Tag Archives: United Kingdom

Kennedy Giant

Great Britain, WW1, , ,

UK Union Jack United Kingdom (1917)
Heavy Bomber Prototype – 1 Built / 1 Incomplete

The completed Kennedy Giant (Flickr)

The Kennedy Giant was a very large heavy bomber prototype developed by the United Kingdom, and designed by Chessborough J. H. Mackenzie-Kennedy during World War I. The type was meant to be similar to the Russian Ilya Muromets series of heavy bombers. Development was plagued with issues due to the large size of the aircraft, and after a failed attempt at a first flight, the prototype was left to rot. A smaller redesign was in the works, but the program would be canceled in 1920.

The Man

Chessborough J H Mackenzie-Kennedy in front of the Kennedy Giant in 1917. (The Imperial War Musuem Footage)

In 1904, at the age of 18, Chessborough J. H. Mackenzie-Kennedy would leave his home country of Britain and move to Russia. The allure of developing his own aircraft firm in a place where very few firms were located was his main reason to move to the country. Only a few years after moving, Kennedy was able to design and build his own aircraft in 1908, and a year later would establish his own aircraft company, the Kennedy Aeronautic Firm, in 1909. In 1911, Kennedy would become acquainted with Igor Sikorsky, the premier aircraft designer of the Russian Empire. Kennedy would assist Sikorsky on several occasions with the design of several aircraft, but none of these would be as important as Kennedy’s work on the Sikorsky Russky Vityaz. The Russky Vityaz would be the world’s first 4-engined airplane and was one of the biggest aircraft built at the time. The aircraft would first fly in 1913. Kennedy would continue to help Sikorsky work on other aircraft, among them the successor to the Vityaz, the Ilya Muromets, until 1914.

On July 28th, 1914, Europe would be plunged into the First World War, with Britain entering the war on August 4th. After Britain entered the conflict, Kennedy would return to his home country to help with their war effort. Using the knowledge he gained while in Russia working with Sikorsky, Kennedy was confident Britain could use his expertise in aircraft design. Kennedy wanted to create a large bomber, akin to the Muromets. Upon his return to England, he would establish a design office at 102 Cromwell Road, South Kensington in London.

The Machine

Kennedy would begin talks with the British War Council discerning the creation of a large four engine bomber aircraft, similar to projects he had worked on with Sikorsky. Interestingly enough, Igor Sikorsky would convert the Ilya Muromets civilian aircraft Kennedy was familiar with into Russia’s first 4-engine strategic bomber. Kennedy was able to convince the War Council of his idea, and he was given funding to create his heavy bomber. The aircraft would become known as the Kennedy Giant.

The incomplete Giant being worked on. The wings are outside of the hangar while the tail is still inside. (The Imperial War Musuem Footage)

Construction of the Giant began soon afterwards at an unknown date. The manufacture of the components of the aircraft were undertaken by two companies, Gramophone Company Ltd and Fairey Aviation Co Ltd, both located in Hayes, Middlesex. When all of the components were finished, they were shipped to the Hendon Aerodrome for final construction of the massive aircraft. The sheer size of this aircraft would end up being the source of many problems during its development, and the first one would happen upon the arrival of the disassembled plane. Due to its large size, no hangar at the aerodrome was able to house the Giant, so the actual construction of the aircraft was done completely outdoors, on the airfield. The completed aircraft was impressive, possessing an 80ft (24.4m) fuselage and 142ft (43.3m) long wings. The Giant would heavily resemble the Russky Vityaz and Ilya Muromets that Kennedy had worked on in Russia. Due to the large size of the aircraft, the airplane was stored with its tail inside the hangar, whilst its wings and nose protruded outside. Moving the aircraft required two trucks and 70 men, and in one attempt, the fuselage was damaged from this action. The fuselage3 was redesigned to be 10ft (3m) shorter after this. Originally, Kennedy requested the aircraft to have 4 Sunbeam engines for power, but the engines requested were experiencing difficulties during testing, and wouldn’t be operational until after the war. Aside from testing, the War Council didn’t find the Giant important enough to warrant these new engines, and instead four Canton-Unne Salmson Z9 engines were given to the project instead. These engines would power two pusher and two puller propellers. With the engines finally in place, the completed Kennedy Giant was ready for its first flight.

