Handley Page H.P.42

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handley_Page_H.P.42

The Handley Page H.P.42 and H.P.45 were four-engine biplane airliners designed
and manufactured by British aviation company Handley Page, based in Radlett,
Hertfordshire. It held the distinction of being the largest airliner in regular
use in the world upon the type's introduction in 1931.

The H.P.42/45 were designed in response to a specification issued during 1928 by
British airline Imperial Airways; the two models share considerable
similarities, the H.P.42 being optimised towards greater range at the expense of
payload while the H.P.45 had these priorities inverted, allowing the latter to
carry more passengers over shorter distances. Imperial Airways approved of
Handley Page's proposals and ordered four aircraft of the two variants to serve
as the new land-based long-distance flagships of its fleet.

On 14 November 1930, the prototype, named Hannibal, conducted its maiden flight.
Following their introduction into Imperial Airways, they formed the backbone of
the airliner's land-based fleet through most of the 1930s and, along with the
company's numerous flying boats, have been considered to be icons of their era.
A total of eight aircraft were built, four of each type; all were named, with
names beginning with the letter "H". Three of the survivors were pressed into
Royal Air Force (RAF) service at the outbreak of the Second World War. By the
end of 1940, all of the aircraft had been destroyed as a result of several
accidents.

Work on what would become the H.P.42 was initiated in response to a
specification released by British airline Imperial Airways in 1928, which sought
a large airliner to operate upon its major routes, including its long distance
ones to various parts of the globe. British aircraft manufacturer Handley Page,
who had already established a pedigree for developing and constructing
above-average sized aircraft, saw the Imperial Airways opportunity as quite
attracted and thus embarked on producing their own designs to fulfil it.

Handley Page ultimately designed two largely similar aircraft, designated H.P.42
and H.P.45 respectively, to meet different requirements: The H.P.42 was meant to
serve Imperial Airways' long-range Eastern routes, while the H.P.45 had been
configured to serve their shorter routes across Europe. Imperial Airways, having
been suitably impressed by Handley Page's submissions, decided to order four of
each variant for its passenger fleet. In Imperial Airways service, the H.P.42
was commonly referred to as the H.P.42E (E for "Eastern" routes – India and
South Africa), while the H.P.45 was the H.P.42W (W for "Western" i.e. European
routes). The H.P.42 and H.P.45 designations were internally assigned by Handley
Page, thus the HP.45 identifier was not commonly used during the flying lives of
the aircraft.

The H.P.42 was powered by an arrangement of four Bristol Jupiter XIFs, each
capable of producing up to 490 hp (370 kW), while the H.P.45 variant instead
used four Jupiter XFBM supercharged engines, which could generate a maximum of
555 hp (414 kW) each. Both models placed their engines in the same positions:
two engines on the upper wing and one on each side of the fuselage on the lower
wing; while this arrangement was uncommon, it was not an original innovation,
having been previously used on aircraft produced by Blériot. The upper engines
are placed as close together as permissible by the diameter of their propellers.
The engines are mounted on rigid duralumin plates that are attached to rear wing
spar via welded steel tubing; fuel for the engines is housed within the upper
wing and is gravity-fed to all four engines. The throttle controls for the
engine includes a 'lost motion' mechanism, which uses the first degrees of
movement from the idle position to turn on the fuel.

The crew compartment, which was located at the very front of the aircraft, was
fully enclosed, then a relatively new and uncommon feature, and there were two
separate passenger cabins, one positioned forward, and the other aft, of the
wings. The H.P.42E carried six (later 12) in the forward compartment and twelve
in the aft. There was also substantial space allocated for storing baggage. The
improved H.P.42W variant seated 18 passengers forward and 20 aft, albeit at the
cost of a reduced baggage capacity over the preceding model. The cabins featured
a high degree of luxury, having been intentionally stylised to resemble Pullman
railway carriages akin to the Orient Express; other features intended to
increase passenger comfort were a high level of spaciousness, relatively wide
windows, and full onboard services. Initially, there were no seatbelts present
upon any of the seating until an unrelated air accident motivated Imperial
Airways to instate this feature. On the ground, passengers could both embark and
egress without using steps or ladders due to the low position of both the doors
and the fuselage overall.


