1940s and 1950s. Thousands of Meteors were built to fly with the RAF and other air forces and remained in use for several decades.
Air Commodore Sir Frank Whittle, was an English engineer, inventor and Royal Air Force (RAF) air officer. He is credited with inventing the turbojet engine. A patent was submitted by Maxime Guillaume in 1921 for a similar invention which was technically unfeasible at the time. Whittle's jet engines were developed some years earlier than those of Germany's Hans von Ohain, who designed the first-to-fly turbojet engine.
A jet aircraft is an aircraft propelled by jet engines.
The de Havilland Vampire is a British jet fighter which was developed and manufactured by the de Havilland Aircraft Company. It was the second jet fighter to be operated by the RAF, after the Gloster Meteor, and the first to be powered by a single jet engine.
The Gloster E.28/39, was the first British jet-engined aircraft and first flew in 1941. It was the fourth jet to fly, after the German Heinkel He 178 (1939), the Italian Caproni Campini N.1 motorjet (1940), and the German Heinkel He 280 (1941).
Janusz Żurakowski was a Polish fighter and test pilot. At various times in his life he lived and worked in Poland, the United Kingdom, and Canada.
The Gloster Javelin is a twin-engined T-tailed delta-wing subsonic night and all-weather interceptor aircraft that served with Britain's Royal Air Force from the mid-1950s until the late 1960s. The last aircraft design to bear the Gloster name, it was introduced in 1956 after a lengthy development period and received several upgrades during its lifetime to its engines, radar and weapons, which included the De Havilland Firestreak air-to-air missile.
The Supermarine Attacker is a British single-seat naval jet fighter designed and produced by aircraft manufacturer Supermarine for the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm (FAA). The type has the distinction of being the first jet fighter to enter operational service with the FAA.
Flying Officer Phillip Edward Gerald Sayer, was the chief test pilot for Gloster Aircraft as well as a serving RAF officer. "Gerry" Sayer flew Britain's maiden jet flight in Sir Frank Whittle's Gloster E.28/39 (Pioneer), an aircraft designed by George Carter, on 15 May 1941.
The Gloster Aircraft Company was a British aircraft manufacturer from 1917 to 1963.
The Rolls-Royce RB.23 Welland was Britain's first production jet engine. It entered production in 1943 for the Gloster Meteor. The name Welland is taken from the River Welland, in keeping with the Rolls-Royce policy of naming early jet engines after rivers based on the idea of continuous flow, air through the engine and water in a river.
Hucknall Aerodrome was a former general aviation and RAF aerodrome located 5 NM north northwest of Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, England and west of Hucknall town. The aerodrome had been operated by the Merlin Flying Club since 1971, and then by Rolls-Royce Group plc. Before its closure, it was owned and operated by ITP Aero.
No 263 Squadron was a Royal Air Force fighter squadron formed in Italy towards the end of the First World War. After being disbanded in 1919 it was reformed in 1939 flying mainly strike and heavy fighter aircraft until becoming No 1 Squadron in 1958.
The Gloster E.1/44 was a British single-engined jet fighter design of the Second World War, developed and produced by the British aviation firm Gloster Aircraft Company. It was amongst the first jet-propelled aircraft to be developed and was produced on an experimental basis.
Royal Air Force Balderton or more simply RAF Balderton was a former Royal Air Force station located 2.0 miles (3.2 km) south of Newark-on-Trent, sandwiched between the now extinct Great Northern Railway (GNR) Bottesford-Newark line and the A1 road in Nottinghamshire, England.
A much modified Gloster Meteor F8 fighter, the "prone position/prone pilot" Meteor, was used by the Royal Air Force in 1954 and 1955 to evaluate the effects of acceleration/inertia-induced forces while flying in a prone position. Along with the Reid and Sigrist R.S.4 "Bobsleigh", the Gloster Meteor was engaged in a proof-of-concept experimental programme that proved in practice that the difficulties in rearward visibility and ejection outweighed the advantages of sustaining higher g effects.
RAF Wymeswold is a former Royal Air Force station located 3.5 miles (5.6 km) north-east of Loughborough, Leicestershire, England. The airfield is situated between Hoton, Wymeswold and Burton on the Wolds, lying in the current district of Charnwood.
No. 4 Flying Training School is a Royal Air Force military flying training school, which manages Advanced Fast Jet Training (AFJT) from its base at RAF Valley in Anglesey, Wales. Its role is to provide fast jet aircrew to the Operational Conversion Units for the RAF's jet attack aircraft, the Eurofighter Typhoon and the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II.
The General Electric I-A was the first working jet engine in the United States, manufactured by General Electric (GE) and achieving its first run on April 18, 1942.
Neill Michael Daunt OBE was a British test pilot; the first person to fly the Gloster Meteor in March 1943, Britain's first production jet aircraft. He was the second person to fly the Gloster E.28/39 "Pioneer" in November 1942. He had many severe accidents that he was lucky to survive, including one for which he had no recollection.
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