The Kennedy Giant being constructed outside. (Jane’s All The Worlds Aircraft 1919)

The Giant’s first flight was in the later months of 1917. The aircraft would be set in the position for takeoff on the runway, with veteran test pilot Frank Courtney at the controls of the massive machine. The engines were set to full throttle, and as the aircraft gained speed, it only managed to make a short hop off the ground, being airborne for only a moment. It was found that the engines given to Kennedy were not able to take the Giant airborne. With the craft being so ungainly to move, and no desire to give the aircraft better engines, Kennedy’s giant aircraft was abandoned in the fields of the Hendon Aerodrome to rot, with a second attempt at a flight never materializing. Kennedy himself wasn’t discouraged by the failure of his aircraft and he began working on a smaller version that he hoped would achieve flight. Information on this version is sparse, but it was still in development after the war, and despite starting construction, the program was canceled in 1920. No photos or details on this smaller version are known. By 1920 the Giant project was going nowhere. With the war over, the War Council decided such a large aircraft was no longer a worthwhile investment.

A side view of the completed Kennedy Giant. (Jane’s All The Worlds Aircraft 1919)

In 1923, Kennedy would sue the War Council, now the Air Ministry, over a patent he had filed regarding the aircraft. During the war while he was working on the Giant, Kennedy would design a unique system for the tail gunner of the aircraft. The Air Ministry allegedly gave the design plans regarding the Giant to Handley Page in 1917, with the company applying for a patent on the tail gunner position on March 15th, 1918. Kennedy would file for the same patent for his Giant only a day later on the 16th. His case would be dismissed. The last time the Kennedy Giant would be mentioned regarding this case was in an aircraft magazine in 1923, which refers to the Giant still parked at the airfield at Hendon, most likely in poor condition from neglect. An some later date, the Giant was scrapped.

Design

Size comparison shot of the Giant next to a Bristol F.2 fighter. (Jane’s All The Worlds Aircraft 1919)

The Kennedy Giant was a large four engine heavy bomber built using experience gained from the development of the Russian Russky Vityaz and Ilya Muromets. The fuselage of the Giant was of wood construction and was entirely rectangular. All along the sides of the fuselage were celluloid covered windows. The cockpit had several large rectangular windows with good visibility for the pilot. Controls consisted of two large wheels connected to yokes that directed its control surfaces. Located in the upward slope of the nose, there was a window that assisted with bomb aiming. The wings of the aircraft were two bay, meaning a forward and aft row of struts between the upper and lower wings which were covered in fabric, with a wingspan of 142 feet (42.3m). The wings all had the same chord, but the upper wings were longer than the lower. Only the upper wings had ailerons. At the rear of the aircraft were the tail and elevators. Both of these were covered in fabric. The tailfin itself was rather small for the size of the aircraft and most likely would have negatively affected performance had the aircraft achieved sustained flight. The aircraft was powered by four 200 hp ( 149.1 kW ) Canton-Unne Salmson Z9 nine-cylinder water-cooled radial engines powering four wooden propellers. Two of these engines were to be used in a pusher configuration, while the other two were positioned in a tractor configuration.

Despite never being armed, plans for armament of the Giant exist. The aircraft would be armed defensively with 4 machine guns of unknown type. One of these would be located in the nose, one would be located behind the wings on top of the fuselage, and the last two would be in the tail. The tail gunner would have a unique seat option for the gunner, where it could act as either a seat or a kneepad depending on how the gun was being fired. This seat design would be the cause of the lawsuit in 1923. An unknown number and type of bomb would have been used. The bombs would have been held nose down by two arms. A selector gear would control which bombs were dropped while indicating how many were left.

Conclusion

The Kennedy Giant was an earnest attempt to create a heavy bomber using experience gained by Kennedy in Russia, but due to inadequate engines would never be truly realized to its fullest potential. What is interesting to note is the specifications listed for the Giant would actually make it larger than the Zeppelin Staaken R.VI, which is considered the largest production airplane of the World War I. Had it even flown, the Giant would likely have experienced maneuverability issues as its vertical stabilizer height was rather inadequate for the size of the aircraft. After the failure of the Giant, Kennedy would file for bankruptcy, as the program had personally cost him quite a lot of money. He would eventually move to America in the 1930s.

Variants

  • Kennedy Giant – Large, four engine heavy bomber prototype. One built but did not achieve sustained flight.
  • Postwar Kennedy Giant – Very little is known of this variant aside from it being a smaller version of the Kennedy Giant. It was under construction when the program ended.

Operators

  • United Kingdom – The Kennedy Giant was built for the British War Council as a prototype heavy bomber.

Kennedy Giant Specifications
Wingspan 142 ft / 43.3 m
Length 80 ft / 24.4 m
Height 23 ft 6 in / 7.2 m
Engine 4x 200 hp ( 149.1 kW ) Canton-Unne Salmson Z9 nine-cylinder water-cooled radial engines
Propeller 4x 2-blade wooden propellers
Empty Weight 19,000 Ib / 8618.3 kg
Crew 3
Armament

(planned)
  • 4x Machine Guns
  • Bomb Payload of Unknown Size

Gallery

The first version of the completed Kennedy Giant – by Ed Jackson
Closeup view of the cockpit of the Kennedy Giant. (The Imperial War Musuem Footage)
View of the tail of the Giant. (The Imperial War Musuem Footage)
The mid-section of the Giant. (The Imperial War Musuem Footage)
Kennedy demonstrating the controls of the Giant while in the cockpit. (The Imperial War Musuem Footage)
Kennedy walking down the interior of the Giant. (The Imperial War Musuem Footage)

Credits

  • Written by Medicman11
  • Edited by by Ed Jackson & Henry H.
  • Illustrations by Ed Jackson

Sources

  • Grey, C. G. Jane’s all the world’s aircraft, 1919 : a reprint of the 1919 edition of All the world’s aircraft. Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1969. Print.
  • Mason, Francis K. The British bomber since 1914. London: Putnam, 1994. Print.
  • https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Mackenzie-Kennedy-7

Macfie Monoplane, Empress, & Circuit

Great Britain, WW1, , , ,

UK Union Jack United Kingdom (1909)
Sport Planes – 1 Each Built

Robert Macfie piloting the biplane ‘Circuit’ at Brooklands, 1911 [Flight Magazine]
Prime examples of early aeroplane designs, American Robert Macfie’s three handmade flying machines were designed and constructed from 1909 to 1911, a mere 6 years after the Wright brothers’ first flight. After studying under legendary French aviation pioneer Louis Bleriot, Macfie involved himself in the budding British aeroplane circuit competition scene and became one of the first licensed pilots in Britain. Despite his moderate success in the flying scene, he received no orders for the aircraft and any further developments were cut short by financial troubles and the looming threat of what would become World War I.

The Creator

Robert Francis Macfie pictured on 31st December 1910 on his Aviator’s Licence
Number 49. [Photo by kind permission of the Royal Aero Club of Great Britain]
Robert Francis Macfie was born on 11th November 1881 in San Francisco, California, USA. He was the son of Robert Andrew Macfie (1811 – 1893), a businessman in the sugar industry. His family business was connected with the sugar plantation at Kilauea, Hawaii which was managed from offices in California. Presumably, Robert’s birth in San Francisco was due to his family being located there at this time in connection with plantation management.

Macfie was of Scottish ancestry, despite not being born in Scotland (he had US Citizenship) and took some interest in the family sugar business which had connections in Hawaii and also a 250 acre (101 hectares) ‘Cocoanut’ plantation on the Island of Tobago (St. George Parish) in the Caribbean. By 1898, he was living in Great Britain, as he is recorded as having won a place as a Naval Engineering student at the Royal Naval Engineering College at Devonport. He studied as a Naval engineer for nearly five years, but following graduation did not go into the navy; travelling instead around the United States, Canada, West Indies, Central America, Australia, and South Africa. Presumably, some of this travel was connected in some way to the family’s sugar business. He had settled in Chicago by 1902 and between 1902 and 1904 he took a keen interest in the new field of aviation.

Back in Britain

By 1909, Robert Macfie was back in Great Britain and then went on to France in order to study the new field of aviation. Just six years after the flight by the Wright brothers, the field of aviation was brand new and one of the leading luminaries in the field was the Frenchman Louis Bleriot (1872 – 1936). Between about February and July, he studied under Bleriot and then returned to Britain.

By August 1909, Macfie was in Fambridge, Essex building his first aeroplane. Built around a wooden frame, the ‘Macfie Monoplane’ took just 6 weeks to build with the single largest delay being in obtaining an engine. Macfie had purchased a 35 hp Green engine from Green’s Motor Syndicate for £275, but it was delivered late and would not run. As a result, he switched to a different engine, a 220 lb V8 35 hp J.A.P. air-cooled petrol engine (38 hp at 1500 rpm). The engine had a bore of 85mm and a stroke of 95mm with a displacement of 263.68 cubic inches. When it was finished in September 1909, the ‘Macfie Monoplane’ was a single seater aircraft with a 28′ 6″ (8.7 meter) wingspan, made from canvas over wood.

Wooden frame with wire bracing formed the body of the Macfie Monoplane. [Flight Magazine]
Flown for the first time in September 1909, the Macfie Monoplane suffered a series of crashes which required the undercarriage to be rebuilt. The undercarriage was replaced with a Bleriot style undercarriage instead.

Macfie Monoplane seen at Fambridge with the original undercarriage. [Flight Magazine]
Abandoning Fambridge, Macfie went to Foulness Island instead for test flights. Due to bad weather though, he only got two flights. On 20th November 1909, Macfie narrowly avoided disaster when his plane had a hard landing on the sands at Foulness Island and broke a wheel. The car sent to tow the plane then got stuck, and if it was not for a team of horses coming from a nearby farm, both car and plane would have been lost to the merciless tides at that location. The rest of his tests at Foulness had to be abandoned when the War Office ordered him off the sands.

Macfie then found himself without anywhere for test flights and even took his plane to Paris to try there but was rebuffed. During the Paris floods between the 20th and 30th January 1910, the Macfie Monoplane was so badly damaged it was irreparable and Macfie returned to a workshop at Blackfriars in London.

Macfie Monoplane during testing on Maplin Sands with the rebuilt
‘Bleriot’ type undercarriage. [Flight Magazine]

Improved Plane – The Empress

Building a new and improved version of his monoplane meant a new engine and Macfie selected a 60-hp water-cooled J.A.P. engine. Assembly of the new plane took place in Huntingdon, but the new 60 hp J.A.P. engine had not been delivered by the 10th May, so the original 35 hp engine from the Macfie Monoplane was installed instead. This time, instead of facing forwards, the engine was turned backwards in order to push this new plane.

This new plane was christened the ‘Macfie Empress’, a single-seater once more made from canvas over wood but featuring a second tier of wings, creating a biplane. First flown on 12th May 1910, it was successful, although underpowered and unable to turn properly. The plane was sent to Wolverhampton by the end of June for tests, but when Macfie got it back in on 9th July, it was partially burnt and damaged by the weather to such an extent that it required reconstruction.

The New Empress – the ‘Circuit’

The damage to the Empress meant that Macfie was effectively building a new, third machine. Macfie wanted a better engine than the 35 hp J.A.P engine he had been using. The 60 hp version of the J.A.P. had still not materialised and, as a result, Macfie took a trip to Paris at the start of September 1910 to obtain a 50 hp Gnome engine for this new plane. The source of the engine was James Valentine, and Macfie went into partnership with him to complete the rebuilt Empress. Now rebuilt with a 50 hp engine, the plane was ready by the end of November 1910. Once finished though, it was known as the ‘Macfie Circuit’ and was intended for use in the 1911 Circuit of Britain contest. It had taken just three weeks to build.

By January 1911, Macfie had completed the test flights of the ‘Circuit’ for certification and he was one of the first qualified pilots in Britain. He gained his Aviator’s Certificate from the Royal Aero Club of the United Kingdom on 24th January 1911, the 49th such licence issued in the country.

This rebuilt Empress, now ‘Circuit’, design featured a distinctive triple tail and long sledge-like skids underneath. The 50 hp Gnome engine was considered temporary as a more powerful 100 hp A.B.C. engine was preferred. Even so, powered by this 50 hp engine, the plane successfully completed test flights in March 1911 piloted personally by Macfie before heading for the competitive circuit. Here, under the pilotage of Mr. Valentine, the Circuit took part in competitive trials at Brooklands in April and July 1911.

Macfie’s Monoplane with Bleriot style undercarriage

Disaster

Mr. Valentine piloting the Circuit at Brooklands 1911 [Flight Magazine]
Despite the technical success of the Circuit as a plane and the potential for significant improvement with a 100 hp engine, Macfie received no orders for planes. With no money coming in and with his funds now exhausted, he had no choice but to give up. Circuit was sold to another pioneer who would modify her once more with a new type of tail known as the ‘Farman’ tail. Equipped with the Farman Tail, the Circuit was flying around Brooklands in April 1912, but neither Macfie nor Valentine were there to see it.

With no plane orders and his funds exhausted, he returned to the family sugar business until the outbreak of war in 1914. When the war started, he returned to Great Britain with ideas for tracked armored vehicles. Despite joining the Royal Naval Air Service (R.N.A.S.) he never flew during the war and his ideas for tracked vehicles were equally unsuccessful.

Conclusion

The Macfie Monoplane, Empress, and Circuit all had potential in their own rights. At a time when aviation was in its infancy, it was not considered odd to switch from monoplane to biplane as an advance. Macfie had certainly encountered significant obstacles to his aircraft development from the lack of somewhere to test it, a lack of a powerful engine, and the intervention of fate like the Paris floods. It is perhaps remarkable that Macfie was quite so persistent in his aviation endeavours despite all the setbacks. Macfie’s life story is undoubtedly a sad one full of lost chances and missed opportunities. He died an unrecognised pioneer in both aviation and tracked vehicles in 1948. having lived to see the dawn of both tracked armored warfare as well as the jet age.

Gallery

Illustrations by Ed Jackson

Illustration of Macfie’s Monoplane (1909) by Ed Jackson

Credits