Role
Civilian airliner

Manufacturer
Handley Page

First flight
14 November 1930

Introduction
June 1931

Retired
1940 (all lost)

Primary users
Imperial Airways
Royal Air Force

Number built
4 HP.42, 4 HP.45

On 14 November 1930, the type's maiden flight was conducted by G-AAGX, later to
be named Hannibal; it was flown by Squadron Leader Thomas Harold England. During
May 1931, the aircraft was granted its certificate of airworthiness, permitting
the instatement of commercial services. On 11 June of that year, the first
flight with fare-paying passengers was conducted to Paris. Due to the high cost
of air travel at this time, typical passengers were usually members of high
society, such as royalty, celebrities, and senior business figures; the
H.P.42/45 fleet were viewed as the flagships of Imperial Airways and were
accordingly provided with prodigious onboard service and an elaborately
decorated interior. The type acquired a favourable reputation with the flying
public, particularly for their dependability. It would accumulate a combined
fleetwide mileage in excess of 10 million miles during a nine year service life
with Imperial Airways.

A key demand of Imperial Airways was for its airliners to be able to land safely
at low speed, on grass or unpaved airfields, as opposed to the normal runway
surface present at almost all airports: this requirement had necessitated the
adoption of a large wing area (almost as much as a 767 that weighs more than 10
times as much). During 1951, Peter Masefield wrote, "The trouble about a slow
aeroplane with a really low wing loading is the way it insists on wallowing
about in turbulent air ... One of the reasons why seven times as many people fly
to Paris to-day, compared with 1931, is that the incidence of airsickness in
modern aircraft is only one-hundredth of that in the pre-War types." Another
writer remembered "I had quite often been landed in a '42' at Lympne to take on
sufficient fuel to complete the flight (from Paris) to London against a headwind
– 90 mph was its normal cruising speed." However, 90 mph was still three times
faster than the previous fastest way of making the journey, which via a
combination of steamships and trains. When the H.P.42s were finally withdrawn
from civil service on 1 September 1939, they had recorded almost a decade
without any major accidents or fatalities.

In 1933, faced with rising demand in conjunction with reduction in capacity
owing to accidents, Imperial attempted to purchase two more H.P.42s, to be
powered by Armstrong Siddeley Tiger engines, but could not agree a price
(Handley Page quoted a price of £42000 each, compared with the average price of
£21000 in 1931), so, instead, they ordered two Short Scyllas, landplane versions
of the Short Kent flying boat that could be brought into service quickly.

Specifications (H.P.42E)

General characteristics
Crew: 4
Capacity: 24 passengers
Length: 92 ft 2 in (28.09 m)
Wingspan: 130 ft (39.62 m)
Height: 27 ft (8.23 m)
Wing area: 2,989 sq ft (278 m²)
Airfoil: RAF 28
Empty weight: 17,740 lb (8,047 kg)
Max. takeoff weight: 28,000 lb (12,700 kg)
Powerplant: 4 × Bristol Jupiter XIF 9-cylinder radial engine, 490 hp (365 kW)
each

Performance
Maximum speed: 120 mph (104 knots, 193 km/h)
Cruise speed: 100 mph (87 knots, 161 km/h)
Range: 500 mi (435 nmi, 805 km)
Rate of climb: 790 ft/min (4 m/s)

Notable appearances in media

The H.P.42 features in Roy Lockwood's 1934 short documentary film Airport (a
"day-in-the-life" of London's Croydon Airport).

The H.P 42 features as a crime scene in Agatha Christie's 1935 novel Death In
The Clouds.

An H.P.42 briefly appears near the beginning of the animated film Kiki's
Delivery Service by Studio Ghibli.